died aged 25 in childbirth
Thomas Squire, witness to marraige - possibly an uncle or cousin
SURNAME TRICKER FIRSTNAME JAMES SEADON
BORN 01/03/1850 PLACE SUFFOLK TRADE LABOURER
JOIN 30/10/1871 WARRANTNO 054823 DIV P DIVNO
STNSERV RETIRE 05/08/1889 REASON VERTIGO
RANK PS AGE 38 SERVICE 17 STATUS PENS PENSION £33 11s 11d
NOTE E DEATH SOURCES MP3P60E42
INFOFILE Born Finningham, Suffolk
Police Orders 8th August 1889: PENSION Permanent: P Division: PS TRICKER £33 per annum. Vide Secretary of States letter dated 5th August 1889.
Police Orders 9th August 1889 RESIGNATION: P Division: PS 54823 TRICKER = Certificate = Conduct Very Good.
Pay to 5th Inst.
Cause of death:
1a Respiratory failure
b Perforation of viscera
Certified by S Dolling MBBS
10 Mar 2001
Adrian your message was more than anyone could have wanted, short of having a long personal
discussion. The reminiscences brought back a flood of things that Mum talked about to me as a
young boy and back in time when we first came to Canada. As Mum got older she spoke less of the early days of her life this was not helped by the fact we lived on either side of the country. In
search of information for the family genealogy Huguette received very little information from
Mum.
Pat, in reading your thoughts it brought back a lot of memories of things that were part of the
family as I grew up. Most of what you say was not known to Paul. I think it was because of his
age. Paul was born in '48 and we came to Canada in '49 so his memories of life are only of
Canada. On the other hand I was 7 when we arrived and had some memories are of early life in
England. I also visited England in 1963 and saw many of the places and met many people Mum talked about as I grew up.
I think our early days in Canada were hard on Mum. We lived in a very rural area near Toronto
with no running water, you had to pump daily water, no running plumbing, it was quite primitive by
the British standards. That was the way of life in Canada in those days outside the cities
where you lived very simply. However, for a child it was a large adventure as we lived across the
road from a lake. The lake froze in the winter and we became addicted to the Canadian passion of
Hockey; we skied down the slope at the side of the house and swam in the lake
during summer. There was a private golf country club at the back of the house so we would jump
the fence and golf, starting at the second hole. We had all the fresh air and open spaces any one
could want.
Your identifying the pictures unlocked a treasure trove of information for Paul and I.
With this in mind I will take some time to reply to your comments and also send you some more
pictures and lazar copies of some other picture I had not sent to you earlier. The earliest
pictures were ones I thought might be of you. Also I was not certain if your address was
still valid. So sit back, read this message and await for the arrival of more pictures. I hope
you enjoy them.
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Your comments on the first set of pictures are helpful.
What was not known to me was the existence of the lady named Kitty. Mum did talk about the fact that she spent much of her early life apart from her parents. She said her father worked and her mother was a business woman. I guess her mother having a business was not typical in that era. I remember her talking of not going to school in the early years as she had a private tutor. She did say she lived well because they had a car and other thinks likely not available to tohers in
the early parto of the last century.
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You say you met at Margate. How about going to Harvey's Hotel? See Pictures B & G?
I do note Mum is a bit older in these pictures. Picture C, is not identified, is much earlier by
looking a Mum who appears at the head of the line in the beach scene. The fashions look cruder
than in B & G.; the women's dresses are longer.
Are you in any of these pictures? Another question that I never asked father---how did people
clean worsted suits before dry cleaning?
Photos P & O are Swallow family houses. However, I don't think they go as far back as
Birkbec Avenue, Acton the address you mention.
Grand mother's name was Lillian Barlow, Grand Dad was Victor William Swallow. I knew she had
canteen operations with at least one major company in the area where they lived. In fact one
company was Park Royal Engineering Works, why I know this we have several spoons and forks, silver plate, with the initials "P.R.E.W." stamped on the handles. Mother always had an affection
towards them. Now there is no such a thing as silver plate in general usage; how times change.
You describe Grandmother as a very Victorian lady. I can imagine her being very difficult as Mum
had had a number of family problems through her early life. One of the big problems was her
marriage. I don't think her mother agreed with her marrying Dad. Likely not good enough for
Grandmother. I do know Mum moved out prior to the wedding to live with Grandmother Ticker's next door neighbour Mrs. Wood. Grandmother Swallow is far left Picture T on the Mediterranean cruise on the White Star line S.S. Doric. A picture of the vessel shows it to be very tiny by comparison to today's cruise ships. She appears a very proper person dining with the Captain.
Grand Dad or as we called him "Gramps" was a fine gentle man who mum said was driven to
distraction by his wife. She would not let him garden without a shirt and tie and a vest; he
could take off his coat. I knew him when he came to Canada as a 75 year old. In Canada he
gardened in a pair of Levis held up by his suspender's, Sneekers, & his "combinations" You
say they did not drink; however in later, Gramps did like a wee dram of scotch before he went to
bed. He must have been like Richard in Keeping Up Appearances!
Gramps apprenticed as a butcher. His father was a butcher at the turn of the century. From this
we have several keepsakes---I have several South African coins that were taken in trade for meat
after the Boar War, and two English coins that were cut in half by Great Grandad as they were
counterfeit and he hit them with a clever when the did not ring properly on the counter. Paul has
a solid gold pocket watch that was taken in payment of a account and never claimed back. It is a
grand pocket watch that Gramps always wore. Paul is now having the watch repaired.
While Gramps was a butcher by trade he drove a bus for London Transport for 47 years. For that
amount of service he received a pension of L2.2.0 a month. He also had some death benefits which London Transport tried to renege on when he passed on. In true fashion, and I think I got some of her spunk, Mum visited London Transport and made a scene when they tried to refuse to pay. I think they were saying it cost too much to dispose of Gramps in Canada. After a great amount of persistence by Mum they did help pay for his funeral.
You say you never knew of any other family. On Grand Mother's side I never knew of any.
There had to have been some because she had had some brothers and sisters. I guess grandmother turned into a bit of a snob due to her success and nothing was evers said about the family. One story mother said was that her mother , when asked what her father did for a living, said was he worked for the "B.B.C."---the Batterses Borough Council, turns out he was a street
sweeper. Grandmother was described as a being a cook, although I would likely think of her as
being in "service" when she learned the trade. It is through some form of employment she met the butchers son and then married him. She also had a very close friend known as Aunt Lille. Lille
also worked with Grandma and married the launderer's son. His name was Ben Smith. He became Sir Ben Smith, Knighted by George the VI as his personal treasurer. Sir Ben was also a Labour member of Parliament and Deputy Minister of Food during the War. Ben last appears in Who's Who in about 1951.
Mother told a story of the war years when Sir Ben used to send rationed items, like cheese and
fruit, to our house in Honslow with a driver and a Rolls Royce. Mother said she wrote him to say
the arrival of the Rolls was causing much gossip in the neighbour hood he should stop it. His
reply not to worry he would send the times in a Bentley. While he was a Labour member of
Parliament Sir Ben is said to have had a good taste for things the rest of the citizenry did not
have.
In July 1930 Mother and the family were given an invitation to a Garden Party at Buckingham
Palace, arranged by Sir Ben. I have the invitation framed, along with a coloured print of the
mother in the dress she wore to the event.
On Gramps side of the family mother had cousins. Gramps had a sister, Eva, who lived 988 London Road, what district I can't recall. I did visit her in 1963. She had two sons, Leslie who was a very successful Insurance Adjuster and lived in an upscale neighbour hood in Higher Denham,
Buckinghamshire. The other son was a Head Master of an art school in Tauntan, Somerset. He
had studied painting in Paris, I have two of his pictures in a style of the early part of the last
century.
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Picture H is of mother in school. Nothing else known.
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Your comments on mother being a "Tom Boy" is something I would not have imagined of her. It never came across in any way of expression or in discussions as I grew up. She never in the least seem athletic although she did say she played tennis as a young girl. She did like being a spectator of sports watching Wimbledon, and what became her passion Baseball. She was also a great fan of
ZPaul and myself playing hockey.
In the photo album are any number of pictures of parties. Photos A & G are the two best. Are you there?
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Picture Q is an early picture of a car. The date is not known. Is this a Morris?
Mother also told me she was given a Ford (model not known) for her 21st birthday, at a cost of
L100.0.0.
I am not certain of its fate. As far as I know she never drove again after this period of time.
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Photo J is pictures of Mum and Dad, I would say at or around the early years of the War.
Nothing else known.
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Your comments on staying with us during the War are remembered from a conversation with Mother. She talked about the Air Raids and then being sent to Cornwall and living in Perrenporth
(sp?). While there she got a message to say a bomb had hit the house and blown out the back,
just the part of the house where she and I used to sleep. I have an memory of the time at the end of the war and before coming back to London, meeting my father for the first time, a tall man in a sailor suit. In 1963 I found the cottage we lived in, in a sad state of repair. Mum was touched
by the picture I took.
Where we lived was 170 Park Road, Hounslow.
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In 1991 we had a 50th wedding party in Montreal for Mom and Dad. We had all of the Canadian
family there. Dad had an Aunt who came to Canada in 1928, so all of her 6 children were there.
It was a fine celebration of our life in Canada. Dad gave a nice speech of how he and mum met and did allude to mum problems with her mother. However, I did not fully understand how or why it existed. One other story of problems between mum ahand her Mother was caused by myself. After the War dad wanted Mum to come to Canada as he have been able to get her in the Navy, he had an Aunt and felt Canada would provide greater opportunity than Post War Britain. Mother resisted. Then on one weekend Grand Mother and Gramps were visiting in Hounslow and the news paper arrived. I retrieved it, Grandmother wanted it, and I said not it was my fathers paper. That started a rift between mother and her mother that cause mother to deicide to come To Canada. Mum would not speak to her mother around the leaving and did not speak to her until 1951 when Grandmother and Gramps came to Canada for a visit.
We came to Canada in July 1949 two days before Paul's first birthday. We flew which I am lead to
believe was not common in those days. This was the only way Dad wanted to come as he had been in the Fleet Air Arm and saw air travel as the way things were going. Was he right.
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I am sending a group of photos that I hope may bring back some pleasant memories or hope you can identify the person shown. D, e, i, n, S, R.
In the group of photos F, L, M, N. there is a common group of persons. In F there person on the
left is referenced to a Charlie. You mention Mrs. West had a son Charlie. Do you think this is
the same person? I wonder if Charlie of this photo appears in the other photos?
I know of Mrs. West as a great friend of Grandmother Swallow. She was never known with a husband in my times. What I remember her is she sent me a Xmas present for a number of years after we arrived in Canada. I still have a copy of Treasure Island she gave me. I think it is likely one of the firstserious adult books I read.
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Photos I is myself (58), my youngest son Richard (25) and Paul (52). In November 2000 we took a weekend to go to California (3 hours away) with one our hero's Goofy. I guess you can all say we have the same nose, which I think comes from the Tricker side of the family.
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It is hard to say how appreciative were are to have you both give us such a lengthy reply to a
very short question. I thank you many times over.
Watch your mail as the photos will follow.
All the best .
Charlie.
Witness to marriage: Stephen Bowd - possibly a brother, an uncle or cousin
Previous marriage to MASON
1851 census has Sarah working as a servant where Peter Mason also is employed as a servant