Demolishing the family Irish yarns

Today is our last full day in the UK, and we've spent it well, travelling by bus to Kew to the National Archives for some more family history research, and being treated to a pub dinner (very nice pub too) by a former girlfriend of one of John's sons when she was an English backpacker in Oz in 1990. She has fond memories of baked dinners at John's old place at Dundas, and has since learned to cook and like baked pumpkin.

John was looking for his gg grandfather George Fitzpatrick's record in the Irish Constabulary. He had to laugh, ruefully when he finally found it. On his great grandfather's death certificate in 1913, it stated that George was a superintendent of police. Far from it. He was a constable for 15 years, before he was dismissed!

So lesson number one. Never treat a death certificate as gospel!

I also found about 15 pages of my grandfather's World War 1 records. He was badly injured in France at the end of 1917 and spent the next 12 months in hospital in the Isle of Wight, and catching rheumatic fever whilst there. He didn't see active service again and died in April 1919.

This backed up my father's memory of going to visit him at the Isle of Wight in hospital as a small child. I thought he had confused the hospital with his final hospitalisation at Netley (the Military Hospital) before he died, but it seems not.

The quicker way to get to the National Archives - another modern and very efficient building - would have been by Tube, but we had to catch the bus instead, because they are wheelchair accessible. We've found London buses very easy to use.

We spent all day there, and could have spent much longer. We now have readers' tickets which last for three years, but I doubt we will have the chance to use them again.

We now have the worry of working out whether our bags will be overweight for the trip home. That's for another day. We don't have to check out of the hotel until 2 pm tomorrow, so that's a relief. Our flight is at 10 pm. Not looking forward to it.