Skip to main content

Posts

Death and interment of Louis O'Brien - (. 2012)

This is a copy of an e-mail sent to me on Tuesday 13th November 2012, by my cousin Alan O’Brien of Dublin in relation to the death and interment of his older brother Louis in Long Beach, California.  Alan always had a great gift of writing long and informative letters which usually contained some humorous edges and they were always gratefully received  by me.  On the rather strange way that Alan and his younger brother, 'Paddy' learned that their long lost brother had passed away - by a very odd happenstance - I feel that his story might be of interest to a wider audience.   Within the bounds of that context and with nothing to hide I therefore publish this letter to a wider public interest than Louis himself might have possibly expected.  It reads: Hi John, Thanks for your recent email, and glad to hear you're getting over the surgery and clear, I hope, of trouble. We're about a fortnight back from Spain, where we spent a very lazy and pleasant six weeks. ...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts
Railway Matters RAILWAY from STAMFORD.   The  Midland Railway Ratify Meeting Oakham last week having been but very briefly noticed, Several of my friends - whom I believe are with me - agree that this railway is uncalled for, requested that I report publicly, my input. I have complied with their request, and shall be obliged by your inserting the following Report.—l am, dear Sir, yours truly, Melton Mowbray , Oct. 29,1844. W. LATHAM." After the first Resolution had been proposed and seconded, 1 said, Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, —1 stand here in a peculiar situation, and most probably am about to make remarks which may not be acceptable to this assembly, but inasmuch as I am the presence of gentlemen I confidently expect to be listened to with some degree of patience." But before I make any remarks I beg to read again the notice for calling the meeting which calls together the " Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Landowners, Occupiers of Land, and others resident in the Districts...
Post a Comment
Read more

Here and there

Post a Comment
Read more

WITHER LIE THE BODIES?

WHITHER LIE THE BODIES. During the middle of the 17th century, following years of civil disorder, the English Monarchy was being threatened as to its very existence as dissension spread apropos the political problems with Scotland; even the Baronies of the Northern English counties took to an armed conflict which frequently involved highly brutal and sanguineous affairs.   As our local history tells us, Melton Mowbray was not to escape involvement in these violent times when King Charles I, in despair of his increasing hopelessness and in great anguish   of his Monarchy being about to be overthrown, was to blow the trumpet in August of 1642 when the fighting across the land began in earnest. The Reverend J Ward, in his   ‘ Melton Mowbray in Olden Times’ - 1879, has provided us with much useful information about the past in which he narrates moments of the Civil War, especially those   of Leicestershire and Melton, in some detail.   At the end of his descriptions...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE 'GREAT FLYING RACE' COMES TO TOWN.

A thrilling account of the exciting and chaotic hot summer’s day in Melton Mowbray in 1911, when many thousands of exuberant people turned out to witness for the very first time the ‘miracle’ of the heavier than air ‘flying machines,’ in flight together with their intrepid pilots. _______________________________________________ PROLOGUE     The long awaited occasion of man’s first sustained flight in an heavier than air, powered aeroplane is pretty well known to the world as being recorded on a beach at Kitty Hawk, South Carolina in 1903, by the Wright brothers of that place.   The stuff of dreams of many young boys across the decades,  the veracity of this specific moment in time and the identities of the  people involved in the event remains open to serious discussion to the present day and the actual truth is still argued openly and keenly. This is especially so amongst aviators and other interested parties in F...
Post a Comment
Read more