Nice People Thread Number 11 - A Treasury of Nice People

vivatifosi

Generali wrote: »

They love that joke over here, especially at customs .

"Do you have any criminal convictions Sir?"
"I didn't realise I still needed one!"

We live that one for real when we visit Australia. There is a man on the run with the same name and very similar date of birth as my husband. The other person is English, but was last seen in Australia. It also means DH can't use the auto passport gates in the UK as he has to undergo additional questioning here. Not ideal when you work for an airline and travel as part of your job.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

Only "fly in the ointment" is I am a direct descendant from: the fella who seems to have left his wife/child and ran off with another woman and had a family .... so descended from the black sheep... they're probably still muttering about it in the village 150-200 years on. I might be auto-banned from their pubs or something

There are roads round this way and houses round this way that use my family name.

Well that's good, sounds like you could get a long way with that without a substantial outlay.

I wouldn't worry about the sins of the fathers thing. We have similar in my tree. The other side just wanted to know more about us... seventy or so years down the line the raw pain is over and you may hold some of their missing jigsaw pieces in much the same way as they hold yours. The thing I found most amazing was seeing a photo of my mum's not known about long lost half sister. She looked identical to my mum's full biological sister who had died.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

In my "tree" is one of the first fleeters - probably the "most famous one". He was a sailor and married a convict on the boat over.

I doubt I'm a descendant as I suspect they all stayed over there .... but go up my tree and I'm probably descended from his brothers/parents/grandparents.... the link/information would be out there if I had to time/desire to make the link.

Very few poor people went back because it very soon became apparent that after the hard labour was complete, life for the poor was incomparably better in Aus than back in Britain or Ireland. Incomes were higher, harvests better and more reliable and there was no more or less freedom for a poor person in Aus than in the UK.

I don't believe that transportation stopped because of the Gold Rush: plenty of Australia has no gold and it would be easy enough to pass a law stating that freed convicts couldn't enter the gold fields or go fossicking. It was that you could effectively buy yourself a better life by doing a few years' hard labour.

The biggest hardship many freed convicts faced was that the soldiers effectively created a monopoly on the sale of hard liquor. Beer could be bought easily enough but rum cost a fortune.

vivatifosi wrote: »

We live that one for real when we visit Australia. There is a man on the run with the same name and very similar date of birth as my husband. The other person is English, but was last seen in Australia. It also means DH can't use the auto passport gates in the UK as he has to undergo additional questioning here. Not ideal when you work for an airline and travel as part of your job.

What a massive pain. One of the benefits of being a frequent flyer is getting through customs etc more easily.

I have quite Celtic colouring (no, not green and white stripes - SFW) and for reasons unknown, when the IRA were busy blowing up random bits of London in the early 90s I would never, ever get stopped by customs.

I would however sometimes be approached by a bloke in a cheap suit from an unmarked panopticon-style office who would take my passport off me for a few minutes and just leave me standing in the middle of the arrivals or departures lounge (normally arrivals). It was a little disconcerting at first but it just gave me less time to wait once I got to the luggage bit.

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

We live that one for real when we visit Australia. There is a man on the run with the same name and very similar date of birth as my husband. The other person is English, but was last seen in Australia. It also means DH can't use the auto passport gates in the UK as he has to undergo additional questioning here. Not ideal when you work for an airline and travel as part of your job.

There is a person who lives in Swansea with the same first name as me and whose surname is one letter different to mine. He has the same date of birth and approx 20-25 convictions for stuff like criminal damage and assault.

It seems that CRB checks link this person to me, presumably because criminals have a habit of slightly altering their name on application forms. Every time I give a witness statement in a criminal case for work I get CRB checked and every time I get called into a room and asked if I have anything I want to admit or "have you ever been to Swansea".

Doesn't cause a problem with passport control though thankfully...

Generali

chewmylegoff wrote: »

"have you ever been to Swansea".

Thankfully I think that's something all of us can answer in the negative. Actually I have a vague feeling that I went to Swansea as a child to see a bridge. It's one of those annoying things that grownups (including me) do: take you on a 50 minute car journey to see a slightly unusual bridge when you'd much rather just watch cartoons, go swimming or kick a ball against a wall.

It's a slightly McCarthyite phrasing: Are you now in or have you ever been to Swansea?

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

One year it was "South Wales" - and I remember being in the car, as dusk fell, driving through Swansea looking for such a sign.... and it was industrial and grim and we all hated the look of it, so kept driving .....

Gower Peninsular is beautiful.

Gen wrote:

Thankfully I think that's something all of us can answer in the negative.

Not all of us.

Some parts of the town are very nice.

PasturesNew

Live Owl webcam http://www.somersetwildlife.org/barn_owl_web_cam.html

I think I just caught them sha-ggin'

The big one was on top of the smaller one and holding onto the back of their head feathers with their beak. Reading the comments - he seems to sh4g a lot of the time!

Generali

silvercar wrote: »

Not all of us.

Some parts of the town are very nice.

Sounds unlikely but I bow to your greater experience.

tomterm8

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm wondering how I'm going to explain the lash mark accross my back from him accidentally whipping me with a whippy bit of wood. .

I've always dreaded the idea I'll end up needing the doctor after a spot of bramble removal.* People have looked at me strangely in the past because of it. I think I have a reputation

* Er... not because of the bramble. Which is safe(ish). Just because of general illness.

PasturesNew

Well, this morning it's pee'd it down, then the sun came out, then it went dark, now the sun's out ....

I sat and thought "I should go out to a car boot", but couldn't muster the enthusiasm to pay to park in a sodden field and traipse round looking at old tat neither I nor the current owners want.