Wednesday 3rd October 2018

Wednesday 3rd October 2018 - Number 3265

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We reach out to all, regardless of Race, Colour, Creed, Gender & Orientation, or National Origin, with support for researching family history and documenting cultural inheritance.

Dear Ancestor

Your tombstone stands amongst the rest, neglected and alone,

The names and dates are chiseled out on polished, marble stone.

It reaches out to all who care, it is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist, you died and I was born.

Yet each of us, are cells of you, in flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse not entirely our own.

Dear Ancestor

The place you filled one hundred years ago,

Spreads out amongst the ones you left, who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew.

That someday,

I would find this spot and come to visit you.

One Man’s War – A bit about the RAF

John Robert Laws

1921-2008

Part 3

One Mans War - A bit more about the RAF

On New Year’s Day 1942 I made my first flight as an instructor at Elmdon (Now Birmingham Airport) located between Birmingham and Coventry, you had to turn smartly left on takeoff to avoid running into cables of the Barrage Balloons flying over the city to prevent low-level air attack.

My stay at Elmdon lasted just six weeks during which time I did eighty-six hours as a Sergeant instructor before I was promoted from Sergeant to Pilot Officer and had to be posted since you were not allowed to remain on the same unit as an officer where you had served as an NCO. This move was to Desford near Leicester where I stayed for the rest of my time as an instructor.

Desford was a good airfield for the job. It was on high ground north of the valley that lies between Leicester and Hinckley and there were no surrounding obstructions. There was a small factory alongside belonging to Reid & Sigrest, making aircraft components and the field had been a flying club before the war.

We had some forty or fifty Tiger Moths which flew most of the daylight hours and stood out in the open in all weather. There were a couple of hangers for maintenance and repairs and mechanical failure was virtually unknown. Accidents were rare and usually due to heavy landings when an instructor allowed a pupil to go too far before taking control. We normally flew the same aircraft and there would be minor variations between the behaviour of one to another.

I got caught out on one occasion when not using my regular aircraft, I allowed a pupil to land from a long gliding approach on a cold day. When he bounced it high in the air I opened the throttle wide to catch it, and nothing happened, except that is we dropped like a brick, the undercarriage gave up and we slid along on our nose with the prop shattering in all directions, till we turned over forwards and landed upside down hanging in our harness.

I hadn’t realised that the fuel mixture was set a fraction weaker than my usual machine and that the engine needed to be warmed up after the descent before landing. Black Mark!

By March 1944 the need for training more pilots was diminishing (having been involved in the training of up to 400 pilots,) instructors were being moved over to operational flying. I was posted to an Advanced Flying Unit at Banff in Scotland where we flew Airspeed Oxfords, a twin-engined low wing monoplane trainer.

I did about sixty hours day flying and twenty hours night flying on this course, about half under instruction and half solo, finishing the course in the middle of May.

There was now a gap in flying from 15^th May to 15^th June. Sometime and somewhere in this gap crews were put together. A crowd of pilots, navigators, bomb aimers and wireless ops were got together for a few days and had to sort out fellow crew members with whom they could and would work and fly a tour of operations, somehow or other the gunners got tacked on later.

Then it was on to Lossiemouth where we flew old Vickers Wellingtons from the satellite field at Elgin. It was a lovely setting with the field almost ringed with mountains but not close enough to be threatening in the summer weather.

Now that crews had been formed I spent the major part of my time in the company of Cliff and Frank and we shared a room at Blackfriars Haugh, in Elgin. The house had been taken over as an annexe of the Lossiemouth officers mess. We had a large bedroom which had at some time earlier been made over to a bathroom which now contained three beds. Blackfriars was a large stone built house set in a garden beside the river Lossie.

I revisited Elgin some fifty years later and Blackfriars looked just the same although the town of Elgin was unrecognisable.

The Wellington was one of the great aircraft of the RAF’s history. By this time they were pretty well out of operational service and those we flew were far from new. With their two big Pegasus engines giving their all they lumbered off the grass field but once airborne they wanted to fly and handled nicely, without bomb load of course.
The big props whirled away a foot or two from one's left ear and the wingtips could be seen to flap as the flexible geodetic construction took up the strain.

Night flying was a farce in the Highland summer, it never got really dark but there is some thirty-seven hours night flying shown in my log book, in the seventy-seven hours flying time at Elgin.

Our cross-country flying included a trip to Rockall out in the Atlantic; we didn’t spot it but couldn’t have been far out, as our landfall on return was spot on.

To be continued tomorrow

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Dear Reader, we are happy to work on your

LAWS FAMILY TREE

(maybe we already have)

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Hi everyone, our database has

48,868 Folks - an increase of 20 this week

16,054 Families - an increase of 5,

116,594 Events - an increase of over 64,

All in 10,980 Places

Is your LAWS family amongst them?

Did one of your family marry, into one of these,

Mail us today with your inquiry. we'd be glad to help you.

Enquires are still very welcome, so please e-mail us at

registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

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PLEASE NOTE GDPR (2018) PRIVACY TERMS

We have excluded records of living people to protect their Privacy. We only show births before 1920 and marriages before 1940. If you are interested in anyone listed here, email us with the name, dates and reference number, and we will happily do a lookup. We are happy to help you with your, Laws or Lawes research, and in certain instances, we may be willing to undertake private research on your behalf. We will be happy to publish in this blog the stories of your Laws or Lawes research, and also to list members of the Laws or Lawes family you are searching for. (Subject to the rule above.)

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EXTRACTS FROM OUR DATABASE FOR TODAY 3rd OCTOBER

(Please note all spelling is British English)

Please also note we have several hundred LAWS & LAWES who were alive 29 September 1939
so mail us with your inquiries registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

Family Events

BIRTHS and BAPTISMS

1756 - Birth: Elizabeth LAWS-3670, Billerica, Middlesex County Massachusetts United States
1777 - Baptism: Ann LAWS-10606, Stamfordham Northumberland England
1804 - Birth: John LAWS-28890, Swannington Norfolk England

1843 - Birth: Charles Bennett LAWES-221, (Sculptor) Teignmouth Devonshire England

1870 - Birth: Frances Jane LAWS-39069, (Widow)
1870 - Birth: James LAWES-2705, Felthorpe Norfolk England

1884 - Birth: Charles LAWES-48507, (Cowman)
1885 - Birth: Harold Stewart LAWS-11401, (Reverend) Gaspe, Quebec Canada
1886 - Baptism: Edward Ernest LAWS-15832, (Tailors Cutter) Yeovil Somerset England
1890 - Birth: Christobel LAWS-42359,
1894 - Birth: David LAWS-44602, (Miner)
1896 - Birth: Walter Edward LAWS-20480,
1906 - Birth: Lincoln Dahl LAWS-19400, Minnesota United States
1907 - Birth: William H LAWS-32538,
1908 - Birth: Stanley Coupland LAWES-33557, Sutton St James Lincolnshire England

1910 - Birth: Donald LAWES-48330, (Ag Lab)
1919 - Birth: Vera Autumn Joyce LAWES-11015, Newport Isle of Wight England

MARRIAGES

1742 - Marriage: Henry LAWES-12798 and Mary PETTS-12799,
1805 - Marriage: Joseph WRIGHT-19572 and Sally LAWS-19571, Westford, Middlesex Co Massachusetts United States
1834 - Marriage: James Watts BACH-2154 and Harriet LAWES-2153, St.George Hanover Sq Middlesex England, Special Licence
1848 - Marriage: William Woods TAYLOR-31136 and Elizabeth Ann LAWS-31135, Plumstead Kent England
1896 - Marriage: Alfred KEMP-45818 (Gas Stoker) and Annie Eliza LAWS-45817, Tunbridge-Wells Kent England
1925 - Marriage: Thomas Wayne LAWS-12204 and Pearl GRIFFITHS-12205,
1928 - Marriage: Alwyn Keith WARREN-25741 (Bishop the right Reverend) and Doreen Edna LAWS-22869, (Servant) Chelsea Middlesex England

1928 - Marriage: George DOWE-3488 and Edith Louise LAWS-3487, Haveringland Norfolk England

DEATHS and BURIALS

1877 - Death: Johanna Hendrina LAWS-34539, Prudhoe Northumberland England

1910 - Burial: Sarah Ann LAWS-36416, Wareham Dorset England

1918 - Death: H N LAWS-22287, (ARMY Private 201879)
1921 - Death: Charles LAWS-25768, (Brickmaker) Dunedoo New South Wales Australia
1946 - Death: Elizabeth Jemima LAWES-39039, (Spinster) Crampmoor Hampshire England
1952 - Death: Johanna Lydia LAWS-3193, Queenscliff Victoria Australia
1956 - Death: Mabel Matilda Muriel LAWS-46018,
1961 - Death: George William LAWS-39318, Kings Lynn Norfolk England

1961 - Death: Henry George LAWS-31047, (Engineers Machinist) Chichester Sussex England
1961 - Burial: George Nixon LAWS-16760, (Army) Brisbane Queensland Australia
1962 - Death: William Arthur LAWES-14386, (Ag Lab) Otterbourne Hampshire England
1964 - Death: Albert Frederick Horatio LAWS-23109, (Locomotive Driver London Tilbury & Southend Railway) West Ham Essex England
1981 - Death: Nancy Elizabeth (Lizzie) LAWS-25487, Yancy Co North Carolina United States
1988 - Death: Charles Alfred LAWS-47045, Middlesbrough North Yorkshire England
1991 - Burial: Donald Raphael LAWES-31257, Worthing Sussex England
2011 - Death: Linton Harmer LAWS-3205, (Farmer) Melbourne, Victoria Australia but his
residence at Kialla Victoria Australia
2014 - Death: Arthur Grant LAWS-40642,

MISCELLANEOUS

1895 - Residence: John CHARTERS-14160, (Builder) Upper Mill West Yorkshire England
1961 - Residence: George William LAWS-39318, Marshland St James Norfolk England

OTHER BIRTHS and BAPTISMS

1855 - Birth: James HILL-29782, (Locomotive Driver)
1859 - Birth: Azele Alice Abigail Keturah HOLCOMB-49773, Pelham Township Welland, Ontario Canada
1882 - Birth: Dora SONES-25850,
1893 - Birth: Joseph M SMITH-46872, (Coal Miner)

OTHER MARRIAGES

1925 - Marriage: William JENNINGS-41211 (Trammer) and Edith LINDLEY-41212, (Land Worker) Stanley cum Wrenthorpe West Yorkshire England

OTHER DEATHS and BURIALS

1811 - Death: Ann ATKINSON-3392, Great Yarmouth Norfolk England

1937 - Death: Fanny Eleanor FENEMORE-34406, The Nook, St. Mildred's Avenue, Broadstairs Kent England

1989 - Death: Lydia Rose HOUNSLOW-43071, Elstree/Potters Bar Hertfordshire England

Did you find anyone?

whether it's yes or no, we'd still love to hear from you.

Mail us at

registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

-----------'HMS Trincomalee' ---------

Lord, help me dig into the past and sift the sands of time.

That I might find the roots that made this family tree of mine.

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, on which our fathers trod.

Which led them through so many lands, to find our present sod.

that missing link between some name that ends the same as mine

Lord help me find an ancient book or dusty manuscript,

that's safely hidden now away, in some forgotten crypt.

Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts my soul when I can't find,

that missing link between some name, that ends the same as mine.

Sharon Nicola LAWS

2008 Olympics Cyclist

Environmental adviser for Rio Tinto Zinc

1974-2017

R I P

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