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-Who's going to win today? -Guys, don't forget... | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
Actor Warwick Davis lives in East Anglia, | 0:00:05 | 0:00:09 | |
-with his wife and two children. -Look at the nice new karts. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:12 | |
Having a strong family around you is hugely important. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
I am really lucky to have my wife Sam and my kids, | 0:00:16 | 0:00:20 | |
Annabel and Harrison, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:21 | |
as my solid rock foundations. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
Look at you. He's a little Lego figure. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
And I strongly believe that I wouldn't be the person that I am without them. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:32 | |
-Come on then, who wants to be beaten? -Go and have fun. Be careful, guys. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
-Let's go. -Drive careful. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:38 | |
Warwick owes his big break as an actor at the age of 11 | 0:00:38 | 0:00:42 | |
to his grandmother. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:43 | |
She heard a radio commercial, | 0:00:43 | 0:00:47 | |
and it was basically Lucasfilm who make Star Wars looking for | 0:00:47 | 0:00:50 | |
short people to appear in Return Of The Jedi. | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
The fact that I was short gave me a lucky break | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
and I've took advantage of that. | 0:00:57 | 0:00:59 | |
So here I am, 35 years later, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
still running with that opportunity and I have my grandmother | 0:01:01 | 0:01:05 | |
to thank for it. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:06 | |
I don't think there will be any other performers in my family history. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:13 | |
I'm not expecting that at all. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:14 | |
I'd like people in my history to be a little bit maverick, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
a little bit... | 0:01:22 | 0:01:23 | |
..ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing perhaps. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
Cos I don't tend to follow the rules. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:31 | |
I'd be excited to discover stories of people overcoming a challenge | 0:01:34 | 0:01:39 | |
and making something of their lives. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:43 | |
There's a couple of bends there where you're just clinging on for dear life. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
And I won't be embarrassed by whatever I discover. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:49 | |
Yeah, bring it on. Let's have an adventure. | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
-ANNOUNCER: -Platform 10 for the 10.43 Southern... | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
I'm going to see my mum today. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:37 | |
I'm hoping that she might know a little bit about some of the people | 0:02:37 | 0:02:42 | |
in our family. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:44 | |
Fingers crossed she'll have a nugget of information | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
that will set me on my way. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
Warwick's parents separated when he was a teenager. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:53 | |
His mum Sue now lives in Sussex. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
-Hello. -Hello. -How are you? | 0:02:58 | 0:03:00 | |
Fine, thank you. Lovely to see you. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
-And you. -Come in, come in. -Thank you. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:05 | |
I'm kind of on a journey at the minute, | 0:03:08 | 0:03:10 | |
trying to figure out where I come from, basically. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
-Mm-hmm. -I know you're my mum, but... | 0:03:13 | 0:03:15 | |
It's all about beyond that, further back than that. | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
-We never really talked about it, did we? -No, I know. As a family, | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
I think we should have spoken a lot more about it, but my mother, | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
she never really told me anything. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
So, have you ever done any research into our family history? | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
Well, I have done a little here, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:35 | |
which helps you see the line that we go back. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:39 | |
-There is me and Kim. -There's you and Kim, coming up to me and Dad. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:45 | |
That's a relief. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:46 | |
And then we come up here to my parents. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
Winifred, which was your nana. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:53 | |
-Oh, yeah. -And Waller Edward. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
Great names, Winifred and Waller. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:58 | |
Fabulous. We don't have names like that any more, do we? | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
And that is your great-grandfather, and his name was McGregor. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:05 | |
And then of course it goes up to your great-great-granddad... | 0:04:05 | 0:04:09 | |
-Frederick Durban. -..who was Frederick Durban. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
Wow. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:13 | |
And we also found out that McGregor | 0:04:14 | 0:04:19 | |
was a postman, and also the great-grandad, Frederick Durban, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:25 | |
he was a postman. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
-Really? -Mmm. -I wondered why I had a strange affinity for our postman. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:31 | |
-I always like to chat to him for some reason. -Do you? Well, there you go. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
It's in your genes. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
So, Frederick Durban is my great-great-grandfather. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:41 | |
That's right. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:42 | |
-I need to find out more about him, I think. -Mmm. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
Warwick has ordered up the birth certificate for his | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
great-great-grandfather, Frederick Durban. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
Right. This should be the birth certificate | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
of my great-great-grandfather, | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
Frederick Durban. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:07 | |
He was born on July 19th, 1841. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
Frederick Durban King. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
His father was called Frederick John Durban, which is a bit confusing, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:21 | |
cos they've both got the same name. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
So, we've got Frederick Snr, Frederick Jr. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
His mum was Sarah King. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:29 | |
So it looks like Frederick Jr's mum and dad weren't married. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
Because they've both got different surnames. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:37 | |
So that makes Frederick Durban King an illegitimate child. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
But, I mean, that is horrible to label, isn't it? | 0:05:41 | 0:05:43 | |
I mean, it is still their son, whatever happens, so... | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
Don't mind that. | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
To find out more about the family, | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
Warwick is looking up Frederick Snr on the census from 1841. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:57 | |
Let's see what we get. | 0:05:58 | 0:05:59 | |
So we've got here, Fred Durban. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:05 | |
So Frederick Snr, age 35. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
Another letter carrier. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:10 | |
In the parish or township of Croydon. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:14 | |
The next person listed is... | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
It doesn't match Sarah there, it is another Durban. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
So... | 0:06:28 | 0:06:30 | |
Sophia Durban. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:32 | |
Who's that? Ooh. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:33 | |
That could have been his wife. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
So the list continues below. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:40 | |
There's loads of kids. | 0:06:40 | 0:06:41 | |
Look at them all, there's a huge list here. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
Mmm. So, he was married... | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
..and he had a child with Sarah while he was married, | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
by the look of it here. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:52 | |
Ooh. I don't know what to take away from this, | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
other than a lot more questions. | 0:06:58 | 0:06:59 | |
What I've discovered is potentially quite... | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
..an awkward situation. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:12 | |
I want to make sure I've got my facts right here. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
But it is kind of intriguing, isn't it? | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
I didn't think this early on I would discover something quite so | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
exciting as this. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
Warwick has come to Croydon, where, according to the census, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
Frederick Snr was living in 1841. | 0:07:36 | 0:07:39 | |
He is meeting historian Fern Riddell. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
Hello. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:47 | |
Fern, I'm a bit confused about the family situation. | 0:07:49 | 0:07:53 | |
So can you figure out what is going on? | 0:07:53 | 0:07:56 | |
Is it, as it seems to be, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:59 | |
a bit naughty? | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
Well, I have some records for you that might shed a bit of light | 0:08:01 | 0:08:05 | |
-on this. -Cool. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:07 | |
So I have census records. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
We are now in 1861. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:12 | |
-And on here, we have Frederick Durban. -Yeah. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:18 | |
And he is here with Sophia, his wife, and one of their daughters. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:23 | |
Very good. Very good. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
But, for the same census in 1861, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
we also have Fred Snr living with another S Durban... | 0:08:32 | 0:08:37 | |
..wife. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:39 | |
-Well, I never. -And the entry below is a very ornate F. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:46 | |
-That's Frederick Jr... -Yeah. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:47 | |
..they've called him here. So this is Sarah then perhaps? | 0:08:47 | 0:08:50 | |
Yeah. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:51 | |
In Deptford, this one is. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
-Yep. -So he had two houses, or he was registered at two houses, | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
according to the census of the same year, yes? | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
Mm-hmm. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
Wow. He's pretty light on his feet then, isn't he? | 0:09:04 | 0:09:07 | |
SHE CHUCKLES | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
Goodness me. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
That is excellent, isn't it? | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
I mean, it's... It is excellent, it's fun. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
What a crafty thing. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:18 | |
Yeah. He must have been stressed out, honestly. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
I mean, one wife is bad enough, but trying to... | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
I mean, she has got the name Durban. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
-Mm-hmm. -Do you think that was, like, put on here for effect, | 0:09:29 | 0:09:33 | |
because he couldn't have married both women, surely? | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
No, he's not up to that sort of mischief, is he, as well? | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
Well, a few years before this census, | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
we have a marriage certificate... | 0:09:42 | 0:09:44 | |
..in 1856. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
-Right. -And down here... | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
Look at that. Frederick John Durban, Sarah King. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
-They did get married then. -Yeah. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:01 | |
Well, I never. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:03 | |
What is the name of that, when you do that? | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
-Bigamy, isn't it? -Yeah. | 0:10:07 | 0:10:08 | |
So he's definitely married Sarah while he is still married to Sophia. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:14 | |
Was there a...? What was the punishment for that in those days? | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
It's punishable by going to prison, or a fine. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:22 | |
It is very... You don't do it, it's against the law. | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
Bigamy is something we do see in the Victorian period. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
Because divorce wasn't really an option, relationships broke down, | 0:10:27 | 0:10:32 | |
and if you wanted to move forward and you fell in love with someone else, | 0:10:32 | 0:10:37 | |
you didn't really have a lot of options. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:38 | |
You either had to wait for your first partner to die, | 0:10:38 | 0:10:42 | |
or you married secretly and bigamously, | 0:10:42 | 0:10:45 | |
and hoped that no-one would find out. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
See, we don't know, from this document, whether... | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
..they had come to some sort of arrangement between themselves, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
like, "We can't get divorced, love, you know what it's like in these times." | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
Yeah. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:00 | |
"I'm going to go and live with Sarah, but... Census, I'll put it on... | 0:11:00 | 0:11:04 | |
"It'll all be fine, I'll look good as well." | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
-That could have happened, couldn't it? -It could have. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:09 | |
It's like a farce, a little bit, isn't it? | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
Trying to live these two lives at the same time, goes out one door, | 0:11:11 | 0:11:16 | |
comes in another. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:18 | |
It's fantastic. And the fact that he was a postman, it's just... | 0:11:18 | 0:11:22 | |
You couldn't have written this better. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:24 | |
I don't think. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:25 | |
It's fabulous. | 0:11:25 | 0:11:26 | |
Warwick's confirmed that his great-great-great-grandfather, | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
Frederick Snr, had two families. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
One in Croydon with Sophia, and one in Deptford with Sarah, | 0:11:35 | 0:11:40 | |
the mother of Warwick's great-great-grandfather, | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
Frederick Jr. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:43 | |
Frederick Snr, he's a bit of a rascal, isn't he, really? | 0:11:50 | 0:11:54 | |
But, you know, you don't know the circumstances. | 0:11:55 | 0:11:58 | |
We know some of the story, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
but we really don't know what was going on in his personal life | 0:12:01 | 0:12:05 | |
with his own wife at the time, the stress of having six children | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
running around. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:10 | |
I was surprised that he did also marry Sarah. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:16 | |
But imagine if he hadn't met her. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
I wouldn't be here. And that is what this is all about, | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
at the end of the day, isn't it? | 0:12:22 | 0:12:23 | |
How I became me, and I'm here today, | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
and it is all due to the fact that he one day met Sarah and indeed | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
had a child with her, my great-great-grandfather. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
I hope it ended happily, really. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
But I don't see how it can, because somebody is going to lose, | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
aren't they, in those situations? | 0:12:39 | 0:12:40 | |
Either Sophia or Sarah is going to lose. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
To find out how Frederick Snr managed to lead a double life, | 0:12:48 | 0:12:52 | |
Warwick is meeting local historian Carol Roberts. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
Let's have a look at his life in Croydon. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
This is dated January 1841, and it is what is called a rate book. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
Right, and 1841 was the year that Frederick Jr was born. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
Yes, that's true. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:13 | |
This is a list of those who were due to pay the rates in Croydon. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
Which is the sort of tax... | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
-Yes. -So, there's Frederick there. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
And follow this across here... | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
Right. That is the rateable value. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
£28.10. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:31 | |
Now, this is the next year, this is the rate bok of January 1842. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:35 | |
This is George Street, we're no longer in the High Street, | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
so he has moved around the corner to George Street in Croydon. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
Better? | 0:13:42 | 0:13:44 | |
Let's have a look. That figure there... | 0:13:44 | 0:13:47 | |
£13.10. | 0:13:47 | 0:13:49 | |
-Yes. -This is half the price. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:51 | |
-Exactly. -He's gone down-market here. | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
Or maybe he had to reduce his outgoings because he is indeed | 0:13:54 | 0:13:57 | |
supporting another family in Deptford, | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
perhaps paying rent over there as well. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:04 | |
I can't imagine he could carry this on for long | 0:14:04 | 0:14:06 | |
without something breaking. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:08 | |
Do you know any more about that part of the story? | 0:14:09 | 0:14:11 | |
Cos I want to figure out how it all ends for him. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
I'm hoping it all ends well. | 0:14:14 | 0:14:16 | |
Well, in 1870, his wife Sophia dies. | 0:14:16 | 0:14:21 | |
Oh. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:22 | |
And then, six months after that, something else happens. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
So this is a marriage certificate between Frederick John Durban | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
and Sarah King. Wasn't he already married to her? | 0:14:29 | 0:14:34 | |
Haven't I seen that somewhere? | 0:14:34 | 0:14:35 | |
-That's right. -What's going on? -There was a marriage in 1856. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:39 | |
I see, so she is... | 0:14:39 | 0:14:41 | |
Even though they were already married... | 0:14:41 | 0:14:43 | |
..they did it again... | 0:14:44 | 0:14:45 | |
..legally this time, because his wife had passed away, | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Sophia, at this point. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
-This was about six months after Sophia died. -He didn't hang about, did he? | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
-He didn't. -He thought, "I'll get this sorted before I get found out." | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
There was always the chance that someone else could have discovered this, even after the fact. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
Yes, they were taking a chance, and the marriage in | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
Deptford was actually by bans, which meant that the bans were read out | 0:15:04 | 0:15:08 | |
-in church... -Yes. -..three consecutive Sundays before | 0:15:08 | 0:15:11 | |
they actually married. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:13 | |
So if anyone from Croydon had been in Deptford, in church... | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
-They could have shouted out. -"Hang on a minute, that's..." -Mmm. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:20 | |
And something that intrigues me, | 0:15:20 | 0:15:21 | |
and whether you'll be able to answer this, I don't know, | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
was whether these two families... | 0:15:24 | 0:15:26 | |
..knew of each other. Was this an arrangement, | 0:15:27 | 0:15:31 | |
or was it very sort of cloak and dagger? | 0:15:31 | 0:15:33 | |
Yes. Well, we have no actual evidence, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
but you might like to have a look at this document. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
-So this is a will... -That's right. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:46 | |
..of Frederick John Durban. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
It's quite hard to read, even though it is beautiful. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:52 | |
We have a transcript if it helps. | 0:15:52 | 0:15:53 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
"Frederick John Durban do will and bequeath to my daughter | 0:15:58 | 0:16:02 | |
"Sophia Elizabeth Rose, five pounds." | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
-Would she have been delighted? -It was worth having. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
A fiver? I wouldn't have been delighted, but let's move on. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
It acknowledges her, doesn't it, as his daughter. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
Oh, OK. All right. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:16 | |
And then to Charles, his son, five pounds as well. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
Yeah. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:21 | |
What I noticed... | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
That Frederick Jr is not mentioned on here. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:25 | |
Is that right? | 0:16:27 | 0:16:28 | |
Have a look down the names. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
John Durban. Oh, and, "My son Frederick Durban, five pounds." | 0:16:31 | 0:16:36 | |
So he's acknowledged all of his children in one will here. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
Taking what I know of Frederick Snr, | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
I don't think he would have left that | 0:16:43 | 0:16:45 | |
as a surprise for the family once he'd passed on. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
It would have been nice to paint a picture | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
that they all lived together. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
Warwick has come to Queen's Road Cemetery in Croydon to find where | 0:17:04 | 0:17:08 | |
Frederick Snr is buried. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
So would this be the curve here? | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
Maybe this way. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
What happens if it's this one? | 0:17:18 | 0:17:20 | |
You'd never be able to tell. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:22 | |
It could be this. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:23 | |
No. No. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:26 | |
Sorry, Frederick, I don't think I'm going to exactly find where you are, | 0:17:27 | 0:17:31 | |
but I know you're round here somewhere. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:33 | |
Without those chance moments, that time that... | 0:17:36 | 0:17:38 | |
..Frederick met Sarah... | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
Without that one encounter, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
which I would absolutely love to have known what that was, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
how did they meet? Did he knock on her door one day with some post | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
and say, "Oh, hello," and she was just... | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
You know. What happened? | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
You know, did they meet in a pub? | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
But without that moment, that chance meeting, | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
I wouldn't be standing here now, talking about them... | 0:18:02 | 0:18:06 | |
as a person. You know, it's incredible, isn't it? | 0:18:06 | 0:18:08 | |
You know, it's a shame I couldn't have met Frederick Snr, | 0:18:11 | 0:18:14 | |
because I feel he was the kind of guy I could have got on with. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
He wasn't a scallywag. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:20 | |
Cos there was a point in this story I was thinking, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:22 | |
"Hang on a minute, maybe we've got a bit of a naughty one on our hands here," | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
but he's come out of this, you know, as a decent human being, and... | 0:18:25 | 0:18:30 | |
Yeah, I would have liked to have bought him a pint. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
Warwick now wants to find out more about his father Ashley's | 0:18:48 | 0:18:52 | |
side of the family. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
He is on his way to visit him at his home in Herefordshire. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
I'm not sure what I'm expecting to find as I start to look back | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
on my father's side of the family. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:09 | |
My first thoughts are it's not going to be anything particularly exciting | 0:19:09 | 0:19:12 | |
or dramatic, although, that said, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
look at the Durbans on my mum's side of the family. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
I mean, that was quite the saga. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
So who knows? | 0:19:20 | 0:19:21 | |
-Hello. -How are you? -How's it going? | 0:19:27 | 0:19:30 | |
-Here at last, eh? -Nice to see you. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:32 | |
Lovely to see you. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:33 | |
Yes. Come on in. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
There's not a lot I know about your side of the family beyond nana | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
and your dad. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:41 | |
Cos you never really talked about it yourself, particularly, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
who was before your dad, your grandparents. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
No, we would never sit down and ask him about his family, so, you know, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:50 | |
I'm interested to find out. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:52 | |
-And, your dad... -Yes. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:53 | |
If you were to kind of imagine a city gent... | 0:19:53 | 0:19:57 | |
He was pinstriped suit and rolled umbrella. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:00 | |
-Really? The umbrella as well? -Yeah, that was him. -Perfect. Bowler hat? | 0:20:00 | 0:20:03 | |
Oh, definitely, yes. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
-Wow. -He had a bowler hat. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
I've found a couple of photos. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:09 | |
As you can see, you can see | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
the hairstyle there, can't you? | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
Chiselled features as well. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:16 | |
Yes. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:17 | |
-You didn't inherit that, did you? -No. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:21 | |
I'm older than him there, though. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:23 | |
Would he have been working in London at that point? | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
Yes. He worked in the City, as a broker, as I was too. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:30 | |
A handsome man. | 0:20:30 | 0:20:31 | |
-Absolutely. -And there he is... | 0:20:31 | 0:20:33 | |
..with the lady that started it all for you. | 0:20:34 | 0:20:36 | |
My nan. Wow, she looks different. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:41 | |
I can't even recognise her. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
Seriously. It looks like a completely different person. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
Well, how about that picture there? | 0:20:46 | 0:20:48 | |
Wow. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:51 | |
You see, I can see her in that a little bit more, that picture. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
You can see there's a glint in her eye there, | 0:20:57 | 0:20:58 | |
-cos she used to have quite a sense of humour as well. -Yes. | 0:20:58 | 0:21:01 | |
-A wicked sense of humour, actually. -Yeah. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:03 | |
This is the certificate of marriage from my mum and dad. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
And I can see Nana's first name here. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
-Edith. -Edith Louise. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:13 | |
And then Dennis John Manning was a waiter, Nana's father. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
Yes. Apparently he was an Irish waiter. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
I knew that there might be some Irish. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
See, I thought the Davis bit was Irish. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
But it's not that bit, it's Nana's side, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
-the Manning side. -Yes. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:32 | |
-But do you know any more? -No, I know nothing about him, | 0:21:32 | 0:21:34 | |
because Mum never really mentioned him, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
never had a conversation about him. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
Did he go back to Ireland? | 0:21:40 | 0:21:41 | |
Did he disappear? I don't know. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
So I think that is what I have got to do, try and discover | 0:21:45 | 0:21:48 | |
more about Dennis. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:50 | |
That would be into the unknown. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:51 | |
Great. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:54 | |
Warwick wants to get to the bottom of why his grandmother Edith | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
didn't appear to know her father, Dennis John Manning. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
After chatting to my dad yesterday, I don't feel | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
particularly enlightened about his side of the family. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:11 | |
His grandfather, Dennis Manning... | 0:22:11 | 0:22:13 | |
..there wasn't really anything to say. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
Which is interesting. Cos I was thinking that... | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
..my nan, Edith, was born in 1911, | 0:22:21 | 0:22:25 | |
so the war wasn't far away, and perhaps Dennis, her father, | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
was involved somehow in the war, | 0:22:29 | 0:22:30 | |
and that is why we don't know much about him at this point. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
But, yeah, I'm determined to uncover the mystery of what happened | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
to Dennis. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
Warwick is meeting genealogist Olivia Robinson. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
This is the marriage certificate | 0:22:44 | 0:22:48 | |
for Dennis and your great-grandmother. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:52 | |
So there we have Dennis John Manning and Lucy Louise Topping, | 0:22:52 | 0:22:57 | |
getting married in 1903. | 0:22:57 | 0:23:00 | |
In Lambeth. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:02 | |
Bachelor and spinster. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:05 | |
Just checking that, because on the other side of the family, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
there was some shenanigans. | 0:23:08 | 0:23:09 | |
-It is worth checking. -Yes. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:11 | |
And Lucy was actually living at this address here. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
It used to be a pub called the Cock and Bottle. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:17 | |
-China Walk in Lambeth. -Yeah. Which is about... | 0:23:17 | 0:23:20 | |
-The Cock and Bottle. -..500 yards in that direction. | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
Is that rhyming slang for something else? | 0:23:22 | 0:23:24 | |
I'm sure you could find something for that. | 0:23:24 | 0:23:26 | |
So it is not far from here? | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
Not far at all. I don't know if you can tell, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:29 | |
make out, Dennis's occupation at the time of his marriage. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
Let's see. Rank or profession - | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
licensed victualler manager. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
Yeah, so he is a manager of a pub, and her address is a pub, | 0:23:37 | 0:23:42 | |
so she may well have been living in rooms behind the pub or... | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
-She could have been the barmaid. -She could have been the barmaid, exactly. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
What I'll show you next perhaps takes us a little bit further | 0:23:49 | 0:23:52 | |
on in his life. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
So we've got a birth certificate for Dennis John Robert, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:02 | |
and his father is Dennis John Manning. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
So who's that then? | 0:24:06 | 0:24:07 | |
I guess if we can call this one Baby Dennis, perhaps. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
We'll go with Baby Dennis then. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
OK, when married - 11th of April 1903, | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
and Baby Dennis was born 30th of July 1903. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:22 | |
They didn't hang about, did they? | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
-Yes. -So this is April... | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
-Yes, I know! -They were married in April, and they got... | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
And it's amazing. It's a very, very quick gestation. | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
So, Dennis was unexpected, probably. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
And they thought, "We've got to get married to make this proper." | 0:24:33 | 0:24:37 | |
It was actually a relatively common occurrence... | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
-Was it? -..for women to be... | 0:24:40 | 0:24:41 | |
..pregnant at the altar, as it were. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
Somewhere between one in four, | 0:24:45 | 0:24:47 | |
one in five brides, was already expecting | 0:24:47 | 0:24:51 | |
at the time of their marriage. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:52 | |
A lot of rather large wedding dresses... | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
In my own life and marriage, a similar thing happened, | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
our son was born very shortly after we got married. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:01 | |
That's extraordinary. What a link. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:03 | |
-Indeed. -So if we take it on a little bit further now. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
So I've got a death certificate. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:12 | |
Dennis John Robert Manning. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:15 | |
Oh, so this is Baby Dennis who died when he was eight months old. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
Of acute tubercular meningitis. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
Eight months old. That must have been really hard for their parents. | 0:25:25 | 0:25:29 | |
-And it says here that his mum was present at the death. -Yeah. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:35 | |
I mean... | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
For me, I mean, this is... | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
We... My wife and I had a baby boy who died | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
when he was 11 days old, and... | 0:25:48 | 0:25:50 | |
So we can understand how this is... | 0:25:50 | 0:25:54 | |
-How it would have been for these... -Yeah. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
These parents here. But, I mean, | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
knowing a child for eight months as well is probably even more | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
difficult, because you get to know their character, their personality, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:07 | |
and then... Yeah, that must have been hard. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
Around about one in seven children | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
would have died before they were one, at this time. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:16 | |
Which is not to deny the trauma that the parents | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
would have gone through, but in some ways, | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
the community around them, the fact that it was a bit more common, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:24 | |
it may have been easier for the family to have talked about it, | 0:26:24 | 0:26:29 | |
to have had a support network, so... | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
Yeah, there might have been other people who had had a similar | 0:26:31 | 0:26:33 | |
-experience not too far away. -Yeah. | 0:26:33 | 0:26:35 | |
But it is worth saying here that Dennis, the father, | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
and Lucy go on to have 11 children in total. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:42 | |
They lose this child and they lose one other child, | 0:26:44 | 0:26:47 | |
but nine of their children survive into adulthood. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
-Nine? -Yes. Including Edith. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
-My nan. -Mm-hmm. -So now I know that Dennis had 11 children, | 0:26:53 | 0:26:58 | |
nine survived and my nan was one of those, | 0:26:58 | 0:27:01 | |
but I still don't know what happened to Dennis. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
Hopefully, this will give you a clue as to where you may want | 0:27:04 | 0:27:08 | |
to look next. | 0:27:08 | 0:27:10 | |
Right. This is a birth certificate of Brian Austin. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:16 | |
Another one of my nan's brothers. | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
-And Dennis, his father at this time, he was a munitions worker. -Yeah. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
So that's to do with the war effort then. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
-Yeah. -So making ammunition. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
Where would he have been doing this? | 0:27:28 | 0:27:29 | |
For somebody living in south London, | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
it's most likely that he would have been involved at Woolwich, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
at the Woolwich Arsenal. | 0:27:36 | 0:27:37 | |
-Yeah. -Oh, yes, I have heard of that. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
-Yes. -I thought it was a football team. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
Yeah. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:44 | |
I guess, to find out more, that's where I need to go. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
Thanks to Olivia, I feel I know a little bit more about Dennis. | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
And I also feel a certain affinity towards the man because... | 0:28:03 | 0:28:07 | |
..like me, he lost a baby son when they were very young. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
And so I do feel a connection with him now in that way. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:18 | |
But I'm on my way to Woolwich Arsenal, which is | 0:28:18 | 0:28:21 | |
where he was working, helping with the war effort. | 0:28:21 | 0:28:25 | |
And it begs the question, | 0:28:25 | 0:28:28 | |
did this... | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
contribute to his disappearance? | 0:28:30 | 0:28:31 | |
By the time Dennis was working at the arsenal in Woolwich, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:38 | |
it had been manufacturing weapons for over 200 years. | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
During the First World War, | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
it expanded its operations massively to meet the demand | 0:28:45 | 0:28:49 | |
from the Western Front for guns and shells. | 0:28:49 | 0:28:51 | |
At its peak, 80,000 men and women were employed here, | 0:28:56 | 0:29:01 | |
including Dennis, who, at 42, | 0:29:01 | 0:29:04 | |
was too old to be conscripted to fight in the war. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:06 | |
I want to get a sense of what life might have been like working here | 0:29:08 | 0:29:12 | |
-for someone like Dennis. -It was stressful. | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
It was hard work. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
And, in 1915, he would probably be working with cordite or lyddite, | 0:29:16 | 0:29:21 | |
which were the explosives they used then. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
TNT comes along later. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:26 | |
They are all quite dangerous. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
TNT is very poisonous. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:30 | |
And these chemicals made you feel ill. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:34 | |
They made you giddy and tired. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:35 | |
They gave you headaches, particularly cordite. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:38 | |
It gave people very severe headaches. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:40 | |
My goodness. That's horrendous. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:41 | |
And we've got an image here of people working with explosives. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:46 | |
They've got the basic of protective clothing on here, | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
they've got gloves on and there is a face mask here as well. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
But, I mean, there's still exposed skin around their wrists | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
-and their face and neck. -Yes. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
And it is thought that TNT is absorbed through the skin, | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
whereas cordite poisons you through breathing. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
But you notice that some of them don't have masks. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
No. It's mainly the chaps, they are not wearing masks at all, are they? | 0:30:11 | 0:30:16 | |
Sleeves rolled up. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:17 | |
Not only did munition workers like Dennis risk being poisoned, | 0:30:18 | 0:30:23 | |
they also faced another constant threat - | 0:30:23 | 0:30:26 | |
that the chemicals might explode at any time. | 0:30:26 | 0:30:28 | |
On top of these hazardous conditions, they worked long shifts, | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
often with no days off, | 0:30:35 | 0:30:38 | |
in the drive to keep Britain's war machine supplied. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:41 | |
So I'm imagining my great-grandfather having to come | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
and work here every day, the stress of the long hours... | 0:30:49 | 0:30:53 | |
..and the conditions here, and the danger as well, | 0:30:55 | 0:30:58 | |
but what could have happened to him beyond his work here? | 0:30:58 | 0:31:02 | |
I mean, the trail is very difficult to follow, and my grandmother... | 0:31:02 | 0:31:07 | |
She had very little recollection of him, and my dad knew nothing of him, | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
so he wasn't a figure that featured in their lives. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
We know that he didn't die here. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:16 | |
We know that he died somewhere else, | 0:31:16 | 0:31:18 | |
and we've got a copy of his death certificate | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
for you to have a look at. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:23 | |
So... | 0:31:26 | 0:31:27 | |
This is dated 1918. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
Dennis John Manning. | 0:31:31 | 0:31:32 | |
And the cause of death... | 0:31:32 | 0:31:34 | |
General paralysis. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:39 | |
Perhaps the way to look further into this is to look at where he died. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:43 | |
Croydon... | 0:31:44 | 0:31:45 | |
..mental hospital, does that say? | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
Yes, I think it does. | 0:31:50 | 0:31:52 | |
Oh. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:54 | |
Because I'm trying to think, you know, how would you end up... | 0:31:54 | 0:31:57 | |
..in a mental hospital, you know, was there stress involved here? | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
Was it to do with working here and the conditions that | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
he was working under? | 0:32:06 | 0:32:08 | |
What happened? | 0:32:09 | 0:32:10 | |
Warwick has come to Bethlem Museum of the Mind, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
where the records from Croydon Mental Hospital are kept. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:29 | |
He is meeting psychiatrist Rob Howard. | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
So, Rob, here is my great-grandfather's death certificate, | 0:32:35 | 0:32:40 | |
and on here it is documented that he died at Croydon Mental Hospital. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
So what I am wondering is, | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
did the work he was doing at Woolwich Arsenal, you know, | 0:32:49 | 0:32:53 | |
the stress and the difficult conditions there, | 0:32:53 | 0:32:55 | |
basically drive him mad? | 0:32:55 | 0:32:57 | |
OK. So, let's have a look at the records. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
If we go to the entry... | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
This is an amazing book. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:03 | |
Every single patient who came into Croydon Mental Hospital | 0:33:03 | 0:33:07 | |
would have had an entry. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:09 | |
-So here we are. -There he is, Dennis John Manning. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
-And... -Let's have a look at the date he was admitted. | 0:33:14 | 0:33:16 | |
29th of June, is that 1914...? | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
-'17. -1917. | 0:33:19 | 0:33:22 | |
"Facts indicating insanity observed by myself at time of examination. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:27 | |
"Can hear ventriloquists talking in the ward, | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
"sees imaginary people walking about, memory defective, | 0:33:31 | 0:33:37 | |
"talks incoherently, | 0:33:37 | 0:33:39 | |
"no idea of time or place, very resistive at times." | 0:33:39 | 0:33:44 | |
You can understand exactly why he was brought to a mental health hospital... | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
-Absolutely. -..with those symptoms. But read on, | 0:33:47 | 0:33:50 | |
cos here's something here about what your great-grandmother reported. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
"His wife, Lucy Manning, 118 Burlington Road, Thornton Heath, | 0:33:53 | 0:33:58 | |
"says he has been failing mentally for the past two years, | 0:33:58 | 0:34:03 | |
"he has been violent and has threatened her, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
"and she had to run away from him. | 0:34:06 | 0:34:07 | |
"Says men are in the house with her... | 0:34:09 | 0:34:11 | |
"..attacked her violently, and she had to call in the police." | 0:34:13 | 0:34:18 | |
So it sounds like she had a terrible time, dealing with him, having to call the police. | 0:34:18 | 0:34:22 | |
-It's a terrible situation all round, isn't it? -Mmm. | 0:34:22 | 0:34:26 | |
And so, bringing him to hospital was obviously the thing to do. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
It was a place of safety for him, it was safety for her. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:31 | |
But then, this is her husband, let's not forget, somebody she loved, | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
somebody she had children with, and then to have to basically report him | 0:34:35 | 0:34:41 | |
mentally ill, and knowing that that would mean he would be taken away, | 0:34:41 | 0:34:46 | |
you know, in spite of the fact that he was violent and threatening, | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
but a difficult decision for her at the same time. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
But here she actually gives what she thinks has caused | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
his mental health difficulties. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:57 | |
"I consider long hours of work and smell arising from such work | 0:34:57 | 0:35:03 | |
"which made his head ache." | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
Now, that's interesting. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:07 | |
-Cordite. -Mm-hmm. So it is clear what she thinks has caused the problem. | 0:35:07 | 0:35:10 | |
But cordite isn't the cause of general paralysis. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:14 | |
Goodness me. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:15 | |
He now admits that he was, for some time, before he was 21, | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
suffering from syphilis. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
For which he was treated at the Lock Hospital in London. | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
Right. So I know what that is. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
And that... | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
That virus, could that then cause other things? | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
So, yeah. Syphilis is a complicated infection. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:40 | |
Unfortunately, in a proportion of cases, | 0:35:40 | 0:35:42 | |
the germ stays in your body and manifests later, and it results, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
I'm afraid, in these horrible central nervous system | 0:35:47 | 0:35:50 | |
manifestations, as well as affecting the heart and the great blood vessels. | 0:35:50 | 0:35:54 | |
So, general paralysis, general paralysis of the insane, | 0:35:54 | 0:35:59 | |
as it was fully called, was actually a manifestation of syphilis. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:03 | |
So then this concludes that his mental illness | 0:36:03 | 0:36:08 | |
and his ultimate death had no connection with the work | 0:36:08 | 0:36:13 | |
he was doing at Woolwich Arsenal. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:16 | |
I think that's right. But there's something else very interesting | 0:36:16 | 0:36:19 | |
in his records, it tells us something about his character. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:22 | |
Just read from here, Warwick. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:23 | |
"He thought, after that, he had better not marry for some time. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:29 | |
"As a matter of fact, he did not marry until he was 31." | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
So he waited at least ten years after he had been infected, | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
-before he got married. -Wow. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
Which would have been unusual at that period, | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
but no doubt that was motivated by his not wishing to pass on... | 0:36:40 | 0:36:44 | |
He was doing the right thing there, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:45 | |
-wasn't he? -Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
Well, it's certainly not the... | 0:36:48 | 0:36:50 | |
Not the reason I thought he was going to be here. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
I was convinced it was going to be connected to his work at... | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
..Woolwich Arsenal and the chemicals or the stress | 0:36:58 | 0:37:01 | |
that workers were under. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:04 | |
And it's interesting that your great-grandmother thought that. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
But, I mean, it's good to see he was being very responsible about it, | 0:37:07 | 0:37:11 | |
-you know... -I think that's right. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:12 | |
-He comes out well, doesn't he, really? -Yeah. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
Or his reputation does - it didn't end well for him, though, did it? | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
-No. -I mean, it's... | 0:37:18 | 0:37:20 | |
It couldn't have been a more tragic... | 0:37:20 | 0:37:22 | |
..story, or ending to the story. | 0:37:23 | 0:37:26 | |
-I think that's right. -It's... | 0:37:26 | 0:37:27 | |
You know, what a way to go, honestly. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
Dennis died when he was 46, which is my age. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:40 | |
And I feel relatively young, so... | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
It's no time to go, is it? | 0:37:45 | 0:37:47 | |
My nan, Edith, was only six years old when he died a tragic death. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:54 | |
And I think this gives us the answer as to why | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
she didn't know her father. | 0:37:57 | 0:37:59 | |
I think there would have been a certain amount of shame | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
associated with a relative being in an asylum, | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
so it probably wouldn't really have been talked about. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:11 | |
Which is really sad. | 0:38:11 | 0:38:12 | |
And it's sad that I can't tell my nan, because she is no longer here. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:18 | |
Having solved the mystery of what happened to his grandmother Edith's | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
father, Dennis John Manning, | 0:38:27 | 0:38:30 | |
Warwick has one more thing he wants to discover about the Mannings. | 0:38:30 | 0:38:33 | |
His father told him that Dennis was Irish. | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
To find out if he really does have any Irish ancestry, | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
Warwick is meeting historian Graham Davis. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:44 | |
So Graham, can the Mannings be traced back to Ireland? | 0:38:46 | 0:38:49 | |
Well, we know that your great-great-great-grandparents, | 0:38:49 | 0:38:54 | |
Owen and Margaret, | 0:38:54 | 0:38:55 | |
lived, in 1851, in this little street, Maidstone Street, | 0:38:55 | 0:39:02 | |
off the main thoroughfare there, in London, | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
on the fringes of London actually, as it was then, and we can... | 0:39:05 | 0:39:09 | |
..look at the census of 1851, the same year, | 0:39:10 | 0:39:13 | |
to see the family recorded in that house in Maidstone Street. | 0:39:13 | 0:39:18 | |
So I'm seeing Manning here, Owen Manning, living at number 22, | 0:39:18 | 0:39:23 | |
the head of the household. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:25 | |
And he was a labourer. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:28 | |
And, where born? | 0:39:30 | 0:39:32 | |
Ireland. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:33 | |
So there is Irish ancestry. | 0:39:35 | 0:39:37 | |
Definitely. And if you look at his wife Margaret. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
There she is, there's Margaret - wife. And she's from... | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
County Longford. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:47 | |
That's in Leinster province. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
So I'm slightly intrigued as to why Owen and Margaret came over | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
to this country. Is this another famine story? Where they...? | 0:39:53 | 0:39:56 | |
No, no. If you look at the dates, | 0:39:56 | 0:39:59 | |
your great-great-great-grandparents must have come across in the 1820s, | 0:39:59 | 0:40:05 | |
long before the famine, which starts in 1845 through to '52. | 0:40:05 | 0:40:09 | |
So if they were planning a family at this point, they might have thought, | 0:40:09 | 0:40:13 | |
"Actually, let's move now and then we'll be in a better position | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
-"to support..." -Yes. London wages were better. | 0:40:17 | 0:40:19 | |
There were more opportunities. | 0:40:19 | 0:40:21 | |
And also, not only could they earn more money, | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
there were opportunities for the children and they | 0:40:24 | 0:40:28 | |
could get schooling, which they couldn't do in Ireland. | 0:40:28 | 0:40:31 | |
So with this in mind... | 0:40:31 | 0:40:32 | |
..how much Irishness is in me now? | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
-Well, that's difficult to know. -A little tiny bit. -A little bit. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:40 | |
-A little finger perhaps. -I think a little bit. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:42 | |
And another little sort of Irish connection is that I have played | 0:40:42 | 0:40:47 | |
leprechauns in seven different films in my career. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
-Really? -Yes. I've got a very dodgy Irish accent but I'm not | 0:40:50 | 0:40:53 | |
going to do it for you now. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:55 | |
Warwick has confirmed he does have Irish roots, | 0:40:55 | 0:40:58 | |
thanks to his great-great-great-grandparents, | 0:40:58 | 0:41:01 | |
Owen and Margaret Manning. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:02 | |
And he has already discovered the sad fate of their grandson, | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
Dennis John Manning, who died of syphilis. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
But he knows nothing about the man who links them, | 0:41:10 | 0:41:13 | |
his great-great-grandfather, also called Dennis. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:17 | |
Now, the person I'm most interested in finding out more about is my | 0:41:19 | 0:41:23 | |
great-great-grandfather, Dennis here, who at this point was 17, | 0:41:23 | 0:41:27 | |
a labourer like his father. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:29 | |
-Yes. -What happened next? | 0:41:29 | 0:41:31 | |
Well, we do have the census of 1881. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
30 years on. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:36 | |
And here you will find Dennis again. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
Right, this is Dennis, the head of the household here, who is now 48. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:46 | |
-Mm-hmm. -He is a musician. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
-Yes. -Wow. | 0:41:48 | 0:41:50 | |
-That's cool. -Yes. | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
Musician stands out, doesn't it? | 0:41:53 | 0:41:54 | |
-It does. -I mean, could you make a living being a musician? | 0:41:54 | 0:41:56 | |
Well, we do have some information about what he's up to, Dennis. | 0:41:56 | 0:42:01 | |
Now, this is from the Northampton Mercury. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
12th of June 1858. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
Entertainment. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:09 | |
"Pell's American Opera Troupe gave an entertainment at the Town Hall | 0:42:09 | 0:42:13 | |
"on Wednesday week. The troupe consists of Messrs GW Pell, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:18 | |
"the original Bones, D Manning, that's Dennis, violinist. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:23 | |
"HW Page, solo banjoist." | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
Etc, etc, etc. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:27 | |
"The performances on the violin and banjo were good." | 0:42:27 | 0:42:30 | |
So he got a good review there. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
-Yeah. -"And elicited applause. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:34 | |
"The assembly was not large." | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
-No. -Not a great crowd, but they applauded loudly. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
-But they did well. Yes. -That's good. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:42 | |
So we now know that Dennis is a violinist. | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
Mmm. So he was playing with Pell's American Opera Troupe. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:49 | |
But there is a banjo involved here as well, | 0:42:49 | 0:42:52 | |
so it must have been quite an unusual sort of opera. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:54 | |
Perhaps a... A trip to Northampton. | 0:42:54 | 0:42:58 | |
Of course, the Northampton Mercury. | 0:42:58 | 0:43:00 | |
-Yeah. -Absolutely. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:01 | |
You know, when I started out on this journey, | 0:43:05 | 0:43:07 | |
I was convinced I wasn't going to find any other performers, | 0:43:07 | 0:43:11 | |
but lo and behold there is one. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
I'm excited to find out more, actually, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:16 | |
and just kind of learn what sort of music he was playing | 0:43:16 | 0:43:20 | |
and how accomplished he became. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
Warwick's come to the Guild Hall in Northampton to meet Rachel Cowgill, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
who has been looking into the musical career | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
of his great-great-grandfather, Dennis Manning. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:38 | |
So, Rachel, I have here a review of Pell's American Opera Troupe... | 0:43:43 | 0:43:47 | |
-Yep. -..of which my great-great-grandfather, | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
Dennis Manning, was a member, in fact violinist. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
So I'm intrigued, who were Pell's American Opera Troupe, | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
and what sort of music did they play? | 0:43:55 | 0:43:58 | |
Well, they were a group of American musicians that were touring the UK, 1858-59. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:04 | |
Pell was an impresario, he recruited musicians in America, | 0:44:04 | 0:44:08 | |
brought them with him, but also, we think en route, | 0:44:08 | 0:44:11 | |
picked up one or two talented musicians to join the ensemble. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:14 | |
So they might have needed a violinist, | 0:44:14 | 0:44:16 | |
and my great-great-grandfather fitted the bill. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:19 | |
Presumably they met up with him at some point and were really impressed, sufficiently to invite | 0:44:19 | 0:44:23 | |
him to join what was actually quite a small ensemble, a small group. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
Right. I mean, what type of music was it? | 0:44:26 | 0:44:28 | |
I mean, did they play opera or...? | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
They did include opera in their performances, | 0:44:31 | 0:44:33 | |
but it tended to be a sort of parody, sort of slightly mocking, | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
but at the same time, with this type of performance, | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
they blended it with comedy and physical humour and dance, | 0:44:39 | 0:44:42 | |
and it was a real mixed bag, a real variety of staff. | 0:44:42 | 0:44:44 | |
-A real variety show. -Yes. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:46 | |
I'd love to see it. I mean, it sounds fantastic. | 0:44:46 | 0:44:48 | |
To discover that, you know, in my ancestry, | 0:44:48 | 0:44:50 | |
there is a history of performance, in particular comedy, | 0:44:50 | 0:44:54 | |
perhaps some slapstick, it's great. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
-Yeah. -It's great to discover that. | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
So this is another document you might find very interesting. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:02 | |
I love these playbills. | 0:45:02 | 0:45:03 | |
-Yeah. -Fantastic, from the Music Hall in Shrewsbury. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:07 | |
"Grand Fashionable American Entertainments." | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
-Yes. -I love it, "Entertainments," plural, there. | 0:45:10 | 0:45:12 | |
So, "A reunion of celebrated and original American minstrels." | 0:45:12 | 0:45:17 | |
And we've got, "The Real Delineators of Ethiopian character." | 0:45:17 | 0:45:21 | |
And then we've got Pell, during his stay at St James's Theatre | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
had the honour of performing in the presence | 0:45:24 | 0:45:27 | |
of her most gracious majesty, the Queen. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:30 | |
-Indeed, yeah. -Wow. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:32 | |
-Yeah. -So I'm looking at this, the minstrels, | 0:45:32 | 0:45:35 | |
were they the top of the bill here? | 0:45:35 | 0:45:37 | |
Or, or... Pell? | 0:45:37 | 0:45:39 | |
-Uh... -What do you reckon? -But the American minstrels and Pell's | 0:45:40 | 0:45:43 | |
opera troupe are one and the same. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:45 | |
This is all referring to their performance. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
-Wow. -So... | 0:45:47 | 0:45:48 | |
Opening chorus, "Happy are we..." | 0:45:51 | 0:45:53 | |
I'm not going to say that. | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
-Yeah. -I can't. I mean, obviously this is of a time. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
Yes. Absolutely. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:00 | |
With this style of performance, | 0:46:01 | 0:46:02 | |
we have a real difficulty from a 21st-century perspective, | 0:46:02 | 0:46:05 | |
looking at the terminology. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:07 | |
-There's all sorts of instances on here, aren't there? -Yeah. -Yeah. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
MUSIC: Miss Lucy Long | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
Minstrel shows originally came from America. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
Over there, blacked up performers presented an often bawdy | 0:46:16 | 0:46:20 | |
and demeaning parody of African-American songs and manners. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:25 | |
The version that developed in Britain was aimed at a more | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
respectable family audience. | 0:46:28 | 0:46:31 | |
But the minstrels carried on presenting racial caricatures | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
in their shows. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:37 | |
So does this mean that my great-great-grandfather Dennis | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
-blacked up at some point? -Yes, he did. | 0:46:42 | 0:46:46 | |
He would have been part of the ensemble performance, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
they all blacked up at this point, so that's very difficult for us now. | 0:46:48 | 0:46:52 | |
Yeah. | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
I think it's fascinating, the range of materials you have here. | 0:46:56 | 0:46:59 | |
Is there anything of my great-great-grandfather at all? | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
There is. There is. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:05 | |
There is an image, it's very fuzzy, but it's something at least, | 0:47:05 | 0:47:09 | |
and I'll just show this to you. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
This is... | 0:47:13 | 0:47:14 | |
..a newspaper article. | 0:47:15 | 0:47:17 | |
Again, some of this text is similar to what we have just seen. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:23 | |
Right in the middle there, | 0:47:23 | 0:47:24 | |
you've got a representation of Pell's American Opera Troupe. | 0:47:24 | 0:47:29 | |
-Now, it's not a passport photo, is it? -It's not, it's fuzzy, but you can see in the middle there... | 0:47:29 | 0:47:35 | |
-There is a violinist. -There is a violinist. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:36 | |
He is right in the middle of that ensemble. | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
-He is, isn't he? Yeah. He's right in the middle. -Centre-stage. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
And this was at the Atheneum Lecture Hall, Bury St Edmunds. | 0:47:42 | 0:47:47 | |
Positively for two nights only. | 0:47:47 | 0:47:49 | |
-If you miss it... -That's it, it's gone. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
Maybe. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:54 | |
It's fabulous, isn't it? | 0:47:55 | 0:47:57 | |
What an amazing discovery. | 0:47:58 | 0:47:59 | |
It was a bit of a shock when I first discovered exactly the sort of | 0:48:14 | 0:48:18 | |
musician that Dennis was. | 0:48:18 | 0:48:20 | |
I don't really know quite how to feel about it at this point. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
It's... On one hand, it kind of amuses me, because I'm thinking, | 0:48:23 | 0:48:28 | |
"Yeah, that's what it was back then." | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
But on the other hand, I'm almost slightly horrified by it. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:34 | |
We've kind of started to learn about Dennis and the fact that he was | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
a violinist and he went on tour, and I was thinking, | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
"Yes, this is terrific." | 0:48:42 | 0:48:44 | |
And then that was the bombshell right there, wasn't it? | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
Bigamy, syphilis... | 0:48:51 | 0:48:52 | |
..blacking up as a minstrel. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
It's quite a variety... | 0:48:57 | 0:48:58 | |
..of ancestry. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:02 | |
Warwick has come to meet music historian Derek Scott | 0:49:10 | 0:49:13 | |
at the Atheneum in Bury St Edmunds, where Dennis Manning performed | 0:49:13 | 0:49:18 | |
with Pell's American Opera Troupe in 1858. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
Dennis Manning, my great-great-grandfather , | 0:49:24 | 0:49:27 | |
he was the son of an Irish labourer. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:29 | |
So how does he end up playing music of this type? | 0:49:29 | 0:49:33 | |
The thing is how does he get from Irish music | 0:49:33 | 0:49:36 | |
into African-American music? | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
And there are a surprising number of links, both socially and culturally. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:45 | |
In New York, | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
you'd have adjacent neighbourhoods of free black Americans | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
and poor Irish, | 0:49:51 | 0:49:53 | |
so there is some linking there, but musically, too, | 0:49:53 | 0:49:57 | |
if I play you a typical popular minstrel song of the period... | 0:49:57 | 0:50:02 | |
# The Camptown ladies sing this song, doo-dah, doo-dah | 0:50:02 | 0:50:06 | |
# The Camptown racetrack five miles long, oh, doo-dah day. # | 0:50:06 | 0:50:11 | |
You can see, to make that into a real... | 0:50:11 | 0:50:13 | |
I'd only really have to do something like this. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
That's amazing. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:22 | |
And it's suddenly a different style. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
Yeah, it is. And they are not poles apart at all, are they? | 0:50:24 | 0:50:28 | |
No, not really. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:29 | |
What makes it African-American is it has a device called | 0:50:29 | 0:50:34 | |
call and response. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
You've got the one bit like that, and then the... | 0:50:37 | 0:50:39 | |
# Doo-dah, doo-dah... # | 0:50:39 | 0:50:40 | |
I don't know how you are on doo-dahs, do you want to...? | 0:50:40 | 0:50:43 | |
-I'm not bad at a doo-dah. -If I do... | 0:50:43 | 0:50:44 | |
If you are accomplished with doo-dahs...? | 0:50:44 | 0:50:47 | |
-I'll try the narrative bit and you do the... -I'll get ready for a doo-dah, yeah. -Right. -OK. -So... | 0:50:47 | 0:50:51 | |
-# The Camptown ladies sing this song. -Doo-dah, doo-dah. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:56 | |
-# The Camptown racetrack five miles long. -Doo-dah, doo-dah day. # | 0:50:56 | 0:51:00 | |
-I don't know whether I did that right. -But that's right. It's a throwing it to and fro. -Yeah. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
So there is a kind of influence from the African-American side | 0:51:04 | 0:51:09 | |
into Irish music, and from Irish music into African-American music. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:13 | |
Now, we know that Dennis played the violin | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
in a very successful touring group. | 0:51:16 | 0:51:20 | |
Is that what he did throughout his career? | 0:51:20 | 0:51:21 | |
If I show you something a little later on, from the era, | 0:51:21 | 0:51:26 | |
right down the bottom there, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
you'll find comments on what he is doing later. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
This is an important notice to concert hall proprietors. | 0:51:31 | 0:51:34 | |
"Mr D Manning, late musical director of Pell's Opera Troupe." | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
-So he was musical director? -Yes, that's right. | 0:51:38 | 0:51:42 | |
"Sentimental vocalist, guitarist, and solo violinist." | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
Yeah, notice that. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
It is not just violinist now, is it? | 0:51:47 | 0:51:49 | |
It isn't. Sentimental vocalist, what does that mean in musical terms? | 0:51:49 | 0:51:53 | |
Even in the '50s, minstrels were playing some sentimental songs. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:59 | |
One of the great favourites of your great-great-grandfather's troupe | 0:51:59 | 0:52:02 | |
was the Hazel Dell. | 0:52:02 | 0:52:05 | |
# All alone my watch I'm keeping, in the Hazel Dell | 0:52:05 | 0:52:14 | |
# For my darling Nelly's near me sleeping | 0:52:15 | 0:52:21 | |
# Nelly, dear, farewell. # | 0:52:21 | 0:52:26 | |
-Oh, dear. -Warwick, you've sung, haven't you? | 0:52:26 | 0:52:29 | |
-I'm sure I've seen you in performances singing. -Not as well as you, sir. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:34 | |
-That's lovely. -Is there any chance...? | 0:52:34 | 0:52:36 | |
Lovely. Very sentimental. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:38 | |
I am trying to divert you away from asking me to sing. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
Do not ask me to sing. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:42 | |
I'm just wondering... | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
To join me in the chorus on this. | 0:52:44 | 0:52:48 | |
Without the tears rolling down you. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:50 | |
I don't know the words. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:52 | |
-Well, as it happens... -Oh, no! | 0:52:52 | 0:52:54 | |
By amazing coincidence... | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
-Oh, Derek. -.. I have some words. | 0:52:59 | 0:53:02 | |
Yeah, OK. So I've just got to join in with this bit here? | 0:53:02 | 0:53:06 | |
-Yeah? Just the chorus. -Yes, just the chorus. | 0:53:06 | 0:53:09 | |
But you must sing as well, don't stop, none of that. | 0:53:09 | 0:53:11 | |
-OK. -All right. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:12 | |
-Shall we try just the, "all alone...?" -Yeah, yeah. | 0:53:12 | 0:53:15 | |
BOTH: # All alone my watch I'm keeping, in the Hazel Dell | 0:53:15 | 0:53:25 | |
# For my darling Nelly's near me sleeping | 0:53:25 | 0:53:31 | |
# Nelly, dear, farewell. # | 0:53:31 | 0:53:36 | |
It's lovely. And that is quite touching to think that my | 0:53:38 | 0:53:42 | |
great-great-grandfather Dennis would have sung that as well, | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
-and now I can sing it. -Now you... | 0:53:45 | 0:53:47 | |
But the last document we have has to be the death certificate. | 0:53:47 | 0:53:52 | |
I'll let you see it. | 0:53:52 | 0:53:53 | |
I've seen a fair number of these on my travels over the last few days. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
1890. | 0:53:57 | 0:53:59 | |
Dennis Manning, died at 52. | 0:53:59 | 0:54:03 | |
-Oh, dear. -If you look at the address he's living at - 6 Betterton Street. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:08 | |
This is in the Covent Garden area. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:10 | |
We know that number six was actually a boarding house that was licensed | 0:54:10 | 0:54:15 | |
for 95 borders. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:19 | |
95? | 0:54:19 | 0:54:20 | |
Unfortunately, it does look as if... | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
..Dennis Manning was on his uppers when he died. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:29 | |
From the great days... | 0:54:31 | 0:54:32 | |
I hate to end on this kind of note for you. | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
Well, the journey was lovely. His story was inspiring and enjoyable. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:40 | |
But kind of ended too soon, in a way. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
And not particularly happily, obviously, for him. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:45 | |
You'd think he'd be at the peak of his career. | 0:54:45 | 0:54:48 | |
Yes. Yes, you would, wouldn't you? | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
It's just a lesson in the insecurity of the life of an artist. | 0:54:51 | 0:54:55 | |
Well, it's one that I know very well as an actor myself. | 0:54:55 | 0:54:57 | |
You know, you can never take this business for granted, | 0:54:57 | 0:55:00 | |
and you have to have a plan B. | 0:55:00 | 0:55:02 | |
Dennis, I don't think had a plan B. | 0:55:02 | 0:55:04 | |
There you are, the insecurity of the musician. | 0:55:04 | 0:55:06 | |
Absolutely. | 0:55:06 | 0:55:07 | |
Warwick's come to the ballroom at the Athenaeum, | 0:55:16 | 0:55:19 | |
where his great-great-grandfather, Dennis Manning, | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
performed more than 150 years earlier. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:25 | |
It's lovely to actually be somewhere that one of my ancestors | 0:55:26 | 0:55:31 | |
actually was. | 0:55:31 | 0:55:32 | |
To think that Dennis... | 0:55:38 | 0:55:39 | |
..was in this very room, | 0:55:40 | 0:55:43 | |
doing what he loved doing, entertaining people. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
That's a really lovely feeling. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:50 | |
And I'm just enjoying being here, | 0:55:53 | 0:55:56 | |
and kind of soaking the atmosphere up. | 0:55:56 | 0:55:58 | |
Part of me feels slightly guilty, | 0:56:05 | 0:56:08 | |
having unearthed all of these family secrets. | 0:56:08 | 0:56:12 | |
I'm sort of imagining my ancestors looking down, saying, | 0:56:14 | 0:56:17 | |
"Who do you think you are? Unearthing all our secrets, | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
"telling the world." | 0:56:21 | 0:56:22 | |
The thing that strikes me about their stories is there was | 0:56:27 | 0:56:29 | |
always a struggle, there was always a fight and a determination in them. | 0:56:29 | 0:56:34 | |
And I've got that as well. | 0:56:35 | 0:56:36 | |
I've got a determination to succeed and to get through life | 0:56:36 | 0:56:41 | |
in the best way possible, | 0:56:41 | 0:56:43 | |
and do things the right way as well. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:45 | |
So I've got a great deal of respect for... | 0:56:47 | 0:56:49 | |
..all of the people in the stories that I've told. | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 |