Phil's Xmas Bonus

Trawling through the family archives recently, I found a letter penned in December 1876 by none other than Benjamin Greycoat Woodford, one of my illustrious ancestors.  Written to an old and trusted friend, it describes in some detail his preparations for the festive season and provides a fascinating insight into life 130 years ago.

 

As you will see, many of the issues he encounters have striking parallels and lessons for us today.  There are also remarkable historical references.  I wonder, for instance, whether old Benjamin could have foreseen just how important his letter to Maria Sklodowska would prove to be?  Would the young girl – who was later better known to the world as Marie Curie – ever have pursued her study of radiation without the intervention of my forebears? 

 

 

Benjamin Greycoat Woodford photographed in the late 1860s.  The family resemblance is striking.  Even the uPVC windows look familiar.

 

My Dearest Edgar

 

I must confess that as I reflect upon the forthcoming yuletide, I am overwhelmed with more than a little trepidation.  The servants inform me that few local geese are of a standard worthy to grace my table and that the flock has been severely diminished by an outbreak of influenza from the Orient.  My children, meanwhile, insist on the vulgar new convention of present-giving and demand precise replicas of a contraption invented recently by one Alexander Graham Bell.  If reports are to be believed, his ‘telephone’ permits intercourse between parties along a telegraph wire, although quite why one would wish to use his confounded device, I am unable to fathom.  It seems to me counter to nature and the bountiful wisdom of God that man should seek to communicate other than in person or by his own hand in correspondence such as ours.

 

The recent news from town of a poisoning does little to calm my nervous disposition.  A Russian émigré, while dining on fish in a fashionable London restaurant, has fallen victim to a merciless assassination that some claim to be the work of his fellow countrymen.  If indeed this foul act has been sanctioned by the Tsar himself, one can only fear for the tidings that will greet us in eighteen hundred and seventy seven.  I have written this day to Dr Kowalcyck in Warsaw, urging him to engage his young protégé, Maria Sklodowska, in the investigation of the unusual and shameful circumstances of the Russian’s demise and to report back to me in due course.  This youthful savant seems able to provide remarkable insights and may even pursue an independent career in science.

 

In such distressing times, I can only comfort myself with thought of the entertainment that my children plan for Christmas Day itself.  Each and every year, after the ladies retire, we are treated to a new instalment of a morality play that provides guests with much merriment and mirth.  It is a woeful tale of a pauper family by the name of Trotter that inhabits the village of Peckham to the south of London.  Two brothers constantly try to ape their betters and attempt to improve their station in life through ill-advised and illicit schemes.  Whilst we laugh heartily at their misguided escapades, there is a strange pathos that accompanies the performance that is hard to convey in writing.

 

Dearest Edgar, I must now close, for the candlelight grows weak and I am weary at the end of a hard day.  Pray write to me soon with your own news.

 

I remain, sir, as ever, your trusted friend and confidant.

 

Benjamin