Who Do You Think You Are? : Larry Lamb
I wasn’t planning to blog about this (was so knackered last week that I just couldn’t manage it after the Seb Coe episode, and thought tonight would be the same). But it was excellent: a beautifully paced episode touching upon a lot of fascinating topics, from adoption in the 1920s to the culture of travelling fairground families, as well as emigration from England to America in the 1950s. The life of Lamb’s grandmother was particularly interesting, but his enigmatic grandfather, of whom nothing is known after the 1920s, was intriguing too.
[Update to post: I've just looked up his grandmother on Scotland's People. I had thought about doing this as I was watching, but didn't get to it until I saw on Twitter just now that others were doing the same and finding her background interesting. Her name was Catherine Walker Burns Rose, and she was born in Milne's Court, Edinburgh in 1908. Her mother, Catherine Walker Burns, was a confectioner and her father, John Rose, a "licensed pedlar". Although they weren't married, both of them signed the birth certificate. I briefly posted an image of it here, thinking it was probably OK as I'd paid for the download, but have had a crisis of conscience after checking their terms and removed it; but of course you should go there yourself if you want to do any more digging. It is a wonderful site, and there will no doubt be more to discover about Catherine's family.]
Anyway, for the first time in this series, the programme has woken me up and made me want to start researching my own stuff right now. I can’t tonight, because it’s late and I have to get up absurdly early tomorrow; but I feel inspired. There was nothing in the episode relating to my own research, so the sense of excitement has come purely from the way Lamb’s story was presented.
As for Thomas Day, aka Martini Bartlett the lion-tamer, it’s a shame there aren’t better images of him online; I do think that he manages to transcend his regrettable facial hair. More info on him on this page of the National Fairground Archive website (scroll down a bit, there are a few interesting sentences on him buried in the text).
Martini Bartlett (Thomas Day), the Lion King. May be (c) the BBC; I’m not sure.
Lion-tamer? Wow! What a charismatic face!
Well it is indeed a shame that there are no better photographs. And your blog made me curious about the programme, I guess I’ll be doing some research on my own.
I watched this particular episode on iPlayer last night (I never watch actual TV when it’s actually on TV anymore; I’ve spent the last few nights working through the series as M is away in Hong Kong) and was completely gripped by it (though I am generally pretty gripped by the programme anyway), and was TOTALLY bowled over by the lion tamer guy. He is soooooooooo handsome. Lovely that he found her a brother, as well! Pleased that there was more to find out about Catherine – when I saw on one of the documents that she was born in Edinburgh I was hoping they would go to Edinburgh to trace things there, but they didn’t of course – though, I suppose the quest to find living relatives was obviously more important to him, and very obviously made for more compelling tv.
Oh hello! Yes, it was great … I might even watch it again at some point. The Emilia Fox one is good too. I haven’t gotten beyond that myself yet, as the past few weeks have been so busy. All hail iPlayer.
Planning to watch Emilia tonight while I do something useful (ironing, sewing on name tapes, or something). All hail iPlayer indeed. AND 4od.