Reflections - An interview with SPVR

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Life Behind the Gate

For the first time in many years, the gate into our house is shut. Not to keep us in but to keep others out. I will shortly be going out to put a table in place for delivery drivers to leave parcels. And attaching a few helpful instructions on the other side of the gate. Last night's statement from Nicola and the legislation that is coming shortly from Westminster and Holyrood will create a framework designed to protect us all. Our role as more vulnerable oldsters, whose bodily systems are gently declining as we age, is to protect ourselves from becoming a burden on our health service, our social services. People with serious conditions, whose immune systems are relatively ineffective for whatever reason, sick babies, need to able to get to the front of the queue without people like us who can take action to avoid, or at least postpone catching the bug, getting in the way. Reports coming to me from elsewhere suggest that there is still a minority who may need something a...

Genealogy Series: Betsy (or Elizabeth) Esplin Bell (1858-1930).

Betsy (or Elizabeth) Esplin Bell (1858-1930). She had a long criminal record driven by her addiction to drink, but was she her husband’s victim? by Stewart Stevenson. Betsy was born on 26 th January 1858 in Dundee to David Bell, a carpenter, and his wife, Agnes Sandeman. i Father registered the birth, but is recorded as “Not Present”. George T Bisset-Smith, the Registration Examiner, published his book “Vital Registration”, the manual for Scottish Registrars in 1907. ii In it he states that a “liberal interpretation” should be given to the word “Present” in this context but also states that “Not Present” must not be used. I suspect that leaves most genealogists, me included, little the wiser as to what “Present” was actually supposed to mean. So let’s pass on to the story. Betsy’s parents married in 1856, iii with her mother Agnes making her mark, an ”X”, rather than signing the registration record, indicating that she was illiterate. Her husband David signed. ...

Reflection on Inflexions

As a mathematician, it is more or less inevitable that I count things. My spouse ticks those boxes as well. Indeed such counting is not always conscious. If you ask her at the top of a flight of stairs, how many steps there were, quick as a flash, the answer will come back. Two numbers in my life have been growing. One by modest increments, the other by a dramatic leap. The big leap is in the number of emails received, always a key indicator of constituent engagement in issues that matter to them. And with businesses, in particular, facing drop-offs in their activity because of "the bug" it is hardly surprising that contact from them has risen. The late Andy Groves was the chief executive at Intel, the company that provides the central processor in most of our computers, the "brains" of our machines. His autobiography was entitled, "Only the Paranoid Survive". I should have a copy in my library but have a suspicion that I leant it to someone. Irrit...

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