Family ties in The Great War

Hi all,
It's remembrance Sunday today and it is also 100 years since the armistice in 1918. We are remembering all the soldiers who died for us to have peace. I recently found out that my Great Grandad on my Dads side was in the first world war as a Sargent. We have a picture of him hanging in the living room, but I have never asked about it for some unknown reason.

I am telling you the story of my Great Grandad: James Gormley.

He was born in 1893 in Glasgow, Scotland where he lived with his parents. He went to the local school and left when he was 13 years old. He then started work at Parkhead forge where he saw someone get burnt to death which scarred  him for the rest of his life.
He went into the Highland light Infantry in 1909 when he was 16 years old, he lied about his age to get away from his abusive father. He was illiterate, but he got away with it by saying he was checking that the other soldiers could read and write and would also get them to write the forms on the blackboard and he would copy them down. An officer realised he could not read and write and helped him. He then worked his way up through the infantry and became a Sergeant.

He was 21 when the war started in 1914 he was given a unit to lead and went to the front in France. The infantry was wiped out and he joined onto the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders where he stayed till the end of the war where he got shrapnel somewhere in his body which suggests that he was either involved in an explosion or he was close to one going off nearby.

After the war, he was very poor and had to sell a lot of his medals to get by. We only have one medal left and some cap badges. He also showed signs of having PTSD, a lot of people did after the war, which caused him to drink alcohol excessively.
After everything that happened my Great Grandad did find love, get married and have children.

I now have a personal connection to the Great War and I will remember my Great Grandad for the sacrifice he made fighting along with millions of soldiers and will keep remembering him every year on the 11th November at 11am.

Cap badge

Cap badge

War medal (front)

War medal (back)

I passed my driving test!

Hi all
I am super excited because I have passed my driving test! Yay! This was the second time I took the test and I cannot believe I have passed. Afterwards, my instructor confessed that he thought I wouldn’t pass this time as the lessons weren’t great leading up to the test. (I didn’t think I’d pass either.)
I got 4 minor faults out of 15 which is very good. Before the test, I was really nervous and freaking out but when I got into the car, the instructor was talking to me normally and made me feel calm.
I’m now waiting for my lisence in the post and then I will buy myself a car; I saved some money and hoping to get a Ford Fiesta as my first car.

I wish all of you luck taking your driving test and don’t worry if you don’t pass first time ( I didn’t) as many people don’t.

See you all soon
Julia x

What happened this week?

It's been a week since I last posted and it has been a productive one for me. I'll try and not bore you all to sleep by the end! Haha

On Tuesday my Mum came back from seeing my grandparents and she brought me a pair of slippers, I call them Tinker Bell slippers, you can see why

I also started back at work from the 3 day weekend, I'm a part time cleaner for a woman. I was tired waking up early again, but we all were! I got back into the routine and kept myself busy for the mornings.

During the week, I started back on the sewing machine, learning the basics, seams, corners, zips etc, and I'm hoping to make a make up bag soon. I haven't done sewing on the machine since school so I have to start from scratch again, but I'll pick it back up quite quickly.

I've also started to eat more healthy as well, eating fruit everyday and cutting down on how much junk food I eat. I started to feel rough at the start, that just shows how much junk I have been eating! I have also decided to cut down how much caffeine I drink and I have been very grumpy this week and been getting headaches. My family were probably sick of me!

I hope you enjoyed reading this, hope to see you again
Julia xx

My (un)interesting day

Hello all,

Here I am, sitting at my laptop listening to relaxing piano music on YouTube, trying to think of how to write about my day; I don't believe anything interesting has happened, but you be the judge of that.

I haven't been up to much but I did take a trip up to my local Tesco this morning and brought a yellow flaming Katy which I put up straight away on my windowsill in my bedroom. I loved the pink one my Dad got me for my birthday that I had to buy another one. (That's lasted since February!)

Over lunch I watched a TV show that I've recently gotten into: Downton Abbey. I never watched it when it first came on TV, but my Mum loved it and tuned in every week. I'm only on series 2 at the moment and I can't stop watching it, I'm in love with it! While I was watching, I decided to put some of my old clothes for sale on Ebay. I might get a few pound for them.

My Mum is visiting her parents, my grandparents, so it's just Dad and me until Tuesday and today I made us some carbonara for Tea, with soft cheese, bacon and an onion. It was delicious! My Dad couldn't stop raving about it!

That brings us to now. Me writing to tell you about my day. Nothing special happened but it was my day off and I was resting for most of it.

I'm not planing anything special for the bank holiday Monday, I'm spending another day at home until I go back to work on Tuesday.

I hope you all enjoyed reading about my day, see you soon

Julia xx 

Check out what I saw at Scarborough sea life

Hi all,
I went to sea life while I was on Holiday in Scarborough. I had a great time looking at the sea creatures and animals! My favourite part was the Seals as I got to see them being fed and there was a Seagull that was trying to steal their food! How cheeky! The Sea Life staff called the Seagull Steven as it always comes at feeding time.
I took my camera and got some photos:

Want to see what I saw in Whitby?

Hi all,
When I was in Scarborough I took a day trip with my Auntie to Whitby. I took my camera with me and took some photos of the beautiful coast, St Mary's church and the Abbey. I din't go in  the Abbey, I only took photos of the outside. I walked up the 199 steps to get up, which I was very happy about! Walking up, it didn't seem like there were so many steps because they are so close together, but I did have to stop in the middle!

Captain Cook's ship

Harbour

Harbour

Me stopping on the 199 steps

St Mary's church clock

St Mary's church (front)

St Mary's church (side)

St Mary's church graveyard

Abbey

Abbey

View of St Mary's church and coast

Coast

I'm with Vikings at: Jorvik viking centre

Hi all,
While I was in York, I went to visit the Jorvik Viking Centre. I throughly enjoyed my experienced and was very pleased with the ride that took me around what an authentic Viking village would have looked like and how they lived in that time. During the ride there were some smells throughout, particularly when passing an outside toilet in the village. I asked a member of staff how they got the smells and I was told they burn the smells (they didn't tell me what the smells consisted of, for obvious reasons) below the ride and it rises up to the surface. I wonder how strong it would smell after a couple of years! Yuck! 
I took some photos during my time on the ride:

Travel back in time at York castle museum

Hi all,
I was recently in York visiting my Uncle and I thought I would visit York castle museum. I got to see what it was like living in Victorian houses, toys from the past century, what houses looked like in the past, world war one trenches and uniforms and I even saw a real life Victorian cobble street in the middle of the museum, Wow!
I had a great time and took some photos

Victorian living room (wealthy family)

view of cobbled street from the top

Victorian bedroom

Children's toys from the past

1950's kitchen

19th century fireplace

Victorian fireplace

Victorian piano

Victorian cobbled street

This is the cobbled street that I had heard about before and I was excited to see it as it shows what it  would have looked like in Victorian times. You can also enter replica shops and what they would sell to customers. There is a sweet shop which you can buy sweets that they would have had in that period.

Me in a prison cell

I was by myself at the castle, but this nice woman asked if I wanted my photo taken as I was on my own. I thought she was very nice to ask as she was the only person who offered throughout the castle.

world war 1 uniform

In a prison cell inside the castle prison

You get to see what the castle prison would have looked like in the past. In every cell you go in, there is a motion sensor on a projector which plays a short clip of a person who would have been in the prison at different times. I really enjoyed listening/watching why people went into the prison and what their fate would be, but I could hear some people grumbling as they thought it took too long!