George

I know I want to write about George, but I have no idea how to approach it.  The grisly nature of the end of his life makes it best suited to a piece for adults,  I imagined from the start (the idea has been lurking in the grey matter for probably a year) that it would be a ‘true’ short story /a biographical short story/non-fiction story – I have no idea if these terms are correct and even if terms exist for such a thing.  Anyway I realise now that I have written a sentence or two that I don’t have enough information to make it strictly a true story.  Can there even be such a thing as a ‘true story’?  It can only ever be the writers perspective.  Anyway – further to the lack of facts,  I really think you can have all the facts and still not know the ‘story’ why things happened, why people made certain decisions.  We can’t always know this for all that happens in our daily lives with the people we know best, so any attempt to do that in a story about someone who lived in a completely different time – not going to try!

So!  First, to get it straight in my head – I am going to write an ‘letter’ in my blog which draws together the information I have on this fellow and to see if it helps me get to know my imaginary version of him.  If that goes well I’ll develop my imaginary version of my great great great grandfather and see if he fills out enough to star in a short story (fiction or literary biography????).  Wish me luck!

This is what I know of my great great great grandfather George Henry Ashcroft.  The information I have is patchy but I’m not going to let that stop me.  This quote from Michael King on writing Princess TePuea’s  biography sums up the experience “researching and writing about  her bore a close resemblance to that of a whale observed from a whaling ship : every now and then the object of the chase surfaced and blew, often in unexpected places; but then sounded and disappeared again.  What was going on in the vasty depths, where all the behavioural and motivational decisions were being made?”  To continue the metaphor George is a shy unreported on whale – only revealing a few square inches of tail to mark the milestones of his life right up until the end –  in which thanks to the graphic newspaper reporting of the time (I previously thought gory details were a modern media melody!) a microscope happens to be focused on his final gasping rise into view.

I’ve known about this man since I was a teenager when my dad became interested in family history and took me on a few of his day trips to the Alexander Turnbull library in Wellington.  During my university years I felt in a self absorbed adolescent sort of way that I had a link with him, if only for our belonging to Dunedin. I made a few cursory attempts to find George’s grave in the unmarked ‘straight to hell’ section of the Opoho cemetery.  Depression was another perceived link, there is a lot of it about in my family.  I’m not so sure now though whether depression was a central theme in George’s life or whether it was risk.

 

I’ll start the facts at the beginning with what little I know.  George was the first born child of Sophia and George Ashcroft.  He was born in Blackweir, Cardiff Wales  in 1860 a few years before Alice inWonderland was published, and before the last public execution in England.  He lived in Cardiff for his first 17 years.  His father was a railway engineer.  During this time Cardiff was growing very quickly (population jumped from 18000 to 60000 beetween 1851 and 1871, then to 160000 by 1900).  Cardiff had flourishing industries exporting coal, iron and cereal – the railway played an important role transporting exports.  George’s parents produced three more sons James, Albert and Edgar in the 5 years after his birth.    Wow, lots of boys – just the two keep me humble.  I imagine they were better behaved than mine.  The first sewers were built in Cardiff around the time George and his brothers were growing up – improving the dirty and over-crowded conditions.   However it wasn’t until after George aged 17 and his family immigrated to New Zealand that Cardiff got its first infirmary.   Grim.  I wonder what they did for fun……