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00:00There's something wrong with this mirror. You're telling me.
00:05Comedian Paul Merton has been performing on stage, radio and television for over 30 years.
00:12I was born in Fulham. I'm one of two children.
00:15I remember the day that my sister, the baby girl, arrived.
00:20And my family were never particularly talkative, so I knew my mother had gone to hospital because she wasn't there.
00:26But nobody told me why.
00:28What was the president's excuse for being in bed with a lobster, though?
00:32We're in love.
00:34Quite often, you start trying to make one of your parents laugh.
00:37And I can remember sort of being about five or six and putting on my dad's clothes, you know, so
00:42the jacket's far too big and the trousers are too big.
00:45And just walking into a room with a trilby hat or something, and I've got my mother laughing at this.
00:50And that joyful sound of your mother laughing is something that sort of stayed with me.
00:55Paul was close to his late parents, especially to his mum.
01:00She was fostered after her parents died when she was just a baby in Ireland.
01:06My mother's father, I only found out sort of probably sort of about 20 years ago, that he died at
01:12sea, and I didn't know that.
01:14And she actually had a photograph of him, which we'd never seen.
01:17It came up in conversation, and she produced this photograph.
01:21Paul lives in London with his wife, Suki.
01:24Now, I'm genuinely really intrigued to hear about your mother's side of the family.
01:28Because she was adopted, we really know nothing about her.
01:33I don't know how much there is to discover.
01:35We are a product of my parents.
01:38My parents were a product of their parents.
01:40I am sort of interested to find out now part of that stuff that is me.
01:46You might have found yourself married to somebody who's got a bit of sort of something going for them,
01:50rather than what you've had to put up with over the years.
01:52What?
01:52Yes, exactly.
01:53And Paul knows even less about his father's side of the family.
01:58My dad's mother, there's a picture of her looking sober.
02:02And I believe she was quite sort of humorous.
02:07She died a few years before I was born.
02:09Well, this tea's horrible.
02:13So, the family history is a mystery.
02:17I couldn't speculate, I have absolutely no idea whether I'm related to the Duke of Cumberland or any other pub.
02:23I don't know if I'm related to the Duke of Cumberland or any other pub.
02:53MUSIC PLAYS
03:02MUSIC CONTINUES
03:02MUSIC CONTINUES
03:03Hello there, how you doing?
03:04Not bad. How are you?
03:05Good to see you.
03:06To start his journey, Paul has come to see his sister Angela,
03:09who has their family's photo albums.
03:13I don't know if you recognise the case.
03:15Yes, I've seen the case before.
03:16Yeah.
03:17I've a vague memory of it being in the house or something.
03:19Yeah, Dad bought this to the hospital when you were born.
03:22Right.
03:22With all your baby clothes in it.
03:24Oh, right, he wasn't hoping to take me home, in it.
03:26I mean, it's ancient, this, obviously.
03:28Yes, what do you mean obviously?
03:30LAUGHTER
03:31We've got in here, it's all, like, their wedding album.
03:35So, you've got the Irish family on one side and the English family on the other side.
03:40Yeah, there's Mum and Dad.
03:41Aunty Nelly, who was, they were sisters.
03:44It's a very happy family group, everybody's smiling.
03:47Yeah, yeah.
03:48I've got some photos here that, when we had a holiday in Hemsby.
03:51Yes.
03:53And do you remember this one?
03:54Yes.
03:55Donkey Derby.
03:55Yes, just before the incident.
03:57Dad decided that, as we set off, he decided that he would give me a head start.
04:02Yeah.
04:02By hitting the donkey very hard on the arse.
04:05Yeah, I remember that, and it bolted, didn't it?
04:07Yeah.
04:09Oh, there's that one in Morden, that was when we were older, much older.
04:13Yes, yellow was the colour then, wasn't it?
04:15Yeah, your shirt and the wallpaper match.
04:16Shirt and the wallpaper sort of emerged into one.
04:19LAUGHTER
04:22Well, have you seen this photo before?
04:24It's James Power.
04:25Yes.
04:26That's our grandfather.
04:26Yes, I have seen that.
04:28My mother's father.
04:29He died at sea, so she said, while she was very young.
04:35So she never knew him.
04:37Because what happened was, our grandmother, that's our mum's mum,
04:41she was told by a priest that her husband had drowned at sea.
04:45Right.
04:46And because she was told in such a way, it came as such a shock,
04:49it wasn't done in a very sympathetic way.
04:52She went into premature labour and died in childbirth,
04:58but the baby was born.
04:59He only survived three days, unfortunately.
05:02Dear.
05:03So, like, mum and her sister Nellie, their whole life was turned upside down.
05:07Mm.
05:07Because they lost their mum, their dad.
05:11Imagine that.
05:16Paul's mum, Mary-Anne, and her sister Nellie,
05:19spent time in children's homes after their parents died within weeks of each other.
05:25Found some documents, death certificates and birth certificates.
05:29Oh, really?
05:30Here is the death certificate of our grandmother, Julia Power.
05:35OK.
05:36It says that she was 27 years old.
05:39Housekeeper.
05:40And she had a little baby boy.
05:44This one is the death certificate of our uncle, would have been our uncle, James Power.
05:49Oh, right.
05:50Oh, dear.
05:51Three days old he was.
05:52Child of...
05:53Child of Sailor.
05:54OK.
05:56So he was premature, it says, about six months, three days.
05:59He died on the 10th of June, and she died on the 13th of June.
06:05So the son died first.
06:07Yeah, I thought it was the other way round.
06:12And this one is the birth certificate of James Power, our grandfather, James Power.
06:20OK.
06:21It says here, date and place of birth, 1889, 24 May, Crook.
06:25That's a place rather than an occupation.
06:27Yeah, yeah.
06:28It's in Waterford, I think.
06:29Is it?
06:30OK.
06:30Yeah.
06:31So all we really have on our grandfather is we have got the photograph, which we've looked at,
06:37and this birth certificate from the 20th of May, 1889, and the fact that we think he drowned at sea,
06:44we don't know anything else about him, do we?
06:46No, nothing.
06:46Whatever you find out, it's going to be more than you know now.
06:49Yes.
06:50It couldn't be less.
06:51No.
07:01When you see it written down in black and white, this is a terrible, traumatic experience.
07:07Three people dying all within a few days of each other, mother, father, son.
07:14I realise now perhaps that's one of the reasons why my mother didn't want to tell us about
07:18this stuff.
07:20Just seeing the photograph of James Power, you sort of wonder about that character.
07:24You wonder about how did they die, how did he die at sea, what did he do before that?
07:29Ireland would seem to be the place to go, and this little place called Crook, the district
07:33of Waterford, there may be more information there which we can find out.
07:45Paul has come to Crook in County Waterford, where his grandfather James Power was born
07:50in 1889.
07:56He's heading for the village of Passage East, where James and his family lived.
08:03I don't know much about him, so I'm trying to hope that I can get some sort of flesh
08:09on the bones of the character by coming here and finding out as much about his early life
08:13as possible.
08:16I've been to parts of Ireland before many times, but never been to here before.
08:20And just looking over, this scene could be 100 years ago.
08:23It looks like this is very much how my grandfather might well have remembered it.
08:42The first piece of information is a census return from 1901.
08:47There's a whole load of powers here.
08:49There's my grandfather James Power there, at the age of 12.
08:54I'm a profession scholar, not married, well that's really clear at that point.
08:58So here's his father, my great-grandfather Edmund Power, 40 years old.
09:03And there's Mary, 15, Ellen, 3, and Anastasia.
09:08That's a rather unusual name.
09:10She's 60.
09:11Is she the mother?
09:12What is that word?
09:13So I don't even say...
09:13Servant.
09:14Servant.
09:17Presumably you'd need a bit of money to employ a servant, would you?
09:19If you have a look at Edmund's occupation, he is basically an agricultural labourer.
09:26I see, yes.
09:26So he isn't well off.
09:29He's actually at the absolute bottom rung of the social ladder in Ireland, the landless labourer class.
09:36So in terms of Anastasia Gough, as it turns out, she is a relative.
09:40She's the classic maiden aunt, who never married.
09:44Edmund's wife passed away.
09:47As you can see, he's a widower.
09:49Oh, I see, yes.
09:50And as a landless labourer, as somebody who had to earn his living by the sweat of his brow,
09:55Anastasia has clearly come into the house and she is in effect looking after the young children.
09:59So that's the 1901 census.
10:01Thankfully, we have the equivalent for 1911, ten years later.
10:06Ah, Grandfather James, yes.
10:08There he is in the middle there.
10:10He's down here as a farm labourer, which is what his father did.
10:13He hasn't been able to break out of that cycle, which of course was very, very difficult.
10:17There is no reason to believe that he would ever be able to break out.
10:21How could somebody break out of that cycle?
10:25It was practically impossible.
10:27We have another record now, which is rather different.
10:30It perhaps gives an insight into the type of lifestyle that he was leading.
10:34Oh, case of complaint.
10:36So this is in trouble with the law.
10:39This is rather tricky to read.
10:41Do you have a...
10:41As it happens, we have a transcript.
10:43All right, so here we are.
10:45So this is the cause of complaint.
10:46The defendant on Wednesday the 9th day of August 1911 at Johnstown, Waterford,
10:51was guilty of riotous behaviour.
10:53Convicted in order to pay for penalty one shillings for cost nine shillings
10:57and in fault of payment to be imprisoned in Waterford jail for one week without hard labour
11:01unless said fines and costs be paid sooner.
11:05So, riotous behaviour.
11:07This isn't drunk and disorderly.
11:09This isn't the proverbial...
11:10That's what it sounds like.
11:11But riotous behaviour suggests something which is much more intense,
11:15much more protracted and much more serious.
11:19So drink was involved, we think.
11:21We don't know, do we?
11:21We don't know.
11:22We don't know.
11:22There's no details, which is perhaps a little bit of pity.
11:25It would have been more fortunate if we'd had more detail in a petty session as I can.
11:29And do we know whether he paid the fine?
11:31We do.
11:32Which would have been very, very difficult for a landless labourer.
11:35In some respects, he might almost have preferred to have gone to jail.
11:38But of course, if you had gone to jail, word would get around.
11:41So there would be absolutely no prospect whatsoever of him finding any similar employment
11:46anywhere in the locality.
11:48Not looking good.
11:50No, it's not looking good.
11:51It's not looking good.
11:52Well, I suppose in terms of looking forward and what happens next,
11:56obviously the big thing that happens next was the outbreak of the First World War.
12:01When war broke out in 1914, all of Ireland was still part of Britain's empire.
12:08Young Irishmen like Paul's grandfather were encouraged to enlist in the British Army.
12:14And this is the type of advertisement that the British were having to introduce in the summer of 1914.
12:20God Save Ireland, when you sing these words, you think you really mean them.
12:25But since the war began, what have you done to help make them a reality?
12:29You must join an Irish regiment and learn to sing God Save Ireland with a gun in your hands.
12:37We don't at the moment have any indication whether my grandfather, James, joined the services.
12:43Given his background, it's quite possible that he did.
12:47And if you were going to find out, then a military archive is a good place to go.
12:51Right, OK. So where would that be?
12:53That would be in Dublin.
12:54Dublin. Dublin.
12:55Well, he's the right age.
12:56He's got the right circumstances.
12:58Yep.
12:59So you can only tell me so much.
13:01I can.
13:01But you're telling it to be beautiful.
13:10I'm learning stuff today that my mother would never have known because she just had the basic facts of her
13:16father's life.
13:17She certainly wouldn't have known anything about him being arrested for riotous behaviour.
13:21I don't know how she would have taken that.
13:25Partly, I think she might have laughed.
13:28In a list of crimes, it's perhaps not the worst thing you could possibly do.
13:32It's making him more of a character.
13:38Paul has travelled to Dublin.
13:41He wants to find out if his grandfather, James Power, volunteered to serve in the First World War.
13:50He's come to Richmond Barracks to meet military historian, Lar Joy.
13:57We're very, very lucky that we actually have his attestation form or his enlistment form into the British Army for
14:03the Royal Irish Regiment.
14:04You can see it here.
14:05Very neat handwriting, James Power.
14:07So he would have filled this all out by hand himself.
14:09Yep.
14:09This is the first time we've seen his height.
14:11Five foot nine.
14:12I suppose that's reasonably tall for that.
14:13That's reasonably tall for that period, yeah.
14:14My mother was about sort of 5'8", my dad was about 5'9", and I'm 6'1", 6'2",
14:21so I wondered whether I'd inherited height from him.
14:24About 150,000 Irishmen join up in 1914 and 1915, and overall we think about 220,000 Irishmen served in
14:33World War I.
14:33Maybe at this point in mid-1915, perhaps people aren't fully aware of exactly what the First World War involves
14:39in terms of the conditions that they'd be fighting in.
14:41So this would be an adventure.
14:43At the age of 23, it's a way of getting away from Ireland, seeing the world.
14:47Everyone has a perception that the war is going to be over in a couple of months.
14:51A year later, that perception disappears.
14:54What we have here is very, very interesting, because this is a charge seat, so he has offences against his
15:00name.
15:00Highly irregular conduct in barracks.
15:05Wow.
15:06He's got four days CB.
15:08Confined to barracks.
15:09Confined to barracks.
15:10And then later on, as we come up to Christmas, December 1915, this time he's absent without a pass, so
15:16that's a major no-no.
15:17If you go out at night, the one thing you have to be is up in the morning for breakfast.
15:21Now, you might mentally and physically mightn't be in the best shape, but you just need to be there.
15:53Yes.
15:56You might have to be there.
15:56But, of course, one of the key moments in Irish history in the 20th century happens in 1916 in Dublin,
16:02which is the 1916 Rising.
16:07On the 24th of April 1916, Irish Republicans launched a rebellion against British rule, which became known as the Easter
16:15Rising.
16:18Britain responded by sending troops onto the streets of Dublin.
16:23Among these soldiers was Paul's grandfather, James Power.
16:27After six days of fighting, British forces had either killed or captured all the rebels.
16:35This is a very interesting photograph of the aftermath of the Rising.
16:40And these are British Army officers with a captured rebel flag, which is the Irish Republic flags.
16:46And in most of our history books, this would have always been described as British Army officers with captured flag.
16:51But this is actually the officers of your grandfather's regiment, the Royal Irish Regiment.
16:56Oh, right.
16:57The majority of these men in this photograph were actually Irish.
17:01So my grandfather would know these men?
17:02He would.
17:03These were the people who would have commanded him.
17:05Yeah, extraordinary.
17:08Your grandfather's units were very, very heavily involved in the final parts of the surrender.
17:13So this comes as a huge shock, shock to the soldiers, to people like your grandfather.
17:17Well, he's enlisted to fight in one battle, which is the battle against the Germans.
17:20And suddenly here he is on the streets of Dublin, shooting at Irishmen.
17:25After the Easter Rising, Republican prisoners were held at Richmond Barracks.
17:31Sixteen were executed.
17:32A brutal punishment that changed public opinion and made martyrs of the rebels.
17:40What had begun as an unpopular rebellion was now widely supported in Ireland.
17:46Meanwhile, Paul's grandfather's regiment, the Royal Irish, were preparing to leave Ireland to fight in the First World War.
17:55In the fire, we know what happened to your grandfather then, after he leaves Dublin.
17:59Embarked Devonport.
18:01Where's Devonport?
18:01Is that in England?
18:03Right, OK.
18:03And disembarked in Salonica.
18:05Salonica, yeah.
18:06In Greece.
18:07So when is this then?
18:08When does he arrive in Salonica?
18:10So this is in September 1916.
18:12So after the 1916 Rising, he's been sent east.
18:16And then later on, as you go into 1917, and this time he's sent to Alexandria in Egypt.
18:21Wow.
18:26After serving in Greece and Egypt with the Royal Irish Regiment,
18:30James Power's final engagement of the war was at the Battle of Jerusalem in December 1917.
18:39Then the final element then, of course, is the medal card,
18:42which shows you the medals that he would have been awarded.
18:44So the medals that he has are the two standard medals,
18:48the Victory Medal and the British Medal.
18:50So I wonder what happened to those medals?
18:53I think if you just read that part there.
18:54OK, which is retired?
18:56Yes, returned.
18:57Oh, returned.
19:00So why would the medals be returned?
19:02That's unusual.
19:03Is there any date of when they were returned?
19:05No dates when they were returned, but the adjutant has just written down returned.
19:10Wow.
19:12A man who spent most of his life living in a little village until the outbreak of war.
19:17He's seen a lot in three years.
19:20Hmm.
19:24Why were the medals returned?
19:26If there was any way of following that thread and picking at that thread
19:29and seeing if we can find out more about that story,
19:31to find his reason for returning medals that he earned?
19:38Paul has come to the military archives in Dublin,
19:41where he's meeting historian Dermot Ferreter.
19:45I found a document here relating to your grandfather and Waterford.
19:52Passage East, officers and members of B Company,
19:553rd Battalion, East Waterford Brigade, from March 20th to July 21.
19:59There he is, second one on the list, James Power, 1st Lieutenant.
20:03Is there RIP?
20:03So how come he's RIP there?
20:06This file here dates from around 1935.
20:08It means he was dead at the time this list was compiled.
20:11In 1935.
20:13Right, OK.
20:14What is this?
20:14He's in some sort of army again?
20:16Have a look at that last line there.
20:18Collecting IRA lorries under activities.
20:21So he's a member of the IRA.
20:24Wow.
20:26This is the old IRA from the early 1920s.
20:30The military wing of the Irish Republican movement
20:34that was fighting for independence from Britain.
20:36That's extraordinary.
20:38When he joins the army in 1915,
20:40he sort of signs documents where he's identified as British.
20:44And here he is in March 1920,
20:46just the next year after coming out of the army,
20:48and he's a member of the IRA.
20:50Well, he's been in many theatres of conflict already.
20:53And now he's in a new theatre of conflict back home.
21:00The Irish War of Independence started in 1919
21:03when Republicans declared a breakaway government in Dublin.
21:08They recruited men like Paul's grandfather
21:11into their own rebel army,
21:13now known as the old IRA.
21:16They waged a guerrilla war against British forces.
21:21We don't need to romanticise this conflict.
21:23There were bloody awful things done during this period.
21:26There was a lot of tension.
21:29There was a lot of violence.
21:30And the atmosphere could be very, very charged.
21:35There are quite a number of ex-servicemen,
21:39Irishmen in the British Army,
21:40who come back to that changed Ireland and join the IRA.
21:44Some of them in very senior positions.
21:45What's also interesting, I think,
21:47about those who had been in the British Army,
21:49certainly they would have picked up very valuable experience
21:51that the IRA would have wanted.
21:53But also that maybe they had to prove
21:55their Republican credentials.
21:57Did you know we found out that James did send
21:59the medals he got for being in the British Army,
22:01he sent them back, he returned them.
22:03So that maybe was a way of demonstrating
22:06where his affinities lay.
22:10Well, it's very likely that if he is on this list now
22:13as having taken an active part in Passage East,
22:17in the IRA,
22:18that would have been seen as incompatible
22:20with embracing British Army medals for services.
22:27In 1921, a truce was called.
22:30The following year, the Irish Free State was created
22:33and independence was granted to the south of Ireland.
22:38The republic that we're in today had a very bloody birth.
22:42So your grandfather's generation were really psychologically
22:45affected by that division.
22:48Is that something that hasn't been talked about before?
22:50There were a lot of silences.
22:52And even for your grandfather's generation
22:54and then for your mother's generation,
22:56a lot of these things were not spoken about.
22:58So a lot of it was internalised.
23:00And I think a lot of trauma was internalised
23:02arising out of this period.
23:13Paul is returning to Passage East
23:15to find out what happened to his grandfather
23:17after Ireland became independent in 1922.
23:22It was fascinating, of course,
23:24to learn that he'd been a lieutenant in the IRA.
23:26I don't suppose I was surprised
23:28by the time I got that information
23:29because if you look at the reason
23:30why he joined the British Army in 1915
23:32to fight the Germans in France,
23:34and there he was in 1916,
23:35the eastern rising,
23:36firing on his own fellow Irishmen,
23:38you know, being commanded to do so by the British Army,
23:40that could instil a certain radicalism in you, I think.
23:44I mean, I don't blame him, to be honest.
23:49I'm beginning to understand why my mother perhaps
23:51didn't want to find out more details about him.
23:53She just had the basic knowledge
23:54that when he died, drowned at sea.
23:56And maybe she made the right decision for her
23:58because the more you find out about the man,
24:00the more he becomes a real, live human being.
24:04And maybe that's more difficult to deal with,
24:06the loss of somebody that you know more about.
24:09So perhaps as a shadowy figure,
24:10it was bad enough that she'd lost him,
24:12but perhaps it was easy to deal with the fact
24:14that he was just a man in a photograph
24:17and she knew very little about him.
24:23Paul has come to Crook Church,
24:25which has served the Passage East area for generations.
24:30He's meeting genealogist Nicola Morris.
24:34Well, I have a few records here
24:36that's going to tell us a little bit about your grandfather.
24:38So the first of these is James Power's marriage record.
24:42Oh, yes, I see there he is.
24:44James Power married November the 28th, 1923
24:47to Julia Kennedy.
24:50He's 34, she's 23.
24:53He's listed as a labourer, rank or profession.
24:56She's a domestic.
24:57And John Kennedy here, I see, is the father of Julia.
25:01I know part of family law
25:03that there was Kennedy somewhere in the family
25:05and the belief was that perhaps we were related
25:07to President Kennedy of America, but...
25:09You may be, but it might be just very, very far back.
25:13Kennedy's quite a common name.
25:14It is in this area, as is power.
25:18It's an incredibly common name in Waterford.
25:20The register also tells us
25:22where the marriage took place.
25:24So this is in the Roman Catholic Church of Crook.
25:26And that's the church that we're in right here.
25:29Oh, right, so this church?
25:30Yeah.
25:32That's interesting.
25:33So as James was walking down the aisle
25:36to meet his bride-to-be,
25:38this would be the view that he would see,
25:39the light coming in from the stained-glass windows
25:41and the seas just beyond us,
25:42the other side of that wall.
25:43Oh, nearly 96 years ago.
25:50Just a little bit further on,
25:53helps to place James' power.
25:55Now, this is the baptismal register,
25:58again, for this church,
26:00Right.
26:00dating from 1926.
26:02Uh-huh.
26:03That's my mother's birthday, I think, April the 23rd.
26:07So that would be my mother, is it?
26:08Yeah.
26:09Is she Maria Anna there?
26:11Yeah.
26:13Catholic parish registers
26:15were generally written in Latin,
26:17so Maria Anna would be the Latin for Mary Anne.
26:21Oh, I see, yes.
26:22That's the date of birth.
26:23This is the date of baptism.
26:25Oh, so it's only two days later.
26:26Yeah.
26:27That's very quick.
26:29And I see the font is just over there,
26:32so that's exactly where it would have been.
26:34Yeah.
26:35Well, we have another record.
26:37Uh-huh.
26:39So, as you've seen,
26:40we're on the coast.
26:42Yes, yes, yes.
26:43And this area,
26:44Crook and Passage East,
26:45had a very, very strong maritime tradition.
26:48Also, we're dealing with a brand new state.
26:51Yes.
26:52That James had signed up to fight for its independence.
26:54But it was a state that was bankrupt.
26:57There was massive unemployment.
26:58The economy was in tatters.
27:00Mm-hmm.
27:01And so there was no job opportunities.
27:03James has now got a wife.
27:05He's got young children.
27:06Mm-hmm.
27:07As a labourer,
27:08he was one of the lowest paid in the economy.
27:11For like many people,
27:12he would have had to start looking outside of Ireland for opportunities.
27:17Knowing that James had died at sea,
27:20we were able to find some Merchant Navy employment records for him.
27:25Ah, oh, wow.
27:27So, it says,
27:29James Power,
27:30Plays County Waterford,
27:32fireman and something?
27:34Trimmer.
27:35Trimmer.
27:37Height five foot nine,
27:38eyes blue.
27:39That's the first time we've heard the colour of his eyes, I think.
27:42Complexion dark,
27:43used to the outdoor life,
27:45so wouldn't be moisturising,
27:47perhaps in 1920s.
27:49No,
27:49and that sat under an office light all day.
27:51No.
27:52Is that the name of a ship,
27:54or?
27:54So, what does that say?
27:55The Sheaf Lance.
27:56Sheaf Lance.
27:58And this says Barry here.
27:59That's where this document was stamped and created.
28:02So, Barry is in South Wales.
28:04Mm-hmm.
28:05And it may be worth going to South Wales
28:08to see what more you can find out about the Sheaf Lance
28:11and perhaps the circumstances of James Power's death.
28:14Mm-hmm.
28:16We get into the point that the only thing I knew about him
28:18was that he had died at sea,
28:19and, of course,
28:19this is the first time he's actually gone to sea,
28:22that he's become a sailor.
28:24I've always,
28:24just always had that photograph,
28:27but it is only just now
28:28that he's getting into that as an occupation.
28:30That's it, 1926.
28:32Mm-hmm.
28:32And he's, what, he's 37 years of age.
28:35I'm going on your recommendation.
28:36If I go to Barry and it's not worth going,
28:39it is worth going.
28:40I'd say it'll be worth going.
28:41Okay.
28:42I'll definitely go.
28:43Yeah.
28:43I've made my mind up.
28:44Yeah, I'll definitely go.
28:46Yeah.
28:56It's a rather unusual feeling
28:59to be looking at the actual font
29:01that my mother was baptised in
29:03as a two-day-old baby.
29:05They didn't, in those days of infant mortality,
29:07you didn't waste any time.
29:10So two days old,
29:11and she's here.
29:13If we were looking at the records of James
29:16and when he sort of joined the Merchant Navy,
29:18this would be certainly the last few months
29:21of the whole family being together,
29:23mother, father, the two sisters.
29:26Maybe it was the last time
29:27there was a family gathering with everybody there.
29:41I've always enjoyed coming to Ireland in the past.
29:45It's quite poignant to come back here
29:47and to feel a stronger connection
29:51to my Irish grandfather,
29:52who I never met.
29:53It's great.
29:54And I sort of sometimes feel that
29:55when I'm in Ireland,
29:57I feel Irish in a way that
29:58when I'm in England,
29:59I don't particularly feel English.
30:00So this has only just helped
30:02to enhance my understanding
30:04and my appreciation of my Irish roots.
30:25To find out what happened to James Power
30:27after he left his young family
30:29to join the Merchant Navy in South Wales,
30:31Paul has come to Cardiff
30:33to meet maritime historian David Jenkins.
30:39David, I know my grandfather, James,
30:41was on board a ship
30:42and worked as a fireman and a trimmer.
30:44What did that involve?
30:46What was that?
30:47Well, the sheath lance was a steamship,
30:49so the job of the fireman and trimmer
30:51was to throw the coal into the furnaces.
30:55And we have here a photograph
30:56from the museum's collections
30:58showing a fireman and trimmer
31:00at work in the early 20th century.
31:02So that's some very hard, hot, dirty work.
31:07Very hard, hot, filthy, dirty work.
31:09And what would the working hours be?
31:10They were four hours on, four hours off,
31:13basically round the clock.
31:14Looking at the conditions
31:16that this guy's working,
31:17which would have been the same conditions
31:18as my grandfather,
31:19and going back to the photograph
31:20I've seen of him,
31:21I realise now that
31:22I think he's absolutely knackered.
31:24I think that's probably what it is,
31:25because it would be exhausting work,
31:27wouldn't it?
31:27It was exhausting work.
31:29What I have here as well is
31:32the crew list for the ship sheath lance.
31:36Date of commencement of voyage,
31:3715th of the 12th, 1926.
31:40Port at which voyage commenced, Barry.
31:44In the 1920s,
31:46ports like Barry and Cardiff
31:48were central to exporting coal from Britain,
31:51and this industry created jobs
31:53for men like James Power
31:54in the Merchant Navy.
31:57So this is a list of the crew members, is it?
32:00That's right.
32:01Looking for Grandad James.
32:02Where is he?
32:04There he is, down the bottom there.
32:06And just to see where he went on this voyage?
32:08Oh, yes, right, OK.
32:10Vessel arrived 10th of January, Rio Grande.
32:13Rio Grande, that's a port in Brazil.
32:15Yes.
32:16And almost certainly
32:17she would have discharged her coal cargo there.
32:19Yes.
32:20There was a massive demand
32:22for Welsh coal in South America.
32:25Does he get to spend a couple of days in Brazil?
32:28Probably not,
32:29because, I mean,
32:31Irish firemen were famous
32:33for enjoying a run ashore.
32:34Yes.
32:35But normally,
32:35but normally at the end of a voyage.
32:38Right.
32:38Then the vessel arrives somewhere
32:40on February the 2nd.
32:41What is that word?
32:43Rosario.
32:43Rosario.
32:44Where's Rosario?
32:45Rosario's in Argentina,
32:47up the river plate.
32:48It's quite some way in land.
32:50The extraordinary thing is
32:52that this is a man
32:52who spent the first 25 years of his life
32:56living in just a tiny little village,
32:58passage east in Waterford.
32:59And now here he is.
33:00He's Brazil, Argentina.
33:02Where does he go to next?
33:03The ship would have sailed back to Penarth
33:06on the 5th of the 4th, 1927.
33:10And the ship has probably come in
33:11to load coal again,
33:13probably out to South America,
33:15but James Power leaves the ship
33:17on the 5th of April, 1927.
33:20Oh, wow.
33:24I thought he died at sea,
33:27that actually he disembarked a ship here
33:29and that was the last ship he was ever on.
33:31Yes, so we know therefore
33:33that your grandfather came off the ship
33:35here in South Wales at that date.
33:37Hmm.
33:39I thought this was the one bit
33:40that I knew for certain
33:42that he died at sea,
33:43but apparently not.
33:50To find out what really happened
33:52to his grandfather,
33:54Paul wants to look at local records.
33:56He's meeting archivist Susan Edwards.
34:02We found James Powers
34:04in a couple of documents here.
34:07And the first one I have to give you
34:09is this.
34:11OK, certified copy of an entry of death.
34:15Oh, dear.
34:18So, when and where died
34:1919th of April, 1927
34:22in the Glamorganshire Canal.
34:26Male, 37.
34:29Address unknown.
34:31Shock from distended stomach
34:33acting on diseased heart.
34:36What does that mean exactly?
34:38Well, he didn't die by drowning.
34:40He was probably already dead
34:42by the time he fell into the canal.
34:46Is this acting on a diseased heart,
34:48so he could have had a heart attack, perhaps?
34:50Possibly.
34:55Yes.
34:56Hmm.
34:59We have more information.
35:01because of the way that he died
35:02and the way that he was found.
35:03Yes.
35:04There had to be an inquest.
35:05Yes.
35:05So we have the inquest book here.
35:08Right.
35:09It's indexed if you can find Powers under P.
35:11Right, see, OK.
35:11So under P.
35:13Let's have a look.
35:15James Power.
35:16Deceased was found floating in the Glamorganshire Canal
35:19at 9.30am on the 19th from inquiries made.
35:24It was ascertained that this body was that of James Power,
35:28a marine fireman, address unknown.
35:31So he's walking by the canal.
35:33He has a heart attack and he falls in.
35:35And he falls in.
35:36Yeah.
35:39The canals were very open.
35:41If you go through this book,
35:42you'll see a number of people who die by drowning,
35:45falling into the canal.
35:47Often when drunk, but obviously in this case not.
35:50Would he have said if he had been...?
35:53Probably.
35:54They didn't hold back in these reports.
35:56No, no.
35:59Oh, dear.
36:02Here's a newspaper report.
36:04Police surgeon said the body appeared
36:05to have been in the water for several days.
36:09That's something, isn't it?
36:11At an inquest conducted by the Cardiff City coroner,
36:14evidence of identification was given by Mr Ambrose Cousins,
36:17a mercantile outfitter,
36:19who said that Power purchased several articles
36:22from his shop at Penarth on April 5th.
36:25The coroner says,
36:26You are a very smart man to be able to identify a man
36:28you have only seen once.
36:30The answer is,
36:31I identified him particularly by his ginger moustache.
36:35It's the first time we've ever heard about a moustache.
36:38And a ginger one.
36:39Well, that's funny, you know,
36:40sometimes when I grow a beard,
36:42there's red hair in it,
36:43and neither my mother or father had red hair.
36:45Yeah.
36:47For somebody with a weak heart,
36:49working as a fireman would be
36:51just about one of the worst professions
36:52you could have taken up.
36:53It was a very difficult job.
36:55The conditions were appalling.
36:57Yes.
37:01Yes, not quite the circumstances that I had always thought.
37:08No.
37:10He is buried in Cardiff.
37:13Is he?
37:15And the other volume we have out here
37:17is the burial register that records him.
37:20Well, I don't think my mother ever knew that.
37:26There he is.
37:27There's an official number there.
37:28April 27th, James Power.
37:32This is the reference to the plot in the cemetery
37:36where he's buried.
37:39So you would actually be able to find that.
37:41Right, yes.
37:43There's unlikely to be a headstone.
37:46Right, no,
37:47because nobody would have paid for it.
37:48No.
37:51No, it's very sad,
37:52and just a few,
37:54about a week or so before my mother's first birthday,
37:56so no doubt he was going to go back home for that.
37:59Yeah, yes.
38:01Hmm.
38:02OK, well, thank you.
38:05Hmm.
38:15Paul has discovered his grandfather died
38:18within a few days of arriving in Cardiff.
38:21He's come to Catay's Cemetery,
38:24where James Power is buried in an unmarked grave.
38:29So our journey ends here.
38:33I think the appropriate thing to do would be to...
38:37install a headstone.
38:39I'll speak to the rest of the family about it.
38:43A few days ago, I knew very little about James.
38:46I had a photograph.
38:47The manner of his death was something I thought I knew about,
38:50but I didn't really.
38:51And I have got to know him over the last few days.
38:54Even though I never met him,
38:55you get to know a person, a man,
38:57through his actions, his deeds.
38:59And he certainly saw a lot of the world in his short span of time
39:04and played a part in very momentous parts of Irish history.
39:11My thoughts have fluctuated over the last few days
39:13about whether my mother would have wanted to have known more about her father.
39:17And I've now come to the conclusion that, actually,
39:21if there was a place you could have come to, to lay flowers,
39:26she would have wanted that.
39:28I think she would have wanted that.
39:31It's 92 years ago this happened.
39:33I am the first member of the family
39:35to find out his final resting place.
39:38That is rather remarkable, isn't it?
39:40It's a long time ago, 1927,
39:43and it's taken this long for us to know the truth,
39:47to find out the truth.
40:08Paul has returned to London.
40:11Although known by his stage name of Merton,
40:13he was born Paul Martin,
40:16and he now wants to investigate his dad's side of the family,
40:19who he knows very little about,
40:21starting with his paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Lawford.
40:27I'm looking at a photograph of Martin,
40:29my father's mother, Elizabeth.
40:32She died four years before I was born,
40:34so I never got to speak to her or hear any of her family stories.
40:38I wonder, sort of, what family history she could have told me about,
40:42what her parents did, what her grandparents did.
40:45I'm assuming that I'm from a long line of working-class Londoners,
40:49certainly on my father's side,
40:51as I've never heard anything that would suggest otherwise.
40:56My dad never really spoke about it.
40:58The only thing we know that I remember
40:59is that him saying that she had a great good sense of humour.
41:02You wouldn't necessarily get that from the photograph,
41:04but then this was a time when nobody was allowed to smile in photographs
41:07because life wasn't that funny.
41:16Paul has come to the borough of Southwark in South London,
41:19where his paternal grandparents used to live.
41:22He's meeting genealogist Laura Berry,
41:25who he hopes can help him.
41:28I've been doing quite a bit of research into Elizabeth's family history
41:33and built a family tree here.
41:35There's Elizabeth.
41:36Yes, uh-huh.
41:37Born in 1903 in Bermondsey.
41:39Mm-hmm.
41:40She's one of many children, as you can see.
41:43Oh, yes, I see.
41:44So one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve children.
41:51Enough for a football team, plus a substitute.
41:54This is very much a family that's based in this part of London.
41:58And her dad was a car man.
42:00So what's a car man?
42:02Car man...
42:02Apart from being an opera.
42:04He's effectively a delivery driver.
42:07Right.
42:07So that would be a horse and cart sort of set-up.
42:11Yeah, exactly. In fact, the 1911 census describes him as a horse-keeper.
42:14Right.
42:14And as I was going back through the generations,
42:18I was expecting to find much more of the same.
42:20So it came as quite a surprise to find your three-times great-grandfather,
42:25William Simmons, doing something a little bit different.
42:28Mm-hmm.
42:29This is the final document I found for him.
42:32OK, so William Simmons died 1886 in an infirmary.
42:38Male, 65 years.
42:40Ah, no, it says here, occupation musician.
42:43In 1886, that could possibly be a music hall musician.
42:47Unfortunately, I have no idea.
42:49I haven't found any listings for him in the music hall or in the theatres.
42:53So it could be that he was simply a street musician
42:56or that he was playing in pubs around London.
42:58Yes.
42:59And what I found really interesting is that he seems to have inspired his son
43:03because I've got a marriage register here from...
43:06Oh, right, OK.
43:081870.
43:09There, that's him there.
43:10William Simmons, this is the son.
43:12Your great-great-grandfather.
43:14My great-great-grandmother, Caroline Plunkett.
43:16She's 17 years old.
43:18She's just 17.
43:18Rank or profession, musician, it says for him.
43:22Hers is left blank here.
43:24Which is quite common for women, especially on marriage registers.
43:28But I have found a really interesting record for her
43:30from just a few months before they got married.
43:33Maybe he told her he was a musician just because it was a glamorous profession.
43:39OK.
43:39What is this we're looking at here?
43:41So this is workhouse admission register for Mint Street Workhouse in Southwark.
43:46Mm-hmm, OK.
43:47There's her name, yes, Caroline Plunkett.
43:49It was actually one of the workhouses that was thought to have inspired Charles Dickens
43:54to write Oliver Twist because he lived on a parallel street
43:57while his father was in debtor's prison.
43:59So it doesn't build a very pretty picture.
44:01So even by Victorian standards, it was considered unworthy of being a workhouse?
44:08Yeah.
44:09Born a boy, does that say?
44:12Mm-hmm.
44:13That's not her born a boy.
44:14She's given birth to a boy.
44:16In labour, single.
44:19I think it's very telling that she doesn't go to the workhouse
44:22until she's actually in labour.
44:24She really does put it off until the 11th hour
44:26because it was such a desperate decision to have to make.
44:31In the Victorian era,
44:33it was common for poor women like Paul's great-great-grandmother Caroline
44:37to use their local workhouse as a maternity hospital.
44:42In London in the 1860s,
44:45workhouses were a familiar presence,
44:48with 43 institutions housing thousands of impoverished people.
44:54Do we know what happened to this child?
44:57I suspect that he died as an infant
45:01because this is the first William that we see on the family tree.
45:03And then just a year later,
45:04she has another child that they call William.
45:08What's really interesting about this record
45:10is that it also gives her profession,
45:12which is really unusual.
45:13Oh, vocalist.
45:13Yeah, it's really unusual for a woman to be.
45:15Ah.
45:16Especially given how old Caroline was
45:19because actually this column here,
45:20these numbers denote each person's age.
45:23So she's 17 years old.
45:25She's just 17.
45:26She describes herself as a vocalist at the age of 17.
45:29Yes, Caroline Plunkett.
45:31It's intriguing that 140 years ago,
45:35nearly 150 years ago,
45:37there was somebody in my family who was a performer.
45:40Well, two people, a musician and vocalist.
45:43And her father-in-law also a musician.
45:45Yes.
45:45So the further I go back,
45:46do you think I'd be related to Beethoven?
45:47Maybe.
45:48Maybe.
45:52Finding out that the son married a woman, Caroline Plunkett,
45:56she's there described as a vocalist.
45:59I'd be intrigued to find out
46:01what sort of songs she would have been singing in the 1870s.
46:09To uncover more about the performing careers
46:12of his great-great-grandparents,
46:14Paul is meeting music historian Oscar Cox Jensen.
46:19Oscar, I've got a couple of relatives
46:21I'd like to know a bit more about.
46:22There's William Simmons and also Caroline Plunkett,
46:24who is listed in the 1870s as a vocalist.
46:27That's a fairly new term, I'd say, in the 1870s.
46:30Mm-hmm.
46:31Caroline's maybe one of the first generation of singers
46:33that you'd call buskers.
46:34So, have you found any references to them
46:36or a description of what they might be doing?
46:39William Simmons leaves absolutely no trace.
46:42Caroline Plunkett, however,
46:43we do have some information on.
46:45What we have here is a proceeding from the Old Bailey.
46:48This is Edward Slade and Caroline Plunkett.
46:51Robbery.
46:52Yep, this is...
46:53Robbery on Anne Bloomer
46:54and stealing a pocket handkerchief
46:56and six shillings and sixpence.
46:58Henry Bloomer, presumably the husband of Anne Bloomer,
47:01says,
47:02I am a labourer of Hamilton Road, Norwood.
47:04On Saturday night, 22nd of March,
47:06between 12 and 1 o'clock,
47:07my wife and I were going home
47:09when three men and a woman stopped us
47:11and the prisoner asked me what I wanted with the woman.
47:13I said,
47:14She is my wife.
47:15He then knocked her down with his banjo.
47:17I asked him what he meant by it,
47:18then he knocked me down.
47:19The young woman pitched into my missus
47:21and scratched her.
47:22I cried for help
47:23and the policeman came and took the two prisoners.
47:25I heard one of them say,
47:26Knock them down, they've got plenty of money.
47:28And then Plunkett's defence,
47:29the only time that Caroline Plunkett says anything,
47:31she says,
47:32I didn't touch the woman.
47:33She doesn't quite say honest gov,
47:35but this is 1867.
47:38Yep.
47:38So she's quite young here then.
47:39She was 17 in 1870,
47:41so she's about between 14 and 15 years old here.
47:45That's correct.
47:45She is 14 at the time of this trial.
47:48It's a bit dubious as a case, isn't it?
47:51Because if they've been working in the pub,
47:53presumably they've been paid,
47:54they've got a bit of money about them,
47:55particularly using the banjo as a weapon,
47:57when the banjo would be their main source of employment.
48:01Correct.
48:01I think very little of this stacks up.
48:04You've got definitely assault that takes place
48:05and both sides claiming the other ones did it.
48:08So the mention of the banjo is very helpful here
48:10as it gives us a clue as to what sort of music
48:12they might have been playing.
48:13It's 20 years into the banjo craze.
48:15This is a fairly new instrument in Britain.
48:17It's come over from America.
48:19So I've got a couple of examples here.
48:20Right, okay.
48:21You might recognise them.
48:22I'm pretty sure I remember how the chorus goes with this.
48:24Buffalo girls, won't you come out tonight,
48:26come out tonight, come out tonight.
48:28Buffalo girls, won't you come out tonight
48:30and dance by the light of the moon?
48:32Something like that, isn't it?
48:33Exactly like that.
48:34Okay, so that's the sort of songs that she would be singing,
48:37accompanied by the banjo,
48:38which is not being used as a weapon of assault.
48:42So coming back to the trial here,
48:44what's the verdict?
48:44What happens?
48:45Well, the first count of theft is thrown out of court
48:49because there's no evidence of it.
48:50However, the second account, which is just assault,
48:53I'm afraid this document tells you all you need to know.
48:55What is this?
48:56Is it a charge sheet, is it?
48:57This is the after-trial report.
48:59After-trial report.
49:00So let's have a look.
49:00There's a whole lot of names here.
49:02Let's accuse Edward Slade and Caroline Plunkett.
49:05Here we are down here.
49:07Here's the charge.
49:08Robbery with others with violence on Anne Bloomer
49:11and stealing two florins and other monies.
49:13What does this end stand for there?
49:15Degree of instruction.
49:17She is illiterate.
49:18She would learn these songs off by heart, then.
49:20She wouldn't have a lyric sheet.
49:22That would be the way.
49:24So it says here the sentence is six months.
49:28House of Correction Wandsworth, it says.
49:31Yep.
49:32Well, this is terrible.
49:34It is a sobering note at this point in the story.
49:38So why were the Bloomers believed
49:40rather than Edward Slade and Caroline Plunkett?
49:43One is the fact that Henry Bloomer is the only person
49:46that the policeman thinks is sober.
49:48Yes.
49:48So he's likelier to be believed.
49:50Yes.
49:50But the other thing comes back to the banjo.
49:52And this is really central.
49:53There's a kind of demonisation of street musicians.
49:56As soon, I think, as the magistrate hears
49:58that these two people are performers,
50:00they're never going to be believed.
50:02And this is really one of the really harsh ironies
50:04about the whole thing.
50:05Someone like Caroline, who's very much at the margins,
50:07she's illiterate, she doesn't leave records of her own.
50:09Criminal records are the place to go.
50:11So if she had not run in with the law,
50:14she would have left nothing behind.
50:15Yes.
50:16Yes.
50:17And if Edward Slade had played a double bass,
50:19he could have killed both Bloomers in a single blow.
50:33Paul has come to Wandsworth Prison,
50:35where his great-great-grandmother Caroline Plunkett
50:38was sent in 1868.
50:43This is not my first time in Wandsworth Prison.
50:46The first time I came in here was about 1980.
50:49I was working for the Civil Service at the time.
50:53Nobody told me about this, but I was smoking rolling tobacco.
50:56I could see the way the prisoner kept eyeing their tobacco,
50:58so I said, oh, well, you know, help yourself, have one.
51:01Oh, thanks very much.
51:03Next week I came here, there was 27 people waiting to see me.
51:07And none of them had any idea what training course
51:09they wanted to do at all.
51:11It was just, the word had got around
51:12that there was a young civil servant
51:14who didn't know the rules about ringing in Roll-Up to Raggo.
51:20To find out about Caroline Plunkett's time here,
51:23Paul is meeting Stuart McLaughlin,
51:25who runs the prison's museum.
51:29What we have here is a copy of the reception register
51:31that listed all the receptions for a particular day
51:35coming through the gates at Wandsworth.
51:37And what you'll see at the top there...
51:39Oh, yeah, she's a second name down, yes.
51:40And female receptions were always written in red.
51:43Was there a uniform that they wore?
51:44Now, the prisoners were not allowed to have uncovered faces.
51:47Male prisoners would wear a cloth mask
51:50with eye and nose holes cut out,
51:52and female prisoners would wear a veil.
51:56So they could see out,
51:57but you'd never be able to see in.
52:00Veiled female prisoner
52:02at the Soe House of Correction Wandsworth,
52:04so this is exactly what she would have been wearing.
52:07I'm wondering how that would feel to have this veil on.
52:10Something that's got to have a huge effect on you.
52:13Yes.
52:14And this all comes from the separate and silent system,
52:17which was solitary confinement for all prisoners,
52:20as opposed to punishment solitary confinement,
52:22and also prisoners not being able to identify each other.
52:25Oh, dear.
52:28Poor Caroline Plunkett.
52:30The separate and silent system
52:33was designed to force prisoners like Caroline Plunkett
52:36to reflect on their crimes in total isolation.
52:40To enforce this system,
52:43Wandsworth Prism was purpose-built in 1851
52:46with small, single-occupancy cells.
52:51Each prisoner's confined to a single cell.
52:53Would there be an exercise yard?
52:56Would there be times when they're outside of the cell?
52:58Hour a day in the open air.
53:00Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
53:01Again, not talking to anybody?
53:03No talking.
53:04It would be a single file
53:06with something like five or six paces between each prisoner.
53:10Mm-hm.
53:10So there's no way they could walk side by side or communicate.
53:14Mm-hm.
53:14So what would this do for your, you know,
53:16for your mental wellbeing to be,
53:18as you say, solitary confinement, more or less?
53:21Studies later showed that it did have a detrimental impact
53:25on a person's mental health.
53:27Yes, uh-huh.
53:28What else can you show me?
53:30Well, as someone who was a singer,
53:32the only touch that she would have had to practise that
53:36would have been the Sunday church service.
53:39Uh-huh.
53:39Everyone would sit in an individual cubicle.
53:43So, again, they could not identify who the other prisoners were.
53:46We have a picture of men here,
53:48but this is the same chapel that the women would have been in.
53:50Exactly the same, yes.
53:51Mm-hm.
53:52So the only human face she ever sees
53:54is the guy on Sunday who's conducting the mass.
53:56Yes.
53:57And Caroline would be able to go along to this
54:01and this would be a one chance to sing, wouldn't it?
54:04Yes.
54:05Quite often, regular prisoners,
54:07knowing the different hymns that were being sung,
54:10could actually communicate.
54:12So, onward, Christian soldiers, you know,
54:14John lives on the fours.
54:16So you're telling your mate that your mate John lives on the fours
54:19landing above you.
54:20Oh, right.
54:20They would actually talk under the hymns.
54:23Onward, Christian soldiers, we're breaking out tonight.
54:27Something like that.
54:27Meet you by the...
54:34Many of the original Victorian prison buildings
54:37remain in use at Wandsworth today
54:39and the governor has given Paul permission
54:41to see a cell similar to the one
54:43his great-great-grandmother was held in.
54:48Thinking about my great-great-grandmother, Caroline Plunkett,
54:52she's only 14 and she's 4 foot 9,
54:56so she wouldn't even be tall enough to look out of that window there.
55:01It's a grim contrast to the life she would have known at that point
55:05where, you know, your work is part of play
55:10and singing and performing and entertaining crowds.
55:15It must have been a very difficult thing to get you six months.
55:19Six months being in here.
55:29Caroline Plunkett was released from Wandsworth Prison in October 1868.
55:36Paul has already discovered that two years later
55:39she married William Simmons,
55:41his great-great-grandfather and a musician.
55:45It is extraordinary that such a young person
55:49goes through this huge contrast in life.
55:52She didn't let that define her.
55:54She goes on to have a sort of like a wonderful life,
55:56I would imagine.
55:57She's got all these children here.
55:59So I would think that birthday parties
56:01and Christmas times at the house,
56:03her husband's a musician,
56:04the house is full of music and laughter and joy.
56:08She lived to be 64,
56:10which was a good age at that time.
56:11It's a remarkable life.
56:14It's great to sort of learn
56:15that there's a performance gene somewhere
56:17back in my deep past
56:19that I wasn't the first one to embarrass myself publicly.
56:28Our family never really had a treasure trove of stories,
56:31but now there's quite a few.
56:37There can't be many people who had a relative
56:39that was jailed because of their supposed contribution
56:43to a banjo assault.
56:47And when I think about my grandfather,
56:50my mum's dad, James,
56:52going from a man who was almost anonymous
56:54and whose ending was completely obscured,
56:57we now have uncovered the truth of it
57:00and he's going to become kind of sort of famous,
57:03which would be mind-boggling for him, I'm sure.
57:07Nobody in my family knows the truth about him yet,
57:10apart from me.
57:11I'm the first person to find this stuff out
57:13after 92 years.
57:17He led such extraordinary life,
57:19but if he hadn't have died so young,
57:20I could quite easily have met him.
57:22And some people believe that when you die,
57:24that the spirits of your family come to greet you
57:26and if they do,
57:27at least I'd recognise them
57:28and be able to have a bit of a chat,
57:30whereas beforehand I wouldn't have had much to say.
58:01I'm the first person to find this stuff out there.
58:06For more information,