Did I tell you my grandfather was born in The Big House in King's County? Yaawwwn, yes you did. There are pictures of us, as tots, in the 1950s trying to catch goldfish in the ornamental ponds. Shortly after that the house was sold to the Salesian Sisters who ran it as a girls' boarding school until that venture failed in the 1980s. 10+ years later we were visiting friends in Roscrea. He was a national school teacher, community stalwart and amateur local historian. That afternoon I was used a battering-ram to get an inside view of The Big House. We presented at the front door and I was introduced as "The General's great nephew". There were but three nuns remaining of the community but we were ushered into the parlour and diligently plied with tea and biscuits. With a little cry, one of the aged sisters rose to her feet and bustled out of the room. She returned with a slip of paper recording a name and a London address. Seemingly, a few months earlier, an antipodean scion of our family had visited The Big House and left his address in case any other sprigs came visiting The Home Place.
I send him a postcard. He wrote back saying he really wasn't interested in genealogy or distant rellies and he'd only visited The Big House because he was bullied into it by his Great Aunt May. He, and May, came from New Zealand and he was only in London for a year as part of his medical training. I passed her address back up the line to my father and they engaged in an active over-sharing correspondence for a decade until they both died in the fullness of their years. While May lived, any member of the New Zealand branch of the family who came to Europe was similarly urged into making contact with either me [.IE] or my father [.UK].
That's how I came to meet my 3rd cousin Trevor Lloyd the Linguist [L holding up the roof with The Boy 2009]. In the 00s, in retirement, he and his wife Heather gave notice of a European Tour and we invited them to lunch. In the afternoon we all walked up the hill with Dau.I and Dau.II. Somewhere I have a picture of us leaning against a dry-stone wall with the Plains of Wexford spread out as a backdrop. That was the start of a beautiful friendship between two distant [both senses] rellies. The Boy went to visit them in 2009, but Trevor and I relied on e-mail. I read many drafts of his research into linguistics, he occasionally read The Blob. We were somehow on the same page on most things and I valued his positive, inclusive, generous and caring soul.In 2023, Trevor was so indignant about Ukraine, that he and some (younger, he was 90!) pals were picketing the Russian embassy in Wellington for an hour every Tuesday. I sent him a Phil Ochs verse from the 1960s You must protest // It is your diamond duty // In such an ugly time //The true protest is beauty and Trevor replied "Thank you for the Phil Ochs poem. I read it at our protest today and it was greatly appreciated. We had a Christmas celebration with lots of food. I used the intercom at the gate to invite the Embassy to join us but they blasted the Russian national anthem at me."
In Easter week this year, Heather wrote to say that, after weathering a succession of medical assaults (broken hip, serial infections, dodgy kidneys), he was coming home from hospital for hospice and vigil. I replied that I would yomp up the hill in the morning and have a quiet word [in English! not te reo Māori] with Trevor. So I did that. I walked up past the wall where we'd paused for pics in 2007 and then sat on my hat upon St Fursey's Altar and listened to the larks.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.