Author: Tim Dracup
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Since we arrived in Oxford in the first week of August 2021, it has taken us just over a year to return to the Thames Path. On this occasion we based ourselves in Abingdon, travelling out on Wednesday and returning on Saturday. On the Thursday we walked the nine miles or so from Oxford to…
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This post is about the descendants of William Dracup (1832-1910), principally his son Arthur Dracup (1872-1962) and his grandson Norman Dracup (1905-1944). It describes part of the Dracup family that established itself in the district of Shipley, a few miles to the north of Bradford, initially in the model village of Saltaire towards the north…
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Back in 2017, when my wife Kate died, I went through probate for the first time. It was a complex and extended process I navigated only with some difficulty. So, following my mother’s death in January 2022, I was delighted to learn that a far simpler online system had been introduced. There seemed no obstacle…
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By mid-June of 2022 we were already back in Cornwall, having completed St Ives to Marazion only three months beforehand. We devoted our week to the Lizard Peninsula, restarting at Marazion, continuing down the western side and rounding Lizard Point before ascending the eastern side to reach the Helford Estuary. Our base was a small…
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Monday 4 July 2022 would have been Kate’s 61st Birthday. And Wednesday 13 July 2022 will be the fifth anniversary of her untimely death from breast cancer, at the Princess Alice Hospice, Esher, in the summer of 2017. As the years pass by, increasingly I prefer to commemorate and celebrate her birthday, allowing her death…
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Six weeks after reaching Wrotham, we were back at Borough Green Station, ready to walk the eleven miles or so to Cuxton. We had travelled via Clapham Junction and London Victoria, catching the Ramsgate train, which reached Cuxton shortly after 10AM. It was a Saturday in mid-May and perfect for walking. There were blue skies…
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It wasn’t until early April that we managed to resume the North Downs Way. The Guide had suggested that the previous leg, starting in Oxted, should conclude in Otford. But we had fallen slightly short, finishing instead at Dunton Green. It now proposed that the subsequent stage should stretch all the way from Otford to…
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Almost six months after our last visit – when we walked from Holywell Bay to St Ives – we found ourselves back on the train down to Cornwall. It was late March: we had timed this trip to help us get ‘walking fit’ for our impending Channel Islands holiday. This time our destination and base…
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Towards the end of October 2019 we booked onto HF Holidays’ Channel Islands walking tour, scheduled for April 2020. Then Covid arrived and our holiday was postponed for two years in succession. So, as the date of the 2022 trip approached, we couldn’t quite believe it would go ahead. It was quite a shock to…
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This family history post explores how, after the death of pioneer Jacquard loom maker Samuel Dracup, three subsequent generations of his male descendants continued to manufacture them in Great Horton near Bradford, West Yorkshire. It builds upon part of a previous post, in which I described how Samuel converted himself from a traditional joiner and…
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Maureen Dracup, my mother, died on 14 January 2022. She was ninety-one and succumbed to dementia. My brother and I finally managed to extract her from hospital in the autumn of 2021, by which point she required palliative care, but could at least spend her last days at home. She had been taken in after…
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This Dracup family history post records the mostly unfortunate life experiences of Emily Dracup (1857-1919), my first cousin, three times removed. From a very early age she earned her living as a piano teacher, managing to avoid throughout her life the unremitting toil of service or manual labour. But she seems never to have performed…
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Seven Seagulls
Eponymous 