WELCOME TO THE BAYLISS LINE. This blog has been created for my family. By "my family" I mean all those who are related to the Bayliss family either by blood, marriage or even relationship. There are, of course, other Bayliss families not related to us but this blog has at its heart a very specific family who had their origins in Gloucestershire. I am connected to that family because my mother was a Bayliss and it was her curiosity that started my research back in the early 1990's. So, what are you likely to see on this blog? Well, as it is a blog, I want it to be as entertaining as possible rather that a dry listing of facts (that is for Ancestry.com). I will, hopefully, be posting entries on our ancestors and relatives, on the places where they lived, and the historical times they lived through. I have an extensive collection of photographs of people and places which I will, of course, be sharing.

I'd like to ask anybody who reads this blog to give me some feedback. I'd really like this to be a two way thing. It sometimes unearths new information and, to be honest, it gives me encouragement. There will be two ways of providing feedback - either through the comment button (you will need a Google account for this) or via the e-mail address which appears on this page - alternatively, ring me. Now scroll down to read the latest entries.....and, of course, via Facebook.

Monday 19 March 2012

STILL IS STILL MOVING TO ME...



One of the reasons why Marie Lloyd's rendition of the song "My Old Man Said Follow the Van" (performed above by Jessie Wallace in the tv film Marie Lloyd) was so popular with the patrons of the London music halls was that many of those listening to the words had lived through similar events. Younger readers of this blog are probably puzzled reading the various parts of our family history just how many times our ancestors moved home during their lives. My mother told me that since the day she got married in 1926 she had moved home something in the region of forty times!  The reality, when I came to check it,  proved this statement to be not far from the truth.

So why all the moving?  The song, of course, tells of what used to be called a "Moonlight Flit" - an after dark, unannounced, house move to avoid paying rent arrears. I'm sure that happened a few times in our family history but the most common reason was that the lower-paid citizens moved because there were lots of places to move too. Working class people rarely owned their own homes so the amount of rental property was phenomenal compared to today. If you found cheaper rooms, needed extra space, wanted to be nearer to relatives (or further away from them!) you simply gave your landlord notice and moved - often your landlord would happily find something more suitable rather than lose you as a tenant.
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1 comment:

  1. Back of beyond19 March 2012 at 17:17

    Still laughing at that video, and I remember it being sung at our enormous Christmas party gatherings.

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