In a desperate attempt to drag up some interest in the royal beanfeast next week the BBC’s royal correspondent, the servile Nicholas Witchell (I remember him scabbing during the journalist’s dispute some years back) pushed out a load of old cobblers last night designed to show that the Middleton woman was from real working class stock. He then gibbered on about a chip shop up north or something, but I really couldn’t be arsed to concentrate.
And now, on the Beeb website they give us a family tree which demonstrates, in their words, that she is from “far more humble roots”. So… we can see that back in the early nineteenth century William Middleton was so poor that “The couple moved to a mansion in Chapel Allerton where they employed two servants.” Only two servants!!! Now that’s real suffering for you. But don’t worry, towards the end of the century the family were dragging themselves out of the mire and great-grandfather Noel was sorting himself out in a private school before he met Olive and married into the aristocracy!
It was a wonder that the prince’s new missus’ ma and pa could afford the £30,000 a year in fees to Marlborough College as they scratted around in their humble abode.
Bob: You won’t be having a street party then!
Very perceptive of you Paul.
I don’t know if Nicholas Withchell talked to anyone at Hetton-le-Hole, but he did not pronounce its name in the local dialectic, which used to be referred to as pitmatic. I think that he thought he was in France.
The Beeb Web-site you link us to is also typical. It goes back six generations from our Queen in waiting. Providing all the persons shown were themselve conceived in wedlock, then that should give us 64 direct traceable ancestors. Yet only 22 are given and 19 of these are men.
In fact the whole of the game of finding out who your ancestors are soon runs out of credability. It is done mainly via the male line back from the immediate parents. But if we instead look at all the ancestors who contributed to our DNA, then we reach over 1,000 in the ten past generations (back to say the 1750s) and over a million in 20 past generations (say back to the 16th century). We soon then get back to a position where apart from some consideration having to be given to the effects of immigration and emigration, we all end up just about being related to each other, but mainly only minutely. Although with such mass numbers, there also has to be some interbreeding.
This doesn’t mean that the “Who Do You Think You Are?” business can’t be fun. But as time goes back it becomes thinner and thinner and gets subject to us indentifying with some and not even knowing about others.
I settle for going back to my Great Grandparents, with coal miners marrying coal miner’s daughters and there being some large extended families who mainly shared the same pattern. That is enough to satisfy my biased views on life.
Robert, Robert, you really must try and avoid all that ghastly envy, it ages you teribly and gives you terrible lines on the face. Just look at that Gordon Brown, or any of those old Socialists, they all look dreadful!
From Dave “I’m just an ordinary family guy” Cameron’s perspective, the Middletons must look like genuine paupers.
I can’t wait for the revolution, so we can declare a republic and become citizens as opposed to being subjects of the Queen.
Just think, all those pages of newspapers will have to be filled with news rather than at present with crap about Royalty.
Hull has already declared that there will be no street parties for the Royal wedding.