Jonathon Wardman

House Hunting

Monica and I have recently been looking to buy a house. We got a mortgage agreement in principal, set our budget and set about looking for houses.

Living in the south east of England house prices are notoriously high, so I thought I’d take a look at some areas I have a connection to and see what the same budget — £300,000 — would buy there. For reference, let’s see the kind of property £300k will buy in Surrey and Hampshire.

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Historical Family Photos: James and Doris Rose Grady

For the last few years, on and off, I have been researching my family history. It started just after my grandmother died when we found a letter from my mother’s cousin asking her if she could fill in any gaps in the research he had been doing. Enclosed was a print-out of the research he had completed up to that point. That was a great starting point, although I was later to discover that there were a number of errors in his work. So I set off doing research of my own with the help of my parents, my grandparent’s belongings, a whole load of historical records, lots of logic and a good dollop of head scratching. [read more]

A-Level Sociology: the Role of the Family in Modern Societies

This short essay (around 850 words) was written in November 2001 as part of my AS-Level sociology course at Halifax New College (part of Calderdale College). It discusses how the family is seen in functionalist writings. It’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.

To what extent do Functionalist writings accurately reflect the role of the family in modern societies?

Functionalist writings go into much depth in regard to the state and roles of the family in modern, post industrial revolution, society. How accurately the interpretation and observations that are made by the Functionalist view represent the state of the family is, however, a contentious point. [read more]

The Funeral

Following my Grandma’s death there were things to be sorted out.  My mum spent the couple of days immediately following my Grandma’s death staying at her flat sorting out the will and funeral arrangements.  There is, apparently, quite a bit of running around to do.  The funeral happened a couple of weeks later.

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Mrs Joyce Muriel Last

I think the last time I did a proper update was in September after my visit to see my Grandma in hospital, so I’ll start off there.  Please excuse me if I repeat anything I said in that post – I’ve no read it recently.

At the time she was in a ward Middlesbrough.  The ward wasn’t the best place for her – there was nothing to do, she was getting bored.  Although she was ill she was still basically mentally fit when prompted.  Yes, she couldn’t always remember things very clearly, but she was a very clever woman and when we visited as a family and talked to her about things she enjoyed (we did the crossword together, for example), she was fine.  On that visit we found some photos from her first wedding in the cupboard and my mum took those with her on the next visit to show her, and she remembered quite a bit about it, although couldn’t remember where abouts in Leeds the photos had been taken.  So my mum kept on at the hospital to get her moved somewhere nicer, somewhere nearer home, to the hospital I was born in, the little town hospital in Guisborough. [read more]

Prevent crime – make bread

Honestly, the police told us.  Yesterday when I was in the afternoon, my mum came up and said there was a police woman downstairs who was trying to find out if there was anyone who had seen an attempted break in next door. Apparently someone had tried to get into his conservatory, but had been scared off. Now our kitchen looks out straight over his conservatory, and they think that a light coming on in our kitchen scared them off.  Next door went to bed at about 12, and my parents went to bed at about 11, but I went downstairs at 1.30 to put the bread on for the next morning…and put the kitchen light on. I can’t say I realised, or that I saw anything, but they think that me going down to make the bread scared them off, lol.  I don’t think they would have got away with anything if they had got in – the alarm would have just gone off, and they would have gone then – but its always nice to know I probably prevented it.

I haven’t written since Christmas so I will try to get this up-to-date now. [read more]