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00:03What are we looking for today, anyway?
00:05Zoe Ball is a legend of British television and radio,
00:09with a career spanning over 30 years.
00:13I'll tell you what, Natasha's mum,
00:15we're going to send you our very uncanny parent.
00:17She made a name for herself,
00:19fronting some of the biggest TV shows of the 90s.
00:22Hey, it's Friday, it's 7.30, it's still number one,
00:25it's Top of the Pops!
00:28I've been really blessed with the jobs I've got to do,
00:32from The Big Breakfast, live and kicking,
00:34and then to go into radio.
00:37Zoe was the first woman in broadcast history
00:40to helm both the BBC Radio 1 and 2 breakfast shows,
00:44before stepping down in 2024.
00:48We lost my mum last year,
00:50and it really made me step back and look at the bigger picture
00:55and re-evaluate what's important in my life.
01:00Nellie, my daughter, is 15,
01:03and I just want to be mum and be around for her,
01:06before she's grown up and off out in the big wide world,
01:10like her brother, Woody.
01:11If you were doing, look, Shakespeare Day...
01:15Shakespeare Day? Yeah.
01:18My kids are really keen to know if we are Brits through and through,
01:23is there any Viking, is there any pirates?
01:26Maybe they were what they called Morris dancers.
01:29We sort of joke that we're convinced that we come from a line of wrong-uns.
01:35Zoe's dad, Johnny Ball, is the iconic children's TV presenter
01:39of the 70s and 80s.
01:41Famous for shows like Play School and Think of a Number.
01:44If you want to multiply 8 by 9, you fold the 8's finger down,
01:47and the answer is 70, 1, 2.
01:49And then we were out and about, people would be like,
01:52Johnny, you all right, Johnny, give me a number, la, la, la.
01:55And he would...
01:56He was always so brilliant with people, chat away,
01:59and he always used to say to me,
02:00so, it's just a job.
02:01And he's right, it's just a job.
02:03It's just people know your face.
02:05As a teenager, it was quite embarrassing.
02:09Zoe's parents, Johnny and Julia,
02:11divorced when she was just a toddler.
02:14I think with things being a little bit tricky,
02:16and they both met new partners,
02:18it was decided at some point that I would stay with my dad.
02:24And it was pretty tough.
02:26I didn't see my mum for about 14 years,
02:28which is a long time for a kid not to see her mum.
02:32And then when we did connect again when I was 18,
02:36there was a lot of making up to do.
02:39Hang on.
02:42Yeah, there we go.
02:44I don't remember ever meeting my mum's mum.
02:48Her name was Margaret, but everyone called her Peg.
02:51For a time, she was in, I guess,
02:53it would have been called an asylum in those days,
02:56because she struggled with her mental health.
02:58Families are fascinating,
03:00because there are stories families tell,
03:01and there are stories that get hushed up.
03:04So I'd be quite keen to find out more about what happened to her.
03:09Almost pulling back the curtain.
03:11It could get quite emotional for me,
03:13because my mum was really excited about the prospect of us
03:18having a good dig into the past.
03:20This has actually looked really quite good.
03:22I feel like it's even more important now.
03:25I'm really sad she's not here to learn these things,
03:28but wherever she is, you know, she's with me here in my heart.
03:49Thank you very much.
04:09Zoe is starting with her dad Johnny's side of the family
04:15she has come to a childhood home in Buckinghamshire to see what he can tell her about the history of
04:20the balls oh look at that look at that lovely 70s bowl haircut you look very happy I remember
04:36that garden because I had a paddling pool and I had a little Wendy house and I was in that
04:43Wendy
04:43house day in day out absolutely yeah but then we let you back into your bedroom back in the house
04:50oh look there he is my granddad ball and my Nana so Anne and Dan your mom and dad look
04:59at his cheeky
04:59smile even now my dad would have been a brilliant stand-up comic and that's in a way where I
05:06got it
05:06all from and he used to really make me giggle you can see why like Stan Laurel always reminded me
05:12of
05:12granddad that's right it was that lovely gentle humor and he would do that all the time and it
05:18was exactly Stan Laurel a Nana and I remember her mashed carrots do you remember she used to mash
05:25carrots and you hated them and I loved those my dad used to say you know my dad used to
05:29say good heavens
05:3110 o'clock and no cabbage on because because of the weekend the cabbage used to go and buy 10
05:36o'clock
05:36and you'd have lunch at one and that cabbage boiling away till it was nothing and you get that smell
05:45so what
05:46about granddad's family then he was one of five kids but the saddest thing of all is dad's mum died
05:53when he was about four so he never really knew her so where was his mum from was she well
06:01you see so so all the balls were from Bolton but she was in many me and she came from
06:07Glasgow no yeah but
06:09that's all we know I've never heard this before I'm a grad you really know wow well yeah but I
06:16don't even
06:17remember her first name should we see if we can do a bit of research Daniel boom and what year
06:24was he
06:24born 1908 1908 where was he born Bolton Bolton right here we go census for England and Wales Bolton
06:34Lancashire should we look at that one yeah so this is 1911 William ball my great-granddad yes Dan's dad
06:44oh look he was a coal miner and look there we go Catherine ball so that's my great-grandmother yes
06:52and your grandmother yeah and then we have Effie ball daughter goodness me there's more there's more
06:59well these are the three yeah did you know there were that many one two three I thought there were
07:04three six four five of them and there is Daniel ball there's granddad yeah look so he was three yeah
07:11Catherine ball yeah so we've got her age 41 so can we work out when she was born
07:19um dad's three here so she was 38 uh when he was born yeah so uh 38 and he was
07:27born in 08 38
07:301870 I think she was born it's good to see the genius at work there I'm really glad you did
07:35the math
07:371870 19 results dad this is so exciting Scotland Roman Catholic parish baptisms Glasgow Glasgow
07:47there you are there's quite a lot it's quite hard to read the writing isn't it Catherine Catherine
07:54there she is there it is born to Daniel Daniel is it Daniel McManamy we should explain dad's name
08:01yeah and is that what's that say there you've it is that say euphenia
08:09this is brilliant don't don't don't hang on so they are my great-great-grandparents
08:16yeah and where do they live so seven is that Landry Street might be is it I I'm I'm absolutely
08:25thrilled about this I've got to go there Zoe has discovered that her great-grandmother on her dad's
08:31side was called Catherine McMenamy and that through her she has Scottish ancestry
08:43she has come to Glasgow where Catherine lived with her parents Daniel and euphemia Zoe's great-great
08:49grandparents to see what she can uncover Zoe's meeting Glasgow historian Peter Mortimer on Landressy
08:58Street Peter Zoe welcome really oh I'm so excited to be here to find myself in Landressy Street how
09:07much is left from the time that Catherine would have lived here none of it would have been here
09:11Brigton was a very industrial area let me illustrate that with this map oh let me get my specs on
09:19Peter and we are stood here there it is Landressy Street okay it's so busy there's a lot of buildings
09:26around here and I can see Greenhead Mills the cotton mill power loom power loom over here gosh just so
09:36many mills this is into the middle of the 19th century following on the the coattails of the
09:41Industrial Revolution Glasgow was booming so can you tell me about my family and how things were for
09:48them around that time I think we can look at this is a document oh yeah 1871 census so you've
09:56got
09:56five Landressy Street there number seven here we go and there's a little oh my goodness me there's so
10:04many names here this is all in one building and then we finally have Daniel McMenamy euphemia and there
10:13she is Catherine my great-grandmother living in this house with all these other families there would
10:21have been 11 families and upwards of 50 persons how does that work like many in 19th century Glasgow
10:30Zoe's great-grandmother Catherine McMenamy lived in what was known as a tenement house over four floors
10:39these buildings often contained as many as 12 flats each one made up of just a small living room and
10:46kitchen for the whole family in the poorer tenements there was only one shared outdoor toilet with
10:54overcrowding and poor sanitation disease spread quickly many of Glasgow's original tenement houses
11:02remain today so Peter is taking Zoe to get a sense of what they were like so do we know
11:09any more about
11:10Catherine did she have siblings yes and the first of them was euphemia oh not after a mom absolutely okay
11:20okay okay we have register of death in Scotland in 1872 that's good oh no euphemia McMenamy oh goodness me
11:32does
11:33that say 19 days oh she had a brother yeah called Peter oh it's another register of death so Peter
11:44McMenamy
11:47three and a half months oh whooping cough today very treatable yeah back then took a lot of lives
11:54dear Peter so it's only by reading documents like this that we even know that yeah they were existed at
12:02all really does show how tough how fragile life was yeah fragile unfortunately the bad news did not
12:10stop with the babies okay oh no euphemia oh gosh this is Catherine's mum is 29 years old when she
12:21dies
12:22oh and her cause of death was sysis what sysis better known as tuberculosis tuberculosis okay TB yeah and was
12:33TB I'm imagining sort of rife at that yeah and living conditions poor living conditions contributed to
12:40this and Catherine's only five or six but this day so who would look after Catherine after her mum's death
12:49let me shine a light on that for you okay this is another document this is a census from 1881
12:57so hang on
12:58oh so this is a few years later and we're at the school board district of Paisley so has Daniel
13:09moved
13:10what has happened Catherine ah Catherine's here no mention of her dad lodger hang on a minute she's 11
13:20she's 11 years old Helen McMahon is the head of the house she's living with her son Daniel her niece
13:29and Catherine is a lodger the McMahons so is that a relative or she's just been taken in or she's
13:40adopted
13:40or I just don't know today suddenly taking a bit of a turn the excitement of finding out that my
13:54great-grandmother Catherine was from Glasgow coming up here and finding out where she lived and a little
14:00bit about her life suddenly that story's become very very sad that this little girl has lost two baby
14:08siblings and then her mum my great-great-grandmother Euphemia is gone at just 29 years old where does
14:16that leave Catherine and what has happened to my great-great-grandfather Daniel where is he gone as
14:23he shacked up with somebody else is he still alive to solve the mystery of how a great-grandmother Catherine
14:33McMenemy came to be living as a lodger with Helen McMahon at the age of just 11 Zoe has come
14:39to the
14:39Mitchell library in Glasgow to meet genealogist Morag Piers okay so what we can confirm is that we found
14:47her dad in Edinburgh in Edinburgh and Edinburgh which is 60 miles from Paisley yeah and he's working
14:53there and it wasn't unusual for fathers they didn't have there wasn't nurseries there wasn't daycares
15:00the child would be sent to live with some other relatives so um they could carry on working okay to
15:07earn a living because they had to you had no other option and having looked into this further we can
15:12confirm that Helen is actually in a relationship with Daniel McMenemy and this Daniel here is their child
15:22oh so the family line carries on and he met someone else after losing his wife who's so young it
15:28seems so
15:29yes so for Catherine I mean it could be complicated but for Catherine she having lost two siblings she
15:37now has a baby brother half-brother yes and so she's in the household with her step-mom and her
15:44half-brother
15:45oh I don't know why but I find that quite comforting that she's now she is still in a family
15:51absolutely he's not abandoned her he's not abandoned her oh I knew he was a good man I did I
15:58knew he was a
15:58good man okay something else that interests me here and I don't know as I look at Catherine here
16:05it seems that she has a job there yes it says she's a half-time starch worker so half-time
16:12means that
16:12she's part-time in the textile mills and part-time at school it doesn't really mean half and half
16:18it's probably more skewed towards the working so what would happen next for Catherine okay well
16:25I'm afraid it's not a very happy story oh there's there's been a lot of tragedy in this well there's
16:29more to come I'm afraid because not long after this census was taken and both Helen and Daniel died gosh
16:36and she's lost again another sibling another sibling and step-mom yeah so but we do pick
16:43her up a few years later there's a bit of a gap in the records but the next record I've
16:46got to show
16:46you is this one okay so um here we have a copy of the entry of death so here's Daniel
16:55my great-great
16:55grandfather Catherine's dad yeah and he was 40 years old yeah when he died and he had laryngitis
17:06gosh you know I mean laryngitis that common I know for us I often get laryngitis you go to
17:10the doctor give you some antibiotics and you're you're better oh Catherine McManamy present at the
17:17death so she was with him when he died yeah so at some point between the center oh between some
17:25point between the 1881 census and this death in 1889 they've come back together um and did you
17:32notice where it was registered the death in Bolton at the county of Lancaster so it all starts to come
17:39together I'm really I'm really sad that he's died so young as 40 seemed so young there is such comfort
17:46to know that Catherine was back with her father and was there for him when he passed away so somehow
17:54they have both moved moved to Bolton and I think that's probably work connected okay Bolton like
18:01Glasgow like Paisley big industrial center industrial revolution lots of textile mills and there's work
18:07there do we know what happened next well we do and I think you might have seen that before okay
18:14yeah this
18:14is the census of England and Wales 1911 and here is William William Ball they've been married 21
18:23years yeah so she will have married William not long after couple years after her dad it's so such a
18:30relief but she had some joy she did in her kids and there he is my granddad Daniel there who
18:38is the
18:39little one and she died quite young herself didn't she she did bless her heart to leave all those kids
18:46I know behind and she had been very proud of my granddad he was a wonderful man so joyful I
18:53want to
18:53have a massive cry it's really it's quite overwhelming it's so moving to see these people just
19:10what a gift to have learned about Catherine and her life growing up in the tenements in Glasgow
19:16a life that we knew nothing about I think the ball will now wear that with prize
19:22um that we have this strong connection to Glasgow and that we have Scottish blood running through our
19:30veins as well I like to think that Catherine's strength and resilience is something that passed
19:37down through her kids and has then passed on generation to generation and you know we think
19:44sometimes that our lives can be quite tough you look back and think we're so lucky
19:58having explored her Scottish roots through her dad's ancestors
20:02Zoe now wants to find out about her late mother Julia's side of the family
20:08Zoe never met her grandmother Peggy she remembers her mum saying that Peggy spent some time
20:13in a psychiatric hospital
20:18so these are boxes that have come from mum's house that we've cleared out photographs family
20:24albums scrapbooks all sorts of treasures now this is my mum bless her with her little
20:32toy dog it's unmistakably my mum because that smile and those bright sparkly eyes and the perfect
20:38turned out hair she never lost that look and here Julia aged nine taken in Christmas 1958
20:48so this is my mum on her wedding day with her mum so this is Peggy it's quite strange looking
20:57at this
20:58picture and then sort of hearing that she had mental health issues and you look at this lady here and
21:04she
21:04just seems like a real lovely lady who's very happy to see her daughter getting married
21:08so you know was she well was she not you know i have no idea
21:16now my mum talks a bit about this and if i'm right this is the house
21:22the house where my grandma Peg went to work in service let's say on the back
21:30littlewood park alford what happy days i spent here
21:34oh as a nursemaid went there in 1928 now that's gold isn't it and is this her is this my
21:47grandma right here we go now we're finding out the stuff oh margaret bramwell minto i've heard
21:54the name minto mentioned okay this is peggy so she was margaret born 15th february 1913
22:04this was taken on her 21st birthday what happened to her this lovely gorgeous young lass
22:17keen to find out more about her grandma peg story
22:21zoe is traveling to the northeast where her mum grew up
22:28she's meeting historian dr vicky long at the university of newcastle
22:33good to meet you too should we head in today then amazing building so vicky this is peg my
22:41grandmother my mum's mum and i know very little about her i do know that when she was quite young
22:49she was in service in this house there's a nursemaid so i've got this document to show you which is
22:55the
22:561921 census so there is margaret minto my grandmother looks like the eldest of four kids
23:03here she's eight years old um we have edward minto my great-grandfather head of the family he's 32
23:12so he's working as a coal miner oh gosh he's out of work right and a lot of the pit
23:19villages you're
23:20seeing men experiencing long-term unemployment for years on end so if peg's in this situation at home
23:27there's no money coming in she's the eldest she's gonna have to go out to work but maybe that's a
23:32bit
23:32of a relief as well for her to get out of this household um it says on the back here
23:381928 so
23:40she'd have been about 15 that's it which seems very young but that was quite normal yeah yeah so
23:46we've got an idea of her early years i know she went on a married bill my grandfather was a
23:51policeman
23:51and she had three daughters the only other thing i really know about peg is later on in her life
23:58she
23:59was in an institution so we do have her medical records from that time which i have here gosh
24:08there's a lot of her story in these pages it really gives you a sense of yeah how complex her
24:15case was
24:16date of admission 1963 diagnosis on admission now what does that say that says acute mania mania
24:27we move on to the next page for some months the patient had been excessively extravagant with money
24:37living uh above her means and running up large bills unknown to her husband oh my goodness me at
24:45easter she visited her daughter in lancaster and then was accused of shoplifting oh peg after the
24:52summons she became uh disinterested in home and self and fell asleep at every opportunity she was
25:01exhausted this continued until the day before the hearing of the case oh my goodness me so she's up in
25:07court as well oh when she suddenly changed and became cheerful okay she then began to express grandiose
25:16ideas and behaved in a very abnormal way when she gave evidence in the afternoon she was very confused
25:26and was admitted to shopley bridge hospital patient described how upset and depressed she had been
25:33after her eldest daughter and husband and baby went to lancashire so she's left at home with the
25:38youngest my mum who's 13 who's the only one at home it kind of makes me feel sad for peg
25:46but also makes me
25:46feel sad for your mum as well your daughter left at home as an adult it's hard to know how
25:52to look after
25:52someone who's going through a mental health crisis so it was a 13 year old girl yeah both of them
25:58i really feel for them yeah it's kind of fascinating isn't it that here is a lass who came from
26:04a very
26:05impoverished working class family goes to work in a house for some very wealthy people so she's
26:12suddenly surrounded by you know all that grandiose behavior so later on she's probably a little bit
26:21confused she's seen the good life and she wants a bit of that herself if we maybe go to the
26:28next
26:28document zoe we get more of a sense perhaps of a peg zone voice about where that kind of grandiose
26:36label might have come from um dearest dorothy john and family we want you to join us on a trip
26:45to norway
26:47oh dear i know you've always wanted to go there just fly up pet because i've just won
26:54a lawsuit against woolworths oh this is the stuff my mum would talk about you can go with us for
27:03as
27:03long as you like barbara barbara hutton the woof's heiress will be footing the bill where have you found
27:11this letter i think the reason we have this letter is because it's in the medical record okay the reason
27:16it's in the medical record is because it wasn't sent she it's not been no one sent it no and
27:21this
27:21is they're typically held back like this when they're seen as evidence of someone's what's happening
27:27inside her mind yeah okay it's an amazing demonstration of what it is like inside someone's
27:34mind who's going through something like this my mum told me that her dad would take her to visit her
27:39mum when her mum was in this hospital now how would that be as a young girl visiting a situation
27:46like
27:46that it must have been really daunting for your mum to make those visits but it probably was really good
27:53for peg okay to see her daughter okay um it's unusual actually it's still functioning as a psychiatric
28:00hospital today vicky has brought zoe to st nicholas hospital in newcastle where her grandmother peggy
28:09spent a period of time in the 1960s so my mum want to come here to visit my grandma in
28:16this very
28:17place yeah this hospital if we look at this document it gives us more of a sense of the symptoms
28:29she was displaying while she was in st nicks says she still has times when she has plenty of energy
28:36is on top of the world and other times she feels tired depressed and sleepy and everything feels
28:43horrible so looking at this it does look a little like bipolar yeah perhaps disorder we don't have her
28:51in front of us and neither of us are psychiatrists but it does align more with that diagnosis so what
28:58are the kind of treatments that she would have had while she was here in the medicines they would have
29:02given her so we've got here puraldehyde basically a kind of heavy duty sedative you're just dulling
29:09it you're dulling the level and what's this one here so this one is largactyl largactyl is unusual
29:18because it's the first sedative that actually does help to dispel those symptoms of psychosis it's the first
29:24effective antipsychotic medication so i have a bit more information so this is a record for ect treatment
29:34electroconvulsive therapy see this is the this is the thing i kind of sort of dreaded the idea that she
29:40would have gone through this so this this is quite confusing but what we have here um are indications that
29:48she's been given both a muscle relaxant and an anesthetic the anesthetic obviously puts patients
29:56briefly out of consciousness and the muscle relaxant means that you just don't see any kind of real
30:02visible convulsion taking place so that risk of damage to muscle to bone to painful clenched jaws
30:08goes so it's a more yeah so it's less brutal but i'm still intrigued did it work did ect work
30:18for
30:18patients people have mixed experiences with it but many people did find it was a really effective
30:27treatment for depression um that no one quite knows why why and how it works but it did seem to
30:35seem to work would you like another letter from peg i'd love another letter is a barbara hutton in
30:41this letter bless her oh okay dear dr lawson i will be unable to keep my appointment on thursday
30:49january the 14th my daughter in lancaster has to go into hospital and i'm going down to look after my
30:57two little granddaughters she's sounding really well here isn't she will you please kindly make me another
31:04appointment i have a supply of tablets and i'm keeping very well oh peg have been busy knitting
31:13julie my youngest daughter two jumpers oh my mom still had those jumpers and on with cardigans for
31:21kim and tracy they're my cousins kim and tracy so they're june's two girls who she was going to look
31:27after wishing you all the best yours sincerely peggy anderson i'm really happy to hear she's doing
31:36well my goodness me
31:43oh peggy bless her heart
31:49i'm so relieved that she was okay again
32:05and see my mum's name in there as well you know oh thank you for showing me that such a
32:12different
32:12letter isn't it yeah it really is and if it was sort of something like bipolar disorder would she
32:18have gone in and out of treatment through the rest of her life yeah so we do have further records
32:24and there is this pattern of short short admissions and discharges
32:29i do have one more document for you zoe bless her here we are on the 5th of august 1979
32:37hospital in lancaster oh there's my mum's name so my mum's the informant so she had pneumonia liver
32:51failure oh a manic depressive psychosis so she was 66 relatively young yeah it's it's interesting that's
33:001979 so i didn't see my mum during this period so yeah i never knew that that's what happened
33:11oh peg i'm so relieved though that she had time after with her family you know that's so that was
33:24back in
33:241963 and she lived till 1979 and though she is young she did come back into her family's life my
33:31mum used to say to me standards darling standards which is what her mum used to say to her and
33:36i'm
33:36thinking that must have come from being in service standards darling standard and it it's all starting
33:42to fall into place now all these characteristics that all these things my mum would say that would
33:47clearly have come from her mum it's um yeah it's sort of like the full picture it's quite a powerful
33:54thing it is
34:04it's really helping me put the puzzle together about peg's life you know the background she grew up in
34:10you know a poor out of work coal miners daughter having to go away at 15 to work but then
34:16seeing another
34:17other side of life there exactly the opposite which sort of helps you maybe understand what happened
34:24to her later in life i think i was really apprehensive about seeing the hospital she was in
34:31and in my mind the idea of my grandma being in treatment for her mental health i had some pretty
34:38tough ideas of how that would have been in my head and i'm so glad that she managed to get
34:44the
34:45right treatment she was able to live for a few years in between her visits to hospital and have
34:52treatment she was able to be a mother and a grandma i really wanted to talk to mom yesterday and
34:59just be
34:59like mom i understand and i would have been able to tell her more about peggy and what peggy went
35:07through
35:07um she's pretty moving stuff
35:16after learning more about her grandmother peggy zoe now wants to explore her granddad bill's side of the
35:23family something zoe knows nothing about she's enlisting the help of genealogist katherine thompson
35:30i've compiled this tree for you to have a look at oh look family tree this is fabulous okay so
35:39we
35:39have me 1970 there's my dad johnny and my mum julia this is peggy and her husband bill and he's
35:47an
35:47anderson and he is the son of john anderson and matilda jane temby so we're going up the temby side
35:56so
35:57she is the daughter of albert temby albert the son of james temby my great great great grandfather so
36:07who are the tembys right well this document here from the 1851 census
36:13for james temby so it's the parish of cambourne where's cambourne and it's 249 centenary row
36:24so here we have joanna temby um profession copper mine girl wow and then julia temby 26
36:37mary a temby is 21 richard temby nine years old and a copper mine boy that's very young isn't it
36:46and there
36:47is james temby my great great great grandfather who at this point in 1851 is only two years old joanna's
36:57the head of the um family there but all the rest of them are lodgers so how are they related
37:03do we know
37:04are they brothers and sisters is joanna the mother of richard and james and possibly but i don't know
37:13there's more mystery to unravel there is oh hang on a minute cornwall yeah cambourne is in cornwall it
37:22is yeah so if i want to find out more about the tembys i'm imagining i've got to go to
37:29cornwall yeah
37:29yeah okay find out yeah hooray having thought her granddad's family were all from the northeast
37:36zoe has discovered that her three times great grandfather james temby was actually from cornwall
37:44she now wants to uncover the mystery of who james was living with in 1851 and who his parents were
37:54she is following her roots to red ruth where she's meeting genealogist and social historian
38:00dr leslie trotter it's been really challenging to try and find out about james and what we've
38:06discovered so far is that joanna julia and marianne are sisters okay and all the evidence is pointing
38:14to the fact that it's julia who is james's mother okay julia which is my mom's name so take a
38:22look at
38:22this record yeah certified copy of an entry of birth so name if any is john and he's a boy
38:33ah so it's not he's not james when he's not at this point he's gone by a different name as
38:38he's
38:39gone as he's got older which isn't that unusual it does happen in families yeah and julia temby is
38:45his mother name and surname a father there's it's blank oh goodness me so in in those days would this
38:55be quite scandalous yes a lot of women in this time wouldn't have kept their rid of children oh
39:00you're joking thank goodness they had each other as sisters i hope you're giving me a look i'm
39:07thinking oh gosh it's actually really unusual because you've got a really strong female household
39:13here and they keep their children yes they were a family unit living together and going out to work
39:20and they're working in the local copper mines so do you know any more well we do there's another
39:26document i want to show you but i'm going to need your help okay this is going to be heavy
39:33luckily i've been working on my core and we'll carefully support it right so put that down look at the
39:41lock on it what have we got here julia temby james's mother um so she's been committed by the
39:52magistrates for an offense assaulting mary gundry she's assaulted someone she has so at this point
40:031851 james is about three two or three years old two years old um sentence oh this is her sentence
40:11six weeks six weeks or pay two pound fourteen two pounds fourteen shillings and sixpence i mean how
40:18huge a sum is that to a lass like this that would have been the equivalent about two possibly three
40:24months wages oh gosh that's a lot of money then that's a lot of money there's no way she's going
40:30to be able to pay that so she's been given six weeks imprisonment or this fine to pay now is
40:37that
40:37common for an assault well it's really interesting have a look at the the previous entries okay so
40:45above constance bennett assaulted marianne luke she got 14 days okay so that's a lot less it's very
40:57strange there's something odd going on here okay because the assault is not so bad that it's made the
41:03newspapers if you compare on the next page what they say about constance and what they say about
41:09julia okay so let's have a look ah constance is married with one child and julia below okay and julia
41:17single base child and what does that mean base child she's got an illegitimate child illegitimate child
41:25okay so totally different treatment for a woman who's married yeah we don't know the circumstances
41:33of the assault but there is this suspicion that she's being judged more harshly because
41:40of her circumstances because of her circumstances which prison this would be bodmin jail bodmin jail
41:47the county jail the big question at this point is what happened to baby james was he in the prison
42:03with her and able to stay with his mother or was he put into the workhouse or you know who
42:09knows
42:09fingers crossed i'm going to be able to find out a little bit more
42:17zoe has traveled to the edge of bodmin moore in cornwall to the jail where her four times great
42:23grandmother was imprisoned she's meeting its general manager jess martin jess sorry welcome to bodmin jail
42:35the jail the jail is now a museum what's your head okay head down handle it what you're walking
42:44into zoe is the former women's wing of this prison um it eventually became the naval wing this one but
42:52for uh your relatives this is where the women would have been bought goodness me and you really can't
43:00see anything down here can you no um and that's deliberate this is the dark landing or reception
43:07landing so when you're brought into this prison you're brought into darkness and you're going to
43:12stay down here until you prove you can behave yourself really so if you're well behaved there's a chance
43:19you might get to slightly better quarters upstairs are three more levels and there's a glass roof on
43:27this building so the better behaved you are the closer to the light you'll move and that's the
43:32key to this place it's a reform prison it's the first one to be built in the uk and its
43:38whole premise
43:39was to improve your behavior and change your outlook in life so jess is it likely that james would have
43:48come in here with julia there was nowhere else for him to go and no other means to support him
43:54it's
43:54heartbreaking isn't it well i can show an example of the kind of cell they might both have been in
44:00it's just behind you okay let's have a look oh my goodness me this is
44:11gosh stone all around you very very dark
44:17and a simple simple bed made from straw obviously the mattress very drafty yeah
44:28that's tough tough living isn't it i think it's pretty devastating to think of a two-year-old
44:35living in these conditions it must have been terrifying for both of them
44:40they'd have come through the main gatehouse five sets of gates they'd have had uh their hair shaved
44:46off to stop head lice uh they'd have been given their prison uniform was it very sort of strict
44:53conditions that it's really strong conditions it's a silent prison there is no talking um trying to
45:00keep a two-year-old quiet i should think was quite a challenge so it really is the whole
45:06the whole act here yeah her behavior is marked as orderly so she's made an effort for her and for
45:15james to get herself out of here as quickly as she can that's a big relief
45:23following in the footsteps of her ancestors zoe is staying the night in one of the cells in bodmin jail
45:29luckily for her part of the historic prison is now a hotel
45:48as i fell asleep last night i couldn't help but think about julia and james and how their experience
45:54would be very different to mine because this is a hotel now and i was under a 15 tog duvet
45:59and i will
46:00admit i did sleep with a light on don't speak at all for little james you know he was two
46:10years old
46:10what a terrifying place to be living um and you wonder how much that affected the rest of his life
46:18i hope that things got a little better for him
46:34zoe has come to cornwall's south coast to meet up with dr leslie trotter again
46:41leslie has uncovered what happened to james temby after his turbulent early years
46:48well let's look at this document
46:51oh it's a marriage good news okay let's see when is this where's the date that's the 6th of october
47:01yeah and it's actually happening within the month of julia leaving prison my four times great
47:09grandmother marrying a man called william ivy let's hope he's a good sort well he's a widower yeah and
47:18he's much older than she is okay julia's about 25 now he's 49 okay he's recently lost his wife
47:26but he has seven children wow so he's in need of a new mother for his children for his children
47:34it sounds quite hectic and kids and it gets more so okay because julia and william go on to have
47:41another six children my goodness me and there's more there's more good news i can't believe it
47:49oh it's weddings a go-go we are now in 1867 james temby 19 years old marries marianne rogers my
48:01three
48:02times great grandmother who's 21 years old james is now a lead miner do they have any kids ah
48:11oh i hope so the only thing with this show is you never know how long this happy streak is
48:16going
48:16to last i'm making the most to it leslie we're doing all right so 1868 january the 7th
48:25william james rogers male is born to james temby and marianne rogers
48:33is not long after that wedding in 67 not quite long enough is it not quite long enough but he's
48:39doing the right thing yeah yeah oh hang on a minute on the island of guernsey how on earth
48:48do they end up in guernsey this is a very crucial time in cornish mining history
48:56in the 1860s competition from foreign mines led to a collapse in the price of cornish copper
49:04this forced pits to close and thousands to lose their livelihood
49:10around 20 percent of cornwall's male population left to find work elsewhere
49:15often taking their families with them guernsey had a thriving granite industry and there were
49:22opportunities in the quarries for hard-working men like james temby
49:31james and marianne have gone over with her mother and her stepfather and also her sister and her
49:39husband so they've gone over as a family unit and you're so rooting for them to do well does this
49:46carry on leslie unfortunately oh i knew we had a run of too much good luck we have james temby
49:54his wife marianne there and their two children when sent with a scent so on the 16th of august
50:051869 they have been sent to plymouth length of residence here two years oh goodness me reasons
50:14why sent destitute yes so the work has dried up and it's not just them being sent back okay so
50:22the
50:22whole family group are being deported from guernsey because they're being deported from guernsey because
50:29they can't support themselves anymore and guernsey was rather notorious and at this point in time
50:35they're sending about 10 000 people out of the islands widows children foreigners anybody who might
50:42be a drain on the community so they're going back and are they going to be able to find work
50:48back home well let me show you the next document another birth
50:571875 in the county of durham okay so they have moved again matilda jane such a lovely name is born
51:08to james temby and mary ann temby occupation of father coal miner starting to see now how my mum's
51:19side of the family were in that area and that was a very common move yeah for people minus from
51:26cornwall
51:27at that point the mark of james temby father lane ends hunwick that's about 400 miles from where we
51:35now from here yeah flipping heck zoe has discovered that by 1875 her three times great-grandparents james
51:50and mary ann temby had moved to hunwick in county durham near to where her mum julia grew up
52:00it's strange i'm actually following the footsteps of my three times great-grandfather james and his
52:04family now traveling from cornwall to county durham it's it's pretty impressive to see how far
52:11a family would travel to find work right across the country i'm really invested in their future
52:17now these are my people i need to know they're okay one man who knows james and mary ann's new
52:25home in
52:26hunwick well is local author john pallister hello john hello nice to meet you lovely to meet you i'm hoping
52:33you might be able to help me my uh three times great-grandfather james temby and his family moved
52:40up here from cornwall late 1800s and i believe they settled in um lane ends this is lane ends when
52:48your
52:48family was here in the 1870s this whole area would have been full of houses but all the houses knocked
52:54down and so i've got here an 1890 trade directory can you see anybody on there related to you so
53:00we've
53:00got all the names there's the stits and the stobs the sunters and there's james temby there you are
53:08you found him he's a fruiterer that's basically a green grocer ah so i guess if all these families
53:14are moving up here everyone's working in the coal industry more people you need you need your services
53:20yeah a green grocer is he still working down the mines yeah at that time a lot of families the
53:25wives
53:26would run the shops and the men would be down the mines okay so they'd be proper entrepreneurs
53:36john has arranged for zoe to meet another temby descendant in the local pub
53:59so this is the greengrocers that james and marianne temby set up
54:11when they moved up from down south is there it is in law you can see some of the supplies
54:18in the
54:18winter it's a nice stack of eggs there and we're looking here at marianne temby there she is so
54:26outside the greengrocers when james was probably down the mine during the day absolutely coal miner
54:33so there she is she's got a pinny on she's ready to work it's so wonderful to see their faces
54:39makes it
54:40real real doesn't it it really does okay and there's one more document zoe for you
54:47oh the death of mr james temby in 1920 by the death of mr james temby which took place on
54:57friday
54:57morning last hunwick has lost one of its standards oh that's very good my mum
55:06the deceased gentleman was well known in the district and was held in the highest esteem
55:13isn't this fabulous tweet about this man hailing from the south of england over 40 years ago mr temby
55:20has resided in hunwick and the surrounding district ever since his death occurred at the age of 73 years
55:29he leaves a family of three sons and two daughters all married oh james he lived till he was 73
55:41isn't it wonderful to know that he was so respected lovely isn't him and his family absolutely um
55:48um and that they did you know they moved around so much to try and find work and
55:55so he could feed his family but they found their place and they settled james bless you lovely to see
56:18and the adventure i thought i was going on or the places i thought i might go to uh well
56:25it's turned
56:25out that i was quite wrong i've always had that thing of it doesn't matter where you live it's the
56:32people you're with and what you're doing there and you can make a home anywhere that you have to be
56:39and that is something that i have seen from my ancestors that they have very much had to do
56:45to follow to wherever life took them where the work was you know to survive um
56:53and the strength and resilience that they've shown and that family was really important to all of them
57:00and it's it's it's kind of been really hard to do this without mum because she was so part of
57:07this
57:09experience um and i want to ring her up at the end of every day and just say guess what
57:15guess what i
57:15found out now and i know she'd be really chuffed
57:39so
57:45you