Ships

Reading Alan Bennett last night I thought maybe family history holds some interest to others: a quick blog on the multifarious importance of ships in our family. Here is a ship broken from its bottle made by my father before he was not even 10; placing its launch to somewhere in the early 1940's during the war. At only 65mm high and fitting into a narrow necked bottle not much bigger it is an extremely skillful piece of craftmanship. It is one of many that have been lost, a hobby he had for a some time. In later life he took up sailing and it is out sailing that he met my mother; well more accurately in the club house afterwards.
The family tale is that my name is taken from a sailing ship, owned by the Spanish side of the family. A very successful ship it earned a good deal of money and in good Spanish tradition the name came to be given to the eldest child - male of female - to this day. Thus my grand-mother has exactly the same name as me (her surname being taken by my father) and my father had it as his middle name.
That Spanish connection was made by a distant relative who jumped ship in Spanish waters and married into a Spanish family. His descendents included a line of merchant seamen in the 1800s, the trophies of one of their adventures once adording the dark stairway in my grandmothers house. The two 10 foot Australian aboriginal fishing spears, the shield and boomerang now in the loft above where I write... except my mum reminds me this could have been from my fathers travels with P&O when he worked for them (in computers).
By all rights I should love the ocean. It certainly has a charm for me, and I enjoy nothing more than walking the coast - but to date no major desire yet to cast myself upon the waves.

A complete aside is the importance of the number 8 in the Gosson family. My grandmother and my father were born on the 8th. She was quite angry that I was born at 23.30 on the 7th and my sister 1.30am on the 9th. My mum is born on the 17th. The story goes that my great-grandmother always thought she was born on the 18th. Grandma wouldn't believe it and finally when she tracked down the church and birth records it came as no suprise to her that it was indeed the 8th.