Posting photographs, cine and video footage of my Granny Geake (born Phyllis Grace Weaver: 1916-2005) on what would have been her 105th birthday. Known as Phyl, she was born in Tavistock in Devon ten days after her father was killed in WWI. Orphaned before the age of five, she went to live with her maternal grandparents where she later said she was somewhat spoilt by her uncles. After her grandmother died in 1925, Phyllis lived with her aunt, Edith Ellen Martin, and uncle, John Luxton Martin. The environment was stricter but Phyllis later said it did her good. She was intelligent but was denied a place at the grammar school because she had no father.

She married my Grandpa in 1938 and they lived in Tavistock all their married lives. However, the Second World War meant they didn't see each other for four years between 1941 and 1945. During this time Phyllis developed an overactive thyroid and became gravely ill before having an operation to remove the gland.

Phyllis worked in Leonard's Shoe Shop and also in a newsagent's shop as well as helping my Grandpa with his fruit and vegetable round. She took great pleasure in her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and was well known for her broad Devonshire accent and raucous laugh. She was plucky, generous and hospitable, always wanting to feed you up whenever you visited. She laid on many family Christmases and when I stayed with her as a child, we always stopped for elevenses which was a special one-to-one time.

Phyllis finally left Tavistock in 2004 to go to live in a retirement flat in Plymouth but not before organising the sale of nearly all of her furniture (and not through the internet either). She died the following year, leaving a big hole in the family where a kind and bright personality once was.


This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSyLHS1HD2M and in my website video gallery.

Music: The Entertainer (1902, piano roll) by Scott Joplin

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

Photographs, cine and video footage of my Granny Hibbitt (born Ivy Alice Dando: 1904-1992).

Known as Isey, she was born above her grandmother's sweet shop known as the Golden Butterfly in Saffron Walden in Essex. Her father was a dentist and, by 1910, the family had moved to Plymouth in Devon.

Isey was employed in the telephone exchange where presumably she met my Grandpa who also worked for the G.P.O. (General Post Office). Much of their married life was spent in Tavistock during which time she worked for a solicitor's firm in Plymouth. They retired to East Allington in the South Hams area of Devon and Isey outlived her husband by 20 years.

Isey's hobbies included making wine and collecting shells on the nearby Devon beaches. She then attached them to terracotta pots using Polyfilla or sometimes she used tiny square tiles and she'd let me have a go too. I remember her as kind and diplomatic with a vivacious personality and a lively sense of humour.


This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuyq3LZ4j-E and in my website video gallery.

Music: Cheezy Piano Medley by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

Cine footage with a few stills thrown in of my Grandpa Hibbitt (Charles George Hibbitt: 1898-1972).

Known as Charlie, he was born near Dundalk in Ireland. His father was a Coastguard and the family moved around before settling in Devon. Charlie went to live and work in Tavistock as a telephone engineer and inspector before retiring to East Allington in the South Hams area of Devon.

Grandpa's hobbies included cars and motorbikes (he was a motorcycle despatch rider during WW1), boats, short wave radio, photography and capturing cine films. He was more often than not, behind the camera, but I've managed to find a few short clips of him amongst the family collection.


This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNs3ymlohd0 and in my website video gallery.

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

The Wave of Poppies on the Plymouth Naval Memorial first appeared at the Tower of London in 2014. Plymouth Naval Memorial commemorates 7,251 sailors of the First World War and 15,933 of the Second World War including my great-uncle, Lt Cdr Charles Henry Martin who went down in HMS Hermes on 9th April 1942 off Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka). The Wave will be at Plymouth between August and November 2017.


This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDIiBdJRMHk and in my website video gallery.

Images taken by Annie Barnes: 26 August 2017.

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

One hundred years ago on 25th April 1917, my Grandpa Geake (William Hellyer Geake), known as Bill, was born in a blizzard in South Wales. Hopefully the snow was outside!

Grandpa was the fifth of eleven children and the family lived at Gilfach Goch, a few miles from Pontypridd. After leaving school at 14, he went to work in the coal mines and I was told the story of the roof collapsing one day. Grandpa escaped in one direction and a friend of his went in another and the friend was sadly killed.

When Grandpa was 15, most of the family returned to Tavistock in Devon, in the area where their ancestors had lived for generations. Grandpa worked as a milkman for the Co-op before World War Two broke out.

He enlisted in the Royal Marines on 1st January 1941 and served in Egypt, Palestine, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Belgium. After the war, Grandpa became a founder member of the Tavistock Royal Marines' Association and he also belonged to the Royal British Legion.

He had various jobs, one of which was as a postman, and afterwards Grandpa had his own greengrocery round which he ran for 15 years. This is how I first remember him. It was hard graft in all weathers covering some remote areas including Princetown on Dartmoor. Towards the end of his career, he became the Greengrocery Manager in Key Markets which was a local supermarket in Tavistock.

Grandpa Geake married my Gran in 1938 in St Eustachius Church, Tavistock, where he was a bell ringer and the bells were rung as the couple left the Church. They began married life living at No. 19 Bannawell Street and, within a few years, they moved to their council house at 4 Crelake Park which was to be their home for the rest of Grandpa's life and even longer for Gran. They had two daughters and in 1988 they reached another milestone when they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

There was a small number of allotments a few yards from the bottom of their house and Grandpa had one of them but I always had the impression it was serious stuff so I wasn't allowed to misbehave or interfere, especially with any of the neighbouring allotments.

Grandpa took up bowling in his retirement, belonging to the Tavistock Sir Francis Drake Bowling Club. This hobby was the catalyst for other family members to get involved with bowls which they still enjoy today. I also remember how Grandpa spent a lot of time in his shed in the garden, a shed he inherited from his Aunt Lil (Lily Sarah Thompson, nee Hellyer). He was handy with his hands and he used to make all kinds of items out of wood. I think it was also an excuse to have some time to himself.

All four of my grandparents got on with each other like a house on fire. My brothers and I were the only grandchildren for both sets of grandparents and so many happy memories include family get-togethers where we were the centre of attention.

Grandpa was not blessed with good health and developed Type I diabetes at a fairly early age. He passed away on 18th June 1994 in Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, aged 77.

Grandpa enjoyed gadgets and he took many cine films and bought a video camcorder in the early 1990's. He painstakingly transferred the cine films onto video (for which I shall be eternally grateful) and I have since converted them to DVD and Mpeg format. Here is a compilation of some of the scenes when Grandpa himself appeared in the footage.


This video can also be viewed on my YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR91ILigkRk and in my website video gallery.


[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]

Tavistock Goose Fair 2015
Last week, Harvey, my parents and I went to Tavistock Goose Fair, the annual fair which dates back to the 12th century.

This reminded me of the time when we took my gran to the fair a few months after my grandpa died. We had a nice time until poor gran slipped off the curb and fell down. At the age of 78, it's a wonder she didn't break a bone. She was always very supple and could touch her toes, even when she was quite old.


A few seconds of video showing my gran at Goose Fair in 1994 before the fall.

[Why Matrilineal Monday? This phrase has been included in the title in order to take part in Daily Blogging Prompts at Geneabloggers]

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My grandparents and parents used to use a cine camera before and after I was born and my Grandpa Geake recorded the films onto video tape in the early 1990's. Since then they've been transferred to DVD and converted to mpeg files.

Last week it would have been my Granny Hibbitt's birthday which reminded me that I was Christened on the day she turned 59 so I decided to upload some footage of the event onto YouTube.

The cine film includes me as a baby, my parents, both sets of grandparents, my aunt and my elder brother. I was baptized at St Eustachius Church in Tavistock and the film was taken outside the front door of my Granny and Grandpa Geake's house in Crelake Park, Tavistock.

Without further ado, HERE'S THE CINE FILM.

[Note: All content on the Hibbitt & Barnes Family History website and blog is copyrighted. Click here for conditions of use.]