It’s The Ogblog wot done it.
When I reported on the sad death of Gerry Goddin back in August and then subsequently Gerry’s funeral in October…
…it didn’t occur to me that there might be someone out there looking for the name Goddin for genealogical purposes. Not least because the search for any next of kin for Gerry had been in vain.
But a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I received a note from Julia Tisdall, writing to me from Australia, whose great-grandfather was the brother of Gerry’s grandmother.
That makes Julia and Gerry second cousins once removed. (Some of my favourite people are my second cousins once removed).
Forgive the pun, Julia, but a second cousin once removed in the antipodes is a distant cousin in more ways than one.
Anyway, point is, Julia was thrilled and saddened to have found this connection but in such an unfortunate context. Here is an extract from her lovely note:
My great grandfather (Gertrude’s Brother) sailed to New Zealand back in 1913 and settled in Dunedin. 5 years later his sister Gertrude died of the Spanish Flu at only 32 years of age.
I suspect this was when my forebears lost touch with Gertrude’s husband and young son (Gerry’s father) Robert Percy Wilfred Goddin.
I am so grateful to see Gerry in Rainy Day Fellas. What a gem that is.
It took my breath away, 1 , because it is so beautiful and 2 because the close up of Gerry’s hand strumming looked identical to my grandfather’s hand strumming.
For anyone reading this who hasn’t seen the video of Rainy Day Fellas, one of Gerry’s songs which was recorded a few years ago with Donna Macfadyen singing beautifully and Gerry himself accompanying on guitar:
“Rainy Day Fellas” (Live) from D-Sav on Vimeo.
Julia said that she would like to speak, so, one thing led to another and I managed to persuade Julia, who was until yesterday a “Zoom virgin”, to join a few of us on a Zoom call.
I was really glad that John Random, Caroline Am Bergris and Graham Robertson were able to join the call. I didn’t feel I knew Gerry all that well; I don’t suppose any of us really knew Gerry well, but between us we knew Gerry from various aspects of his life these past 30 years or so.
Not just the NewsRevue part (although all of us are NewsRevue alums) but also Caroline’s long association with Gerry in the matter of poems and songs. I think/hope we were able to give Julia a fairly rounded picture.
And talking of pictures, John has rescued a few lovely pictures from Gerry’s flat, which I was able to share on the screen. Here are a couple of examples plus a third picture which is a link to a Flickr album with all 11 of the pictures:
So we were able to share a fair bit of information. Julia informed us that the family were to be found at 1 Ravenhill Road, Upton Park in the 1911 census. Not only did Gerry’s dad lose his mother to Spanish flu as a small boy, but Gerry’s own mum, Mona, died when Gerry was only six. By then they lived in Fairbank Street, Shoreditch, which I think has now been absorbed by the Provost Estate in now trendy Hoxton/Shoreditch.
The highlight of the 80 minute session, for me, was the moment when Julia picked up a guitar and played us a few bars of Rainy Day Fellas, with aplomb.
But actually the whole session was a highlight. I think everyone enjoyed the time together and we hope to have another session in the not too distant future. I know that Caroline, Helen and David are looking at some of Gerry’s other songs and trying to work out what to do with them. Once there is a bit of progress with that, it would be super to regroup with Julia and possibly some other members of her antipodean family.
In these difficult times, a bit of good news like this is something to hold on to. And while our lives comprise far too much Zoom and Teams, with far too little human contact (apart from funerals and queuing outside shops)…
…happenings of this kind make me realise that communications technologies – the Ogblogging, the ability to connect with people through social media, Zoom etc. – does enable many things that wouldn’t have happened otherwise at all.
Which makes me just a little optimistic that the post-pandemic new normal might just be the best of the too-virtual world we inhabit just now and the real world social contacts we crave.
On that positive note, season’s greetings to all readers.
