January 31st

On this day,  January 31st, in 1857 Thomas Robert Hay Fisken got married.  Thomas is you 4Xgreat uncle.  You're connected through Peter Fisken who is your 3X great grandfather and Thomas's grandfather.

Thomas is a brother of the William Fisken of steam plough fame.  Thomas and another brother, David, worked with William on the steam plough and other mechanical devices.

Thomas married Frances Barker in the Stockton Congregational Chapel in Stockton, County Durham in the north east of England.  He was 32 at the time and a school master of Stockton originally from Perthshire, Scotland.  Frances was 34 the daughter of a Master Mariner.  They had four children.  The family lived in a few different places ending up in London in 1885.  

And also on this day in 1952 your great grandfather died.  John Christie.  This is grandma's father.  He died just a few weeks after I was born.

Great Grandda was born in a croft in Monquhitter, Aberdeenshire, Scotland but by the time of his marriage in 1898 at age 24 he was living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and working at the Newcastle Breweries.  He continued being employed by the brewery for the rest of his working life.  He and the family lived above the maltings (where grain is converted into malt for the brewing of beer) in central Newcastle.   He was the foreman maltster.

Grandda died of cancer at 40 Kenilworth Road in Newcastle (the home of his daughter Cathie).  He was 78 years old.

I didn't know my grandda but I knew people who did and my sense has always been that he was a really nice man.  Alison recalls walking with him down to the train station in the evenings to meet the night watchman and then  back to the maltings where the two men sat on the steps smoking their clay pipes and chatting before the night shift began.

Newcastle Breweries Maltings on the corner of Melbourne St and Tower St.