Mighty Margaret

At the age of 65, I became redundant. Just like that. I awoke one day, a respected and self-respecting professional with valued expertise and experience. I went to bed redundant.   Superfluous, according to my old Oxford dictionary. On the scrap heap, according to my own inner voice. Self-pity is unhelpful but there is a difference, psychologically, between retiring in your own time to enjoy a well-earned rest and suddenly being told that you are redundant. The rest of my life yawned before me like a dark, very empty, cavern, into which I promptly fell. My two colleagues, also older women and redundant, fell into holes of their own. We were all too hurt and humiliated to offer each other much consolation.         Our workplace was being restructured and we had been told that our numbers would be reduced by one. Our offer to reduce our hours so that no one lost their job was rejected – a decision we found hard to accept because there were...

When I learned my ancestor was a highway robber, I felt a bit of a thrill! I imagined a Robin Hood sort of character. A rogue with a heart of gold. Sadly, the truth wasn't quite as romantic - just four villains robbing an inn- keeper travelling by post-chaise. There was something unusual about  Charles William Beasley, however, and I wanted to know more.   Charles was sentenced to death in 1793 for stealing  a “wainscot case with a glass front and containing divers watches” [1] and highway robbery - fairly sophisticated criminal behaviour for a 16-year-old stocking weaver  "with brown hair, grey eyes and a fresh complexion". [3]  Luckily, Charles' sentence was commuted to transportation but he was no poor , uneducated boy, driven by despair to a life of crime.  In 1798, after several years on a prison hulk  he was shipped to New South Wales, where he quickly became a successful businessman and pillar of society! While still in his ea...