And the clothing would have added to it. Can you imagine the heat and stickiness in those long heavy dresses and with long hair. And not be able to kick your shoes off and go bare footed. Or jump into the shower every day. Cheers Robyn, in Sydney - where it's a bit hot and sticky, but I have my shoes off. 2009/12/31 Liz <e.newbery@btinternet.com> > Thank you Yvonne, that will be most helpful. I was hearing from one of my > contacts in Perth today and although I've lived in the Middle East for much > of my life, we did have air-conditioning when I first went there. Thinking > back in history it occurred to me what a shock it must have been for our > ancestors who emigrated 100 years ago - no electricity, no air > conditioning, > only a simple fan to hold in their hands if they were lucky, probably no > running water, perhaps a well but was the water safe to drink? I know our > water wasn't safe. So many terrible conditions that they had to endure in > those days and yet they often encouraged their friends and family to > emigrate too. > > The conditions in which they lived in England must have been horrendous to > make them want to leave these shores. > >

Hi Robyn I imagine many of them wouldn't have had shoes. I know in England in Victorian times children were often absent from school when it snowed because they had no shoes (read in school log books) and it was too cold for them to walk to school. I recall that in London they still had a troop of Bare foot Girl Guides even in the early 1950s. I don't know when this died out in Bristol but it must have been similar. Liz www.btinternet.com/~e.newbery OPC for Street, Somerset ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robyn Horan" <robynvh2@gmail.com> To: <bristol_and_district@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 10:19 AM Subject: Re: [B&D] Australian BDM Certificates [WAS Buckingham Villas was-Francis Edward LONG married Clifton1880] > And the clothing would have added to it. Can you imagine the heat and > stickiness in those long heavy dresses and with long hair. And not be able > to kick your shoes off and go bare footed. Or jump into the shower every > day. > > Cheers > Robyn, in Sydney - where it's a bit hot and sticky, but I have my shoes > off. > > > 2009/12/31 Liz <e.newbery@btinternet.com> > >> Thank you Yvonne, that will be most helpful. I was hearing from one of >> my >> contacts in Perth today and although I've lived in the Middle East for >> much >> of my life, we did have air-conditioning when I first went there. >> Thinking >> back in history it occurred to me what a shock it must have been for our >> ancestors who emigrated 100 years ago - no electricity, no air >> conditioning, >> only a simple fan to hold in their hands if they were lucky, probably no >> running water, perhaps a well but was the water safe to drink? I know >> our >> water wasn't safe. So many terrible conditions that they had to endure >> in >> those days and yet they often encouraged their friends and family to >> emigrate too. >> >> The conditions in which they lived in England must have been horrendous >> to >> make them want to leave these shores. >> >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICT-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >

Hi Liz, I can't remember for sure whether the convicts were issued shoes, but I think they were. I think in the very early days most people had some sort of footwear here unless they were really poor - I'm going on memory here but the big exception to this was, I think, by the time the 2nd fleet arrived in 1790 everybody had run out of most items of clothing (and nearly out of food) from the Governor right down to the convicts. Hardly anyone had sound footwear and the clothes were wearing very thin, especially the women's clothing as the spare supply had been forgotten. The hours that the convicts worked was cut right down as they didn't have enough food to fuel them for the work. And when I say memory I don't mean that I was there! I've just moved house and most of my books are still in storage. Cheers Robyn 2010/1/2 Liz <e.newbery@btinternet.com> > Hi Robyn > I imagine many of them wouldn't have had shoes. I know in England in > Victorian times children were often absent from school when it snowed > because they had no shoes (read in school log books) and it was too cold > for > them to walk to school. I recall that in London they still had a troop of > Bare foot Girl Guides even in the early 1950s. I don't know when this died > out in Bristol but it must have been similar. > > Liz > >