A REGULAR dose of the Bugle seems to reinvigorate Black Country folk wherever they live.
One of our most avid readers is Jan Perryman (our ‘Black Country wench on the Isle of Wight’), who waxes lyrical about her favourite read — and explains how we have helped to put some flesh on the bones of her family history delvings... “I was just about to pen this letter when my fortnightly ‘double fix’ of the Bugle dropped onto the mat. As usual everything stops so that I can have quality time with my feet up, a cup of coffee and the Bugle! I read the article by Bill Pace (Bugle 911, Feb 11th), ‘Life without the Bugle’. I could not agree more.
“Since retiring to the Isle of Wight the Bugle has been my life-line to my Black Country roots.
“There are many people from the Black Country living on the Isle of Wight and amazingly I have made many new acquaintances here through the Bugle. I have shared many a yarn with customers in the charity shop where I work, when we realise we share our roots.
“I even had a customer who came to the shop to ‘look me up’ because a relative in the Black Country had read the Bugle and sent her a cutting of one of my articles in which I mentioned the charity shop! “I started research on my family tree in 2007 and I started to keep cuttings from the Bugle with links to my family locations, jobs and their way of life etc “I sent in an article in 2007 about my grandfather Fred (Butch) Mallen, the 'Pigeon Mon', and to my delight I saw it in print. The article was read by Ted Mallen, the son of one of grandfather’s brothers, Cliff Mallen, who I knew nothing about. We now write to each other regularly and share family stories and photos. These have helped fill in gaps in my research.
“Wonderful as that was, you can imagine my astonishment when, after another article and photo featured in the Bugle 908 Jan 21st, about my grandfather and grandmother (Nellie, nee McHale of Langley), resulted in an email from Pauline Johnson.
A relative of hers, Rita Townley (nee Mallen), thought she recognised people in the wedding photo. We are thrilled to have made contact and we are going to keep in touch.
“It gets more astonishing; Pauline’s mother was adopted by my grandfather’s parents and Rita is the daughter of another of my grandfather’s brothers, Albert Mallen (one of the young boys in the wedding photo in the article) and she was actually the bridesmaid at my parents’ wedding! “Sadly there are now very few of the older members of my family with us so to be united with these relatives is fantastic and we cannot thank the Bugle enough. I keep hoping that there will be some younger members of the family out there who might get in touch.
“What would we do without the remarkable Bugle?” [...and its readers, we must add!]
