SIR,
I am retired, and trying very hard to research my mother's background. I have discovered that I am half Welsh – we had a very split family and therefore very few memories and no photos at all from past years.
I had intended to try and travel to Monmouthshire this spring for a few days (my mother was born in 1918 at 5 Lime Street, Newport – no longer there, apparently), but my husband is ill and therefore we cannot travel. It is very difficult to obtain all the information needed online.
I cannot find anything on old newspaper articles regarding local 'scandals'. My grandad, William Williams (unfortunately such a common name it seems) was landlord of firstly the Globe Hotel in Pontypool (1911 census) and then in 1914 was innkeeper of the Star Inn Ponthir (on a birth certificate of one of his many children, which I have sent for on Ancestry).
Apparently, William had become a 'transport worker' by 1918 when my mother was born in Lime Street – and one thing I remember my mother saying was that William had to give up the hotels because of drinking after hours, but that was all (she never said where the hotels were! Not sure she knew).
What I wonder is: was there a local newspaper around at that time which would have chronicled William's indiscretion, and if so, what was its name? Am I looking in the right direction? It is not so much the scandal I am interested in, but the 'progress' of the family because they had arrived in Ramsgate by 1923.
Any nugget at all as to where to look without having to travel to Monmouthshire this year would be most gratefully received.
Rosemary Mayne
(Clacton-on-Sea)