HardWork or is it?
by Daniel Wood, General Manager
With very few exceptions, our ancestors had little opportunity and few choices in their lives. Whether, in a mine, a paddock, a mill or a boat, the work available to them was nothing short of back-breaking toil. They persisted, they provided and they sacrificed. The result, here and now, is you. In your life of comfort and convenience, your ancestors have delivered to you something very, very special: opportunity, something they never had. Will you take this gift, this opportunity? Will you live a great life, the life that you really want and have been empowered to get by your ancestors? The only thing in your way is a little hard work or by comparison to what would your ancestors did: easy work! You can do it, make it happen. Make your ancestors proud, work hard and give yourself a great life!
all parts of the machine that was the Industrial Revolution. Father and son… husband and wife, all spinners, weavers, overseers or simply “Mill worker“. This work didn’t discriminate, Cyril Wood for example, listed on the 1838 consensus had the profession: “Mill sweeper,” his age at the time: “Nine Years!” My maternal side was similar. Due to a less common name: Langdale, I was able to trace them in more detail and farther back. The Langdales had been residents of Hunslet, a suburb of Leeds (about four miles from where I’m from) since the early 1800s. They lived in Hunslet, an inland dock for the canals which transported wool, cotton, clothes, coal etc. from manufacturing centres in Yorkshire to the coastal ports of Liverpool and Hull where they were exported to the colonies like Australia and New Zealand. The records show that every single generation of Langdales, over 200 years had the same occupation: “Bargeman or “Boatman.” Their entire families lived on boats, in the still icy canal water of North England. Their death certificates show that cholera, consumption (tuberculsis) and infantile mortality were rife, this harsh environment gave them a life expectancy of just forty years of age. This final point was particularly humbling for me, my Grandfather, who married in 1947, was the first Langdale to sign his name, as opposed to an X, on his wedding certificate!
I set my seat to recline, pulled over my blanket, put my headphones on, and searched the inflight entertainment system for a good movie. It’s one of my secret pleasures when going to US Convention: 12 hours of uninterrupted movie watching! My first pick on this occasion? The Oscar winning Revenant starring Leonardo Di Caprio—I couldn’t wait. The movie did what great movies do: transported me into the story. I was back in the 1850s, in North Western America and it was winter. Their lives held precariously in the balance, the protagonist and his associates hunted animals for their skins and fur; while at the same time, competing hunters, native Indians, wolves, and bears hunted them - brutal times. I could feel the cold, the hunger, the fear. These were tough men who truly knew the meaning of hard work. After the film I recalled a presentation I’d heard at University. It was about, “being authentic” and a key point was, “The importance of knowing yourself.” The presenter mentioned that doing a family-tree had been incredibly helpful for him in this regard. I was intrigued so that night – instead of studying —I logged on to ancestry.com and started searching. As much as I tried, I found no members of the nobility, inventors, war heroes, or any other prominent people. On my father’s side, my family were, seemingly,
Yours truly,
9 JULY/AUGUST 2016 | MELALEUCA.COM
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