The lunatics have taken over the asylum!

Life is still good. Zander William Maughan is now six days old and is even more good looking than when I first set eyes on him. This is such a wonderfully strange feeling, totally different to when my own two girls were born, and not just because it's a boy methinks! I think that when it's your own child you get caught up in the occasion and the bigger picture is blurred out. With being removed from the actual event there is time and reason for reflection - and to question your (and everyone elses) mortality. This makes for a more poignant occasion. When I was younger and involved with the birth of my own children I don't remember weighing up the possibilities of anything bad happening, now it did come into the equation. I was so happy and relieved when the text came through that all was well with both mother and son.

Doubly happy that the occasion wasn't marked by one from the other end of the spectrum of life, would have been a tragedy if the birth had coincided with a death in the family. But Ken is still hanging on, still very poorly but can be quite alert on occasion, whilst at other times he is looking like someone at deaths door.

Now, back to the blog title - I have received the death certificate for James Tearle and it has thrown up another surprise.

Date and location of death - 10th March 1887, in Leicester and Rutland Lunatic Asylum! Cause of death - General Paralysis. Occupation etc - Railway Signal Repairer and Navy Pensioner (of Hallaton).

Well, we did have an inkling that he was living in Hallaton when he died, and that he was a navy (Greenwich) pensioner, but the rest is all news! So, was it the railway that brought James to Market Harborough in the first place? Why did he move from Little Bowden to Hallaton? Was it because he had to move with the work? Seems a lot of trouble to go to for a second income. And then, what was the lunatic asylum all about? General paralysis doesn't seem the sort of thing that would be reason to be committed? Very strange, so each answer throws up more questions. One being that this asylum was a paupers asylum, well as James Tearle was recorded as having a job and a pension, I don't think he would have qualified as that, but who knows, it may have been the only option open unless a large amount of cash was available for private treatment.

So there we have it, lunacy on both of my parents sides of the family - no wonder I'm the person I am!