Beechwood : A Story of Childhood

Anecdotes and readings from Author William Cross, FSA Scot recounting his childhood in Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s. Beechwood,Cleland, was the Cross family home from 1900-1965.

The passage of time changes a village landscape. We have a responsibility to record something about the place(s) where we grew-up and recall to memory the people and things remembered from time-past.

The recounting of this is important : it is of value to the next generation to pass on to them: and to ourselves it is a sort of life passage. It can be a mix of the wonderfully sentimental exorcising some ghosts, but not everyone has pleasant memories to recapture from childhood.

In this illustrated talk the published author William Cross, FSA Scot recalls to life some of the affectionate memories of his childhood and family roots. The work was inspired by William’s late brother Charlie, who died aged 40 in 1995. A tribute to Charlie and to the village of Cleland,in Lanarkshire,Scotland and a precious period of childhood they shared at Beechwood, Cleland the family home of the Crosses and collaterals from 1900-1965.

Cleland remains a small village in Lanarkshire,Scotland with an industrial past, a famous old iron works at Omoa ( an adjoining hamlet to Cleland) and a notable brick making company based at Auchinlee (another hamlet).

The talk also incorporates reflections from the childhood of the various people that William Cross has researched in his books on the Morgans of Tredegar House, Newport, the Carnarvons of Highclere Castle, and a variety of other famous and infamous characters he has looked at in his research work. These include Gwyneth Ericka Morgan, Evan Morgan, Lord Tredegar, Almina, Countess of Carnarvon, Leo and Dannie Abse, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon who discovered Tutankhamun, Angus McBean, Tom Mitford and his six famous sisters, the Mitford girls, and a few Royals and famous politicians.

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