Lynda tells us what is happening in our Local Studies library this month:
This month we are happy to open our ‘community room’ which is a warm space for Derbyshire residents and their families to use now that the weather is getting colder. The room, which was formally one of our meeting rooms, now has children’s activities and facilities for free hot drinks. You can of course take advantage of our library resources and take the opportunity to trace your family history or answer that local history question you’ve been puzzling over. We have also placed a trolley of books by some of our local authors if you want to sit and read.
For our November book display, we have once again used the History Begins at Home topic which this month is ‘In Service.’
We looked at the different occupations that this would cover from military service, emergency services, public service, voluntary services, domestic service, and for National Service we have included the Bevin Boys.
I’m sure most of us have knowledge of relatives that served in the military or as domestic servants. My grandmother often reminded me when I slept over at her house when I was a young girl, that she was up with the dawn at my age, walked over to the ‘big house’ to sweep the front steps before ‘the family’ left the house. She was a gamekeeper’s daughter, so all the children had duties at the estate house, at some point.
Pictured is my grandmother (the twin on the left middle with her mother and the older children c.1917)
Some of my family photographs include a relative pictured in both a policeman’s uniform and what we think is a postman’s jacket and hat. What have you got in your family collection that fits ‘in service’?
The books on our display are:
Periodical – Local Studies Librarian 2013
388.322 Paul Smith – Bolsover by bus
383.494251 Harold Wilson – History of the post in Derby 1635-1941
363.2 Dager Roster – Behind the blue line
363.1481 I. Hurst & R. Bennett – Mountain Rescue history & development in the Peak District 1920s to present day (2007)
942.51LON M. Goy – A history of the fire service in Long Eaton 1883-1985
942.51BRA Frank Cooper – Bradwell fire service the first 50 years 1939-1989
640.46 Pamela Sandbrook – The country house servant
920ROB Christine Robinson – Chatsworth the housekeeper’s tale
940.531 Charles Waterfall – Coal dust & Bevin boys National service at Pleasley colliery (2009)
929.1072 Mary Ingham – Tracing your service women ancestors (2012)
369.52 The Rotary Club of Heanor Club history 1975-2000
338.47 East Midlands Electricity Annual review & accounts 1993
So why not use the colder weather as a reason to pop in and see us? We’d love to see you.
Derbyshire Record Office 
My great-uncle Wilf Austin was a young footman at Allestree Hall I believe, probably in the 1920s.
His employer was Mrs Johnson, owner of the Ambergate Wire Works. Her husband was the one killed in his own park by lightning.
Wilf later went to work in the textile industry as a “pirner”.