Category Archives: people

food+drink, history, links, medical, people, science

Monthly Links

And so to the final 2022 edition of my monthly links to items you may have missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

There are quite a few scientific discoveries this month, so let’s start at the bottom and work up …

Scientists have discovered what they think is the world’s longest animal off Western Australia: a 45-metre-long deep-sea siphonophore.

Also found in the deep off Madagascar, scientists have named two new species of rare six-gill sawsharks.

Female sexual anatomy is generally poorly studied in all species, and snakes are no exception. So it’s only now that scientists have discovered that female snakes have a clitoris, or two. Two articles: one from Science News, the other from The Scientist.

So what do you find in a museum cupboard? In this case the thought lost pelt and skeleton of the last Thylacine (aka. Tasmanian Tiger).

Still in Australia, a group of female cowgirls, sorry graziers, have discovered the first intact fossilised skull, and most of the body, of a 100m-year-old plesiosaur.

And still going up, scientists have now found that the Tonga volcano eruption last January was larger and more interesting than previously thought.

Finally for this section, the Guardian had a long article on the epic task of shutting down and cleaning up the Sellafield nuclear facility. [LONG READ]

Health, Medicine

Scientists are beginning to rethink their ideas about what actually causes Alzheimer’s Disease. [VERY LONG READ]

Careful scientific analysis shows that Covid vaccines can temporarily disrupt the menstrual cycle – although Covid itself doesn’t. [£££]

There’s been a huge rise in the number of girls questioning their gender identity, and the professionals don’t really understand why. [LONG READ]

Art, Literature, Language, Music

There’s now brouhaha surrounding the artist and sexual abuser Eric Gill, as Ditchling’s museum effectively chooses to totally ignore their most famous artist. (Just don’t get me started! None of this is new, his abuse has been known about for at least 50 years.)

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

The area around Stonehenge continues to throw up important archaeology. Experts have now figured out that some Neolithic stone axes were much later used as part of a goldsmith’s toolkit.

A group of researchers have discovered over 100 previously unknown designs in Peru’s ancient Nazca plain.

Archaeologists in Rutland have uncovered a barn which was converted into a Roman bathing suite (complete with steam room) for use by the house’s owners.

Yet more archaeologists, this time in Northamptonshire, have uncovered an early medieval burial with a stunning necklace. Two reports from the BBC and The Conversation.

London

The Houses of Parliament are probably hiding a medieval river wall.

Food, Drink

Are sweeteners as harmless as we thought? The jury is still out but it looks doubtful. [LONG READ]

Don’t despise the humble Brussels sprout; they contain as much vitamin C as oranges plus many other health benefits.

And while we’re on healthy food, here are six reasons why, despite popular myth, potatoes are good for you.

So microbiologists have found the ancestor of modern brewing yeast, and then discovered it living under their noses in Ireland.

Finally on food, Ali Ahmed Aslam, the inventor of chicken tikka masala, has died aged 77.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Yes, I am a nudist, so what?

People

And finally for this year, here are 10 reasons why Richard Feynman was more than just a physicist.

people, personal, thoughts

Working from Home

Although I’ve been retired for 10 years, I worked from home for most of the last 10 years I was working. And I still work from home on most of my current community give-back activity.

There are now a lot of people around the world who are having to work from home for the first time, and maybe wondering where to start.

There are a lot of website out there which tell you how to work from home, but I have to admit I wouldn’t be finding their hints and tips always very useful – at least initially.

Working from home isn’t rocket science, but it does need a little bit of organising and discipline. Most of it is common sense, but not always obvious common sense. So I thought I’d put together a few of my thoughts in the hope that they may help some of you. Here goes …

Working from home is brilliant … Until the cat throws up on your laptop or your neighbour decides now is the time to rebuild his house (don’t laugh, the latter happened to me!). It won’t be long before you wonder why you ever bothered going in the office.

  1. Basically you need to treat your home workplace up as if it is your regular office.
  2. Have a set workplace. It doesn’t matter whether it is your study, the basement or the kitchen table, as long as it is always the same place. Resist working from your bed or sofa; or in front of the TV. I used to work at my desk in the study; this became my office when I took my laptop out in the morning; and it became mine again when my laptop was put away.
  3. It doesn’t matter whether you get dressed, spend the day in your nightshirt or even nothing, as long as you’re comfortable and aren’t having a videoconference with your group director. However some people feel more professional and work better if they’re wearing reasonable day clothes.

  4. If you’re spending the day in your pyjamas, don’t go out in them! If you need to pop to the corner shop, the post-box or to collect the kids, do please put on jeans and a t-shirt.
  5. Know when to “log on” and “log off”. Try to have a regular start and stop time. If possible use the same schedule as you would in the office; you’ll probably stretch it a bit at both ends but you should still get some extra time to yourself as you’ll not be commuting. I used to start about 8am and stop no later than 6pm. Do not be tempted to either lie-in or keep working into the evening; you can prevent the lie-in by having 9am team conference calls.
  6. On the other hand you do have the flexibility to work when you’re most productive, whether that’s 5am or midnight, although this must not be an excuse to work longer hours. You’ll still need to be available during office hours, so you still need that regular schedule.
  7. Remember, if you’re sick, then you’re sick and shouldn’t be working – just like you wouldn’t go in the office.
  8. Keep to your normal time management method; this will help you keep focus. If you’ve never been taught time management, find an online course and start now. Try to avoid taking a quick break to do the laundry/bath the cat/pop to the supermarket/whatever. It all too easily becomes an hour and a half.
  9. You might want to have a separate phone number for your work – possibly a second mobile. Likewise a separate laptop and email address.
  10. If you don’t have the technology you need (whether it’s a new laptop, or printer, or a piece of software) nag your boss until you get it. Without it you will not be optimally productive.
  11. Communicate, communicate, communicate. In fact, over-communicate. Ensure your boss and your colleagues know you’re there, and you’re being productive. All it needs is the odd phone call, an instant message or two a day, or emailing in that special report you wrote.
  12. Keeping in contact with other humans is allowed – preferably by phone or video, rather than just by email. If nothing else my wife and I talked briefly on the phone at some point most days. Instant messaging can also help a lot, especially if everyone you need to talk to is on the same platform. But voice is best.
  13. Don’t be frightened of phone/video meetings – they’re just like normal meetings, with maybe a bit more discipline, except you can’t spill coffee in Sharon’s lap.
  14. If you’re having a phone/video meeting, remember that you need to circulate any papers in advance by email.
  15. If you’re having a videoconference ensure you know how to share your screen so you can display your visuals and the whiteboard.
  16. Look out of the window. I found I did this quite a bit during 1-2-1 phone calls (and boring teleconferences) and I did quite a lot of garden birdwatching (no, feathered kind!) this way.
  17. In my opinion do not have music on, or the radio, or the TV. Despite what you might think you will concentrate better if it is quiet and there are no distractions. If you must, catch up on TV news at lunchtime.
  18. Do not be tempted to look at social media. I found that easy as I had a separate laptop and mobile phone.
  19. Do take proper breaks; refill your tea/coffee/juice; and go to the loo. Just ration the biscuits!
  20. Also ensure you stop for lunch, if only for 20 minutes. But do not waste time preparing and cooking a meal: either have a soup or sandwich type lunch, or prepare food the night before. This was something I found hard too do; with no-one to sit with at lunch it was too easy to grab some bread and cheese and eat it at my desk.
  21. If there are other people at home with you, set some ground rules, ensure they respect that you’re working, and they know what your routine is. If they’re children, make sure you work out in advance how to keep them amused and out of your hair. Do have joint lunch or breaks, but keep them to a normal length.

Those of you who are seasoned home workers will doubtless not agree with everything I’ve said, and have different things which help you. That’s good. The moral is that ultimately you have to find the way that works best for you – for me that was being totally focussed. YMMV.

people, personal

Father at 100

Today my late father would have been 100. Unfortunately he died in May 2006 at the age of 86. He was surprised to make 86.

He was about 67 when my parents moved from my childhood home in Waltham Cross to the outskirts of Norwich – somewhere my father unexpectedly found he didn’t like. I don’t recall my mother ever saying what she thought – she was one to just get on and make the best of what was there – but Noreen and I were delighted as we both love Norwich.

He didn’t expect that he and my mother would have more than a few years there. So they made their bungalow comfortable, but he admitted later that had he known they’d have almost 20 years left they would have done a number of things to adapt the bungalow more to their liking. This, plus the fact that he never adjusted to having a stoma following bowel cancer surgery in his late 70s, made his last few years exceptionally miserable.

In many ways Bob was a “miserable old git” who believed that life and everyone were out to get him and his money. If there was a negative take on anything, he’d be right there. Whether this was because he was depressive, or vice versa, or both, I’ve never worked out. His depression could have been partly genetic as his father was also depressive; and his fairly awful childhood through the depression preceding WW2 would only have exacerbated it all.

Probably because he’d never been allowed to achieve academically, despite being able, in retrospect he put a lot of covert pressure to succeed on me as a kid. This, together with the depression and general angst, left me with a very negative attitude and has doubtless contributed to my depression. Luckily I managed, in my 40s, to somehow (I still don’t know how) to a large extent overcome the negativity and let much of the annoyances and stupidities of life just wash over me.

Me (centre) with my parents in the early 1980s

Bob also viewed me as profligate, lacking in common sense and a failure – because his values and common sense didn’t match mine as I beat my own path through life: I didn’t get a proper academic job, refused to be a teacher and sold out to the commercial world.

Having said that he was clearly loved when he worked, for a few years in the early 70s, as a personnel manager, and went out of his way to support his staff – even in one case where one of his junior staff got pregnant out of wedlock and he gave her support against both her parents and his colleagues. In that sense he was quite progressive – indeed my parents were decidedly bohemian, as evidenced by the fact that they lived together for two years following the war while my mother’s divorce was settled. And that I was encouraged to call them, and anyone else, by their first names.

I also have to appreciate that I was encouraged (by both parents) to read, to think, to know about history, and to understand natural history and the environment. There were books in almost every room when I was growing up, and none were off-limits. I recall he bought Lady Chatterley’s Lover as soon as it became available; I read it in my very early teens and found it terminally boring. There was also a copy of Havelock Ellis on the living room shelves, which I devoured at 16/17 when I had my first serious girlfriend.

I’ve never quite forgiven Bob for the effect of his overriding negativity on me, and the constraints (I felt were) placed on me as a kid; although I recognise that he was doing the best he knew how, and I am extremely grateful for the very open, liberal and bohemian upbringing. All of this clearly shaped me, and once I managed to throw off the worst of the negativity, has made me the slightly maverick thinker I like to believe I am today.

Happy birthday Bob, wherever you are!

beliefs, nudism, people

Lewd in Utah

The headline in Thursday’s (23 January 2020) Guardian was

Forget ‘lewd behaviour’ – is being naked around your own kids good for them?

The writer, Poppy Noor, takes issue with a recent Utah court ruling that children seeing their mother’s (presumably any female’s) naked breasts is “lewd behaviour” and damages the kids.

Noor is right. This ruling is completely off-its-tits bonkers, and flies in the face of the available evidence – as I’ve written about many times before.

But then this is Utah, home of Salt Lake City and the Mormons, so what does one really expect?

Do grow up guys!

history, people, topographical

Eleanor Crosses

Serious historians amongst you will remember that on 28 November 1290 Edward I’s wife, Eleanor of Castile, died at Harby, Nottinghamshire, and Edward decreed that she should be buried in Westminster Abbey, almost 200 miles away.

Eleanor’s body was first moved to Lincoln, about 7 miles away, where she was apparently embalmed. Having buried her viscera (minus her heart) in Lincoln Cathedral on 3 December, Edward and a huge entourage escorted the body to Westminster – a journey which took around 12 days. Eleanor was buried on 17 December.

Just think about that for a minute. The cortège covered some 180+ miles, in early December, on foot and horseback, on almost non-existent roads. They covered about 15-20 miles a day, stopping overnight at major religious houses, where Eleanor’s body could lie with monks or nuns to keep vigil, and where the King could be accommodated. That, plus one suspects the suitability of the roads, determined the non-obvious (to us) route: Lincoln – Grantham – Stamford – Geddington – Hardingstone – Stony Stratford – Woburn – Dunstable – St Albans – Waltham – Westcheap (now Cheapside) – Charing.

Map of overnight stops and Eleanor Crosses

Historians will also know that Edward I decreed that a memorial cross be erected at each of the stopping points – 12 in all. And in true medieval, grieving King style, we’re talking about a substantial memorial 30-40 feet high, richly carved and decorated. These 12 crosses were erected between 1291 and 1295 by established master masons. Records survive of the accounts for many of the crosses and we know that some cost £100 or more each – a vast sum in the 1290s. We also know they were completed before the financial crash of 1297!

Of the original 12 crosses only three now remain; at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham. The rest appear to have fallen victim to Oliver Cromwell’s merry men, or just the ravages of time.

[Who said “What about Charing Cross?”. Yes indeed there is an Eleanor Cross outside London’s Charing Cross Station. However: (a) it is a Victorian pastiche, (b) it is fairly well accepted that it is unlikely to be much like the original, (c) the original is known to have been destroyed by Parliamentary forces in 1647 at the height of the Civil War, and (d) it’s in the wrong place.]

Now the awake amongst our long-term readers will recall that I was brought up at Waltham Cross, site of the last of those three surviving crosses. In fact Eleanor’s body lay at the abbey in Waltham, which was in those days a major and influential monastery, (re)founded by King Harold Godwinson (1022-1066) – yes, he who got an arrow in the eye at Hastings. That place is now called Waltham Abbey. But the cross is about 2 miles west at what is now known as Waltham Cross. But why?

There are probably two (maybe more) reasons. Firstly Edward I wanted the memorials to be visible and public, so it didn’t make sense to put them at isolated monasteries. So the cross at Waltham was placed on the nearest “major road” at the junction with the causeway across the marshes to the abbey. Secondly, the abbey at Waltham was indeed rather isolated and in the middle of this swampy piece of marshland at the bottom of the Lea Valley; so the cross had to be built on the nearest sensible piece of stable ground.

Unfortunately I’ve never managed to photograph the cross at Waltham; in my days there it was encumbered by traffic, street furniture, traffic lights, trolleybus wires etc. But here is a recent image with the area round the monument now pedestrianised, and a scan of a glass negative I recently acquired.


Waltham Cross, much restored but now traffic-free (L)
and in an old glass negative of c.1910 (R)
[Left image: Wikimedia]

Until this week I’d never seen the other two original crosses at Hardingstone (just outside Northampton) and Geddington (about 20 miles NE of Northampton). But a few days ago we had the opportunity to go to Northampton. Noreen was meeting her best friend from university, so I had some hours to kill.

On the way into Northampton we stopped at Hardingstone. Unfortunately the cross there is currently shrouded in scaffolding etc. as it is undergoing yet another round of belated restoration.

But why a cross at Hardingstone? Because Eleanor’s body lay overnight on the journey at Delapré Abbey, just a stone’s throw from the cross (which is on the main road) – the old abbey wall runs just beside the cross (just off to the right of my photograph (below). Here the nuns could keep vigil during the night. Meanwhile King Edward lodged at nearby Northampton Castle. So this was an obvious overnight resting place.


Hardingstone Cross currently under wraps (L) and what should be visible (R)
[Images: KCM (L); Wikimedia (R)]

Having dropped Noreen off we went on to Geddington. This is perhaps the best preserved (and least restored?) of the three crosses. Geddington is a tiny village of pretty stone houses and the cross stands in a triangle in the village centre right by the church. (The church itself is interesting as it retains a large element of the Saxon original.) As you can see from the photographs the Geddington cross is very different in style from either Waltham or Hardingstone – much more graceful and fragile in appearance, but just as decorated.

Geddington Cross in the middle of the road
[Image: KCM]

I had puzzled over why there was a cross at Geddington as there was no obvious monastery here. But it turns out there was a royal palace (well at least a hunting lodge; depends who you believe) here, so an easy place for an overnight or two.

Having had a splendid lunch in The Star (also right next to the cross; it’s the building behind the cross in my photo) and looked at the church, we meandered our way back to Northampton; but not without another of Geddington’s delights: the ford, which is right next to the medieval packhorse bridge (now closed to traffic).

Geddington ford
[Image: Wikimedia]

The meander took us via Earl’s Barton for a quick look at the church. This is notable for its stunning Saxon tower. The body of the church, and the battlements on the tower, are medieval additions. But that tower is quite something, although as time was ticking on I couldn’t dwell long enough to take much in the way of photos.

Earl’s Barton church
[Image: KCM]

Having collected Noreen and after a stop for much needed coffee and cake, we made our way back to London, by a different route. It was a long day, and we packed a lot in. But if possible it’s a trip we’ll be doing again, hopefully when the Hardingstone Cross is once more unwrapped.

history, links, medical, people, science

Monthly Links

Here we go again with this month’s pointers to curiosities you missed earlier. Not so much science this month!

Science, Technology & Natural World

Scientists are resurrecting some old, apparently safer and greener, nuclear technology.

Mice sing. They sing in ultrasound which we can’t hear (but apparently cats can). And they sing politely to each other!

Health & Medicine

Medics have discovered only the second ever known pair of semi-identical (or sesquizygotic) twins. It’s a weirdness we were always told couldn’t happen; obviously it can but very, very rarely.

Many of us know someone who has panic attacks; some of us even suffer ourselves. Here are seven ways in which you can help someone through a panic attack.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

So many top leaders seem to be totally incompetent. So just how do incompetent men rise to the top?

It was hard to decide where best to put this next item … Researchers are suggesting that “big religion” may be being given too much credit for the evolution of modern society. But how will we ever know?

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Palaeontologists have discovered an enormous haul of very well preserved, 500 million year old, fossil species in China.

Recently unearthed archaeological evidence suggests that humans have been living in Australia since about 120,000 years ago – that’s twice as long as previously thought.

Somewhat nearer our times, archaeologists have found the wreck of a ship in the Nile which shows that Herodotus was right about Ancient Egyptian shipbuilding almost 2500 years ago.

And coming almost up to date, DNA testing has shown that the crew of Henry VIII’s ship Mary Rose was from the Mediterranean and North Africa.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

Excellence is something we all strive for. But the thought now is that excellence is overrated, even destructive, and we should be cultivating “good enough”.

The world is getting more and more extrovert, so us introverts are feeling more and more guilty at declining invitations or struggling through social obligations. Here’s how one young woman learnt to accept her introversion.

Food & Drink

A company called Garçon Wines is proposing to make flat, rectangular wine bottles from PET plastic. Maybe they’re not as elegant as round bottles but they apparently save huge amounts on shipping and are recyclable.

People

Many of us have small, insignificant birthmarks, but congenital melanocytic naevus (CMN), where birthmarks cover a large area of the skin, is quite rare. It can also be very emotionally disturbing. Now 30 people with CMN have been photographed almost nude for an international exhibition by Brock Elbank. The aim is to make everyone, sufferers and the public, more comfortable with CMN.

More next month …

beliefs, books, freedom of speech, medical, people, photography, sexuality

Womanhood: The Bare Reality

Laura Dodsworth, author of Manhood: The Bare Reality has a new book coming out, but unfortunately not until next February.

Its title: Womanhood: The Bare Reality.

You can, of course, pre-order it on Amazon or from the publishers Pinter & Martin.

The book promises to do for women, what Manhood did for men: tell of the variety and the stories of man and manhood. As the blurb an Amazon says:

100 women bare all in an empowering collection of photographs and interviews about Womanhood.

Vagina, vulva, lady garden, pussy, beaver, c**t, fanny … whatever you call it most women have no idea what’s ‘down there’. Culturally and personally, no body part inspires love and hate, fear and lust, worship and desecration in the same way.

From smooth Barbie dolls to internet porn, girls and women grow up with a very narrow view of what they should look like, even though in reality there is an enormous range. Womanhood departs from the ‘ideal vagina’ and presents the gentle un-airbrushed truth, allowing us to understand and celebrate our diversity.

For the first time, 100 brave and beautiful women reveal their bodies and stories on their own terms, talking about how they feel about pleasure, sex, pain, trauma, birth, motherhood, menstruation, menopause, gender, sexuality and simply being a woman.

Laura comments further in a recent Facebook post:

“A major issue for women is that men and society are really interested in defining womanhood for us and without us. A lot of the time, women don’t have an awful lot of input into the definition of womanhood, yet we’re judged against it. Women have to make choices that men don’t ever have to make.”
From Womanhood: The Bare Reality

A bold first quote to share from Womanhood. I’ve already been #notallmen-ed on Twitter, so let me say, I love men, this is not anti-men. (I LOVE men.) Remember Manhood?

But this is the point; Womanhood is an exploration of female experience through the embodied stories of 100 women. We define Womanhood on our own terms and in our own words. We reveal ourselves to ourselves and to each other. And it’s about time.

Laura’s previous books (Manhood: The Bare Reality and Bare Reality: 100 Women, Their Breasts, Their Stories) were amazing, revealing and informative, so I’m really am looking forward to reading Womanhood: The Bare Reality. My copy is already on order.

Full disclosure: I was one of the 100 men featured in Manhood.

beliefs, books, people

Book Review: Bow First, Ask Questions Later

Gesshin Claire Greenwood
Bow First, Ask Questions Later
Wisdom, USA; 2018

Having just finished this book, I’m still not quite sure what my emotions are towards it – beyond pure admiration, that is. So I’m going to start with a couple of quotes from other people. First here’s Ruth Ozeki on the cover blurb:

With rigour, honesty, hilarity, and joy, Gesshin shows us how to grapple with the great matter of life and death – as well as with lesser matters, like capitalism, sexism, religious dogma, sex, love, fashion, and Kyoto nightclubs. The result is an inspiring book that I couldn’t put down, even when I’d finished reading it.

And here’s an extract from the Foreword by our other favourite Zen Master, Brad Warner:

Gesshin Greenwood is … an honest-to-Buddha Zen nun, with the shaven head to prove it. She went through the kind of rigorous training in traditional Zen temple practice that most of the folks you see writing puffed-up fluff pieces for those slick spiritual magazines… avoided like politicians evading the draft …
I [am] amazed that someone as young as she had such a deep background in Buddhist practice experience … Gesshin … really did all the stuff … She actually immersed herself in Japanese Zen temple life for years doing all the ceremonies, all the services, all the cooking and cleaning and the rest of it …
… It’s rare that someone from the West does any of this stuff, rarer still when they write about it, and yet even more rare that their writing is as good as Gesshin’s is. This is a truly unique document of a truly unique lived experience.

I’ve been reading Gesshin’s weblog, That’s So Zen, for some years and have always found it illuminating, if at times hard to fully understand. This book travels some of the same ground, which is good because everything is newly written and so helps reinforce the “learning”.

Although the book is autobiographical it is first and foremost a book about Zen Buddhism, but not in a dry academic way; as Brad says it is extremely well written, in a light, engaging style which does indeed make it difficult to put down – I had to ration myself to a couple of chapters an evening to avoid reading through the night.

Gesshin is a self-confessed white, privileged Californian, with hippy, Buddhist parents; and as the book goes on one comes to realise she was probably something of an angry brat (but then aren’t all teenagers?). Nonetheless she wanted to study Buddhism, and felt even in college strangely attracted to it; and that emotional connexion is passed on to the reader.

She started in India, and went to Tibet, before finding her spiritual home in the Sōtō Zen tradition in Japan, and in the rigorous setting of an all female Zen monastery. This is her story, of her journey; and one isn’t sure until well into the book quite where things are going to end up.

Gesshin talks frankly about the hardships, heartaches, tragedies and mistakes – as well as the joys – of her practice and shows how each of them allowed her to grow. Each of the 25 short chapters focusses on some particular event to illuminate her learning. We see something of her relationships with her teachers and her wrestles with the apparently irreconcilable dichotomy of being a nun and a young woman who likes men and can fall in love. We are left, at the end, with the impression that Gesshin has happily resolved that dichotomy.

All this is shared openly with us, and we join in feeling the pain and the joy. Equally I found the book inspiring and stimulating me to move forward in my own journey (whatever that is).

For anyone with an interest in Buddhism, especially Japanese Sōtō Zen, this is a book well worth reading. And even if you just want to follow the quest of a young woman in search of answers to life and death, do read it. I really did find it hard to put down.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

history, people, personal

Where's Flo?

FloFor quite a few years I’ve puzzled over why I am unable to find my maternal grandmother, Florence Elizabeth Coker (pictured right in 1972, about a year before her death aged 88) on the 1911 census. At the time of the census she was 27 and still single (she married a couple of years later and my mother was born in 1915). She was known at that time to be living with her mother and three brothers in the East End of London where she worked in her mother’s tailoring business.
Her mother (my great-grandmother) is on the census with her three sons, one of whom completes and signs the census return. My great-grandfather is known to have left his wife and is on the 1911 census living about half a mile away with another woman, her two sons (by her husband) and a 6-month-old girl who appears to have bee sired by my great-grandfather. [That is a story for another day!]
But where is Flo? She isn’t with either of her parents. Indeed I have been totally unable to find any trace of her anywhere in the country. Was she abroad? I think that’s unlikely, although I can’t rule it out.
It so happens I’m a member of London Historians, and their latest newsletter (February 2018) has an article by Anne Carwardine, a specialist on suffragette history – well this is the centenary of the first round of female suffrage. In it I found the following paragraph:

Census Night
Despite Black Friday, the WSPU maintained a truce for much of 1910 and 1911, hopeful that legislation giving women the vote would soon be passed. In April 1911, the census provided them with an opportunity for peaceful protest. There were two main options – resist (by refusing to provide information) or evade (by staying away from home at midnight, so that you would not be counted). The largest organised evasion took place in central London. Late on the evening of April 1st, small groups of women walked through the streets and converged on Trafalgar Square. A crowd gathered to watch them, although on this occasion the atmosphere was friendly, with plenty of cheers and laughter. After Big Ben had struck twelve, many of the suffragettes headed eastwards, singing “Let’s All Go Down the Strand”. The Rinkeries, a roller skating rink on the Aldwych, was kept open all night for census protestors and several hundred women (together with a few men) skated through the night, accompanied by a band. There was also entertainment – Ethel Smyth conducted the March of the Women, WSPU leaders made speeches and well-known actresses read suffrage poems. Refreshments were available in the nearby Gardenia Restaurant, where suffragettes acted as waitresses for the night. Early the next morning, the skaters headed wearily home, having achieved the publicity they wanted.

Dutifully I have checked a number of other sources and this scenario appears to be correct – indeed it is much more complex than this one paragraph outlines.
This is something of which I was totally unaware!
Now I don’t remember ever hearing my grandmother (who died when I was a student), or my mother, speak about suffrage, votes for women or anything of the sort. Indeed before she died I had told my mother about the mystery of Flo missing from the census and she was as puzzled as I. But here we have a possible explanation. Could she have been one of the partying suffragettes who were deliberately not at home at midnight and hence could truthfully not be counted. Or was Flo one of those who refused to allow her name to be put on the census form (which would have been illegal), a wish which was accepted by her brother who completed the form.
I am never likely to know for certain. But, despite how little I knew my grandmother, I suspect this could well be the answer. It would not have been entirely out of character.
And we think we live in interesting times!