Author: Ian Elsom

Adversity

I suspect many people have tried to post this screengrab from an FDA presentation to Facebook, only to see it quickly taken down. All it shows is that in October last year the FDA was well aware of likely adverse reactions to the Covid jabs but gave emergency approval to the vaccine rollout in the United States anyway.

Below is a table of some of the reactions listed above, taken from the latest Yellow Card data published by the MHRA  in the UK. The categories are not matched perfectly to the above list but you can gather your own totals from the UK Column presentation of Yellow Card data here.(Adverse reactions and fatalities reported to Yellow Card may be as little as ten per cent of “true” figures.)

Beach 136 · Muston Sands

At 8 o’clock this morning

Greater Love…

…hath no man, that he give his name to a flatworm.

Arthurdendylus somehow made its way from New Zealand the UK, where it was first seen in Northern Ireland about sixty years ago. Harmless in Aotearoa, the creature has no natural enemies here.

The New Zealand flatworm is formidably hardy: it can reproduce without mating and live for a year or more without feeding. The problem, though, is its appetite for earthworms. It hunts them by gliding nightmarishly through their burrows. Lacking teeth or jaws, the flatworm slithers alongside its prey in a clammy embrace and pumps out a lethal, earthworm-dissolving enzyme. Once the earthworm’s innards have been sufficiently liquidised, the flatworm simply wallows in the worm soup and soaks it up through its skin. Under certain conditions, whole populations have been wiped out in this way. Then the knock-on effects begin. Without earthworms to turn over and aerate the soil, it becomes sour and ill-drained…A recent survey discovered that, while the flatworm was detected in only 4 percent of grass fields [in Ireland] in 1991, the proportion had risen to 70 per cent by the end of the decade. The loss of earthworms has meant a corresponding diminution in the numbers of wild birds and mammals, notably moles and hedgehogs.

Bugs Britannica, Peter Marren & Richard Mabey

More about the little monster here.

The eponymous zoologist can be found on the Shared Tree and there is a photographic portrait of the man on his Wikipedia page.

(Bugs Britannica is my breakfast reading now, and for the next couple of months probably.)

Bird 105 · Reed Bunting♂

Emberiza schoeniclus, Carr Naze

What Happened to Ada?

She didn’t make the cut for remembrance on the family headstone in St Oswald’s churchyard.

Doris and Phyllis Ida are two of the four daughters Ada had with Frederick Herbert. In 1911 the family was complete and living together in Abbeydale Road, Sheffield. Frederick, 44, was working as an Assurance Superintendent and Ada, a year younger, had her hands full with six children, from Sidney, 18, down to Marjorie aged seven.

Thirty years earlier, Ada WHEATLEY, 13, was living with her parents in Daniel Hill, Sheffield, less than two miles from the HORRABIN family. Ada isn’t given an occupation but Frederick, 14, is said to be a “school teacher”. At the end of the year, though, Ada is a witness in the case of The Crown v. Dover. Described as a servant, it isn’t clear whether she was in the full-time employ of Thomas SKINNER, who had died of arsenic poisoning. There is an account of the case on Wikipedia with several photographs, including one of the modest house in which the killing took place. It looks too small to have needed a housekeeper and servants. Thomas has an interesting back story – and a Wikipedia page – but no place on FamilySearch Shared Tree. His killer, under her full name, can be found there, but she only has her father for company.

Ada may have acquired a taste for drama from her participation in the murder trial. She found herself in the newspapers again in 1888.

The Stuart Wortley Working Men’s Club, Daniel Hill – The first entertainment was held at this club on Monday evening. Mr. R. Gleadhill presided, and a very excellent programme was gone through. Mr. Harris, Miss Ada Wheatley, and Mr. J. S. Marshall, assisted by a portion of the Society Minstrel Troupe, gave every satisfaction in rendering their songs, readings, and ballads.

Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 April

I wonder if this is where Frederick first set eyes upon Ada. They were married three years later.

Ada died in the spring of 1941 in Sheffield, aged 73. I don’t know how long Frederick stayed in the city before moving to the coast. His last address is given as 38 The Crescent in the burial register. His spinster daughters died from the house they shared in West Avenue, Doris in 1968 and Phyllis in 1973. I wonder if anyone remembers them – and knows what happened to Ada.

(The guilty Kate Dover didn’t serve her whole of life sentence. She was released from Woking Female Prison about 1895 and must, therefore, have done time with the innocent Florence MAYBRICK. Though the two women had arsenic in common, I can’t imagine them being friends.)

Mark of Man 67 · Churchyard

St Oswald’s, Filey

Grave Images

Over the last couple of weeks I have snapped over 2,600 photographs of St Oswald’s churchyard. The aim was to capture every grave, unmarked or with a headstone, flower container or kerb. There are 2,148 inscriptions in the East Yorkshire Family History Society’s 2014/15 Survey – my “extras” include stones added in the last five years plus context shots to assist in the creation of an accurate churchyard map.

Processing and matching the photographs to the 1977 Crimlisk and EYFHS Surveys, and drawing the map, will take hundreds of hours over possibly several more lockdowns. I’m hoping the effort will generate some blog posts along the way. Time will tell.

Quote of the Day

We need to increase public understanding of the need for medical countermeasures such as a pan corona virus vaccine. A key driver is the media and the economics will follow the hype. We need to use that hype to our advantage to get to the real issues. Investors will respond if they see profit at the end of the process.

Peter Daszak (about five years ago).

Mark of Man 66 · Bench

By the Old Tip Nature Reserve