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1914_diary

@1914_diary

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@1914_diary originates from my mother’s side of the family, Stanley was my late grandfather & I'm @reechem who read, transcribed & uploaded it all.

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1914 August Sunday 30th (there was no Saturday 29th entry)...
Sunday morning we stayed at home. In the afternoon we caught (the) 3.35 train for Barry Docks to have tea with Mr & Mrs Cadigan. We had a lovely tea, & they were so nice to us, we enjoyed our tea immensely. After tea, Dais & Jim went for a walk, Mr Cadigan, Polly, Alice & I cracked jokes until they came home.
We came home in a motor car, & we brought home a tremendous bunch of sweet peas, roses, asters, oh they were lovely, such a beautiful perfume, sweet peas, I had never seen such beauties before, so large, almost like artificial, & a great bag of green beans freshly plucked. Gerald & James picked quite a lot. Gerald was so delighted, because he could pick the beans. Gerald also picked apples off the trees, of course that was better still.
We spent a most delightful day. taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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21 days ago

1914 August Friday 28th...
Remained home in the morning. In the afternoon Polly, Dais, Gerald & Stanley went to the beach. Dais had a swim.
In the evening Mr Jack Watts, his three children came over & we had a musical evening. Tommie Evans came in a very light suit, Gerald said "Oh, he has his pyjamas on" & they all laughed to crack their sides. Gerald sang "A Bonnie Sausage" & "Tipperary", & did the step dance.
In came Mr Cadigan & we all spent a very pleasant evening. They left after 11 o'clock (11pm). taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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21 days ago

1914 August Thursday 27th...
Dais & I went to Cardiff walking around the town buying things. We went for a walk on the docks. Had lunch at the Carlton & tea at Lyons. We went to the Empire in the evening & enjoyed it immensely. We saw George Robey the Commedian. Gerald's hair was greatly admired by females in Cardiff.
We landed home to Barry Island at 10.15 (10:15pm). taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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22 days ago

1914 August Wednesday 26th...
Caught train for "Llantwit Major" from Barry. We got to station about an hour before train left so we waited, we played Ludo, Alice, Polly & I, & Dais was reading. There was a train in for a long while & when it did steam out we discovered it was our train, we could not believe our own eyes, so we had to wait for another hour, so we started Ludo again. Anyhow we took fine care to catch the next train.
We arrived at Llantwit Major at 1.30. The scenery all the way was beautiful, nothing but green foliage, it was a picture. We went through the Vale of Glamorgan, it’s a farm place, all green background & white houses, plenty of cattle & poultry.
We went into one house for tea, there was a ticket up outside "Teas", so we went in the dining room, it was like a pigsty. There were a table & a form, we all seated on the form, so the woman said it was too much work to make tea for us, if we would not have cakes & it would not pay her, so we walked out & went somewhere else. This person was so slow & not very homely.
After that we had a walk through the meadows, it was just glorious. The beautiful hills with cattle in splendid condition. We went over to the beach, walked over the stones & played about. We bought some tea & drank it sitting on the sands, & we bought 8 1/2 ice creams & then started to walk back. We bought some fresh apples & eggs from a farmhouse. Caught train & landed home about 9 o'clock (9pm). We spent a lovely day.

(Llantwit Major is a town and community in Wales on the Bristol Channel coast.)

(The paragraph below is also dated the 26th, as one can see from the attached diary pages, but it seems to be a completely different day compared to the 26th above...🤷🏻‍♂️)

Had visitors, Mrs. Joyce, a cousin of Dais, & two daughters. We went to the beach in the afternoon, played Ludo & caught Dais napping. Alice paddled, Gerald & the little girls had a donkey ride. In the evening, Alice, Dais & Polly went to the station to see Mrs. Joyce off.

(On this date, during the siege of Antwerp, Belgium – A German Zeppelin airship bombed the city, killing 10 civilians.)
Source @wikipedia taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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24 days ago

Jeremiah "Dais" Dacey

(thanks to Jean Breakey, Jan 2026) taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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25 days ago

1914 August Tuesday 25th...
In the afternoon we went for a walk on to Friars Point, admission to Grounds 1d each, In the evening Alice Dais & I went to the Summer Garden to see the strolling players, they were very good indeed taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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25 days ago

Ada Dacey, the @1914_diary keeper/author... maiden name Tootel (aka Tootal) one of 6 or 7 sisters from #sainthelenaisland Alice is likely to have been one of the Tootel sisters plus Joan, Claire and Annie. They appear have been Irish and were part of the #sainthelenaisland Irish community - lots more research needed...
Ada was a socialite who loved games.

(Thanks to Jean Breakey, Jan 2026) taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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25 days ago

1914 August Monday 24th... the mislabelled days/dates seem to have been resolved after a wild weekend...
Remained at home
Dais gone into Cardiff for the day. taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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25 days ago

1914 August Sunday 22nd... looks like another day/date mishap - in August 1914 the 22nd was a Saturday, not a Sunday... so, it seems, the day was actually Sunday 23rd...
Remained at home in the morning, In the afternoon we went over to Mr Evans & his three children Jennie, Thomas & Margarite, we chatted a little while then we all walked over Barry looking at the beautiful gardens & homes, they came over to our house we had a musical evening, after supper they left, we retired at 11 o'clock (11pm) taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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25 days ago

1914 August Saturday 21st - Aug the 21st was actually a Friday in 1914, so one assumes a mislabelled date and the events took place on Saturday 22nd...
Caught train for Cardiff but Dais changed his mind & got off at Cogan from there we walked on & on along the main road until got to Cardiff it took us 2 1/2 hrs. it was about 4 miles. The weather being rather warm did not make our walk enjoyable. We arrived at Polly's, & had refreshments & rested for a couple of hours. Later we went for a walk up town and a little shopping I bought 4 beautiful bibs for Stanley & lost them. We came back to Polly's & had tea, then went up town again shopping, one large drapers we went into to try a hat, all the assistants had Gerald... (Insta post still being edited...) in a circle, questioning him about Africa, asked him where he would like to reside he said he would rather live in Africa. The girls fell in love with him & his hair, he had to kiss them all before leaving, from there we went to the market & the 6d sixpenny bazaar. We had rather a wet evening we got back to Polly's about 9 o'clock from there we went to station caught the 10.15 (10:15pm) train, Polly, her father Mr Murphy came to see us off we got home 11 o'clock (11pm) after spending a nice day.

(On this day, reconnaissance cyclist Private John Parr was the first British soldier to be killed on the Western Front, at Obourg in Belgium) taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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a month ago

1914 August Thursday 20th...
Wrote our mail, went for a walk in the afternoon to Friars Point. Dais & children playing on the grass to the children's delight, we went home at 7 o'clock to tea, bathed the children, put them to bed. We retired early feeling too tired for words

(On this day, the German Army occupied Brussels, Belgium) taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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a month ago

1914 August Wednesday 19th...
(Part 3 - A comprehensive diary entry to be split over 3 Insta posts)
On arrival at Cardiff we ran up the steps & down the streets caught car to station, ran up some more steps & just caught the train for Barry. It was crowded we were very tired & fagged out the lot of us, my limbs were simply aching. We got out at Barry hastened over more steps caught train for Barry Island from there we just crawled up the hill Alice & I particularly. We arrived home about 12.30, partook of buttered biscuits & cocoa & retired, we spent a lovely day but oh how tiring it all is, my knees began swelling & aching very much, they had to be massaged. We slept like tops.

(The phrase "to sleep like a top" comes from the behavior of a child's spinning top.
When a top spins at high velocity and hits perfect rotational stability, its axis stops wobbling and remains completely upright. To someone watching, the top appears so perfectly motionless and quiet that it looks like it's asleep—a phenomenon that toy makers, physicists, and traditional players actually refer to as a top "sleeping".
Because the top seems completely undisturbed while in this state, English speakers began using it as a metaphor for deep, motionless, and peaceful sleep.
History of the Idiom
Early 1600s: The earliest known written record of the phrase appears in the play The Two Noble Kinsmen (c. 1613–1614), co-written by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. A character in the play says: "I shall sleep like a top else.")

👆🏼Sources: Gemini AI; Idiom Origins; Word Histories; Phrase Finder taken in Johannesburg, South Africa by @1914_diary

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a month ago