An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 131 This month I was instrumental in getting Sir Kenneth Kemp to present to the Castle Museum a very beautiful cur– ricle of the type mentioned in " Rodney Stone," but which the then curator relegated to the dungeons, expressing his opinion that we might as well show a city dust-cart. My old sister, Maria Susan Rye, died on the morning of the 12th at 8 a.m. at Hemel Hempstead. She had long been a great sufferer from cancer, and would 11ot have lived anything like so long but for the assiduous kindness of her sisters and her attendant, a Miss Still, who bad been her assistant when she kept the '' Gutter Children '' Depot at Avenue House, Peckham. On the 14th I began to copy the old Pr11 ish Register of Lammas and Hautbois for the press, which I soon after published. The first snow this year was on the 17th, and bitterly cold it was. On the 18th I lectured for the first time at the '' Norwich Science Go sip Club," which I had ju. t joined, at the Royal on "Good King Henry and bad Queen Bess"; and ou the 23rd before the ''Woodpeckers" on "Ballads.'' On the 3rd December I lectured at Lammas to an overcrowded and very noisy audience. On the 17th Miss Oxley's entertainment for the Bethel lunatics was as good as ever. Christmas at Lammas this year was a slow, a very slow, affair, though the fatted swan from St. Helen's Swan Pit was succuleut, and on the 28th was a big local children's tea at Lammas, whereat one boy having achieved 12 sausage rolls as against ro the previous year was rightly acclaimed the "Sausage King." He explained to my daughter that he had achieved the feat by starving two days 011 cold potatoes. P.B.F.'s tenants' dinner was very fully attended, and as jovial as ever. During this year (1903) I printed the Norwich Rate Book 1633-4, and in conjunction with the Rev. W. H. Hudson a short Calendar of Norwich Deeds 1215-1306. This year I rode a lot, 76 long rides by the 9th November. All the spring of 1904 I was at work, off and on, at noting and calendaring the City Docquet Book of Deeds, which I afterwards printed. On the nth January, Miss Seccombe, who had acted as governess. and companion to