Advance to Accidental – Back to Introduction
Back to Foreword Index – Back to Denton Family Bible
I have always assumed my family to be agreeably unremarkable, no heroes, captains of industry or Nobel winners, no vagabonds or murderers. As a family we appeared to have bobbed along without becoming particularly rich or poor, but this research confounds that assumption.
I soon came to realise that my family does have one distinct feature – we are remarkably nomadic.
My grandfather was born in Bishop Auckland, Durham. He married in Chorlton, Manchester someone (Nan of course) from Willenhall in the West Midlands’ Black Country. They had two children in Manchester, one being my Dad. They all moved to Bristol where my Dad married Eileen, a Bristolian, and this was where my generation was born and bred.
All three of us (Lorraine, John and I) married locals. I married Jane and we first moved to Devon where we had Sarah our first child in Plymouth. In just four generations Dentons had moved the length of Britain from Bishop Auckland in Durham to Saltash in Cornwall.
southern migration
It doesn’t end there. Sarah met and married Laurent from the Ile de France, so two of our grandchildren (Chloé and Artie) are Franglais, living to the south of Paris.
Our second child Matt was born in Thornbury Gloucestershire and married Ruth from Bedford. She and two more grandchildren Dan and Laura were born in south London and live in Oxfordshire.
They divorced (amicably) and Matt met his second wife Majella, who is from Galway Ireland. They live in Dubai. Our fifth grandchild Mylo is thus Anglo-Irish, living where he was born in the UAE, though he spent a quarter of his first two years in Dallas, Texas.
Not to forget that Jane and I have lived in more than twenty different homes, including five years full-time in Javea, Alicante, Spain.
As a family we appear to be exceptionally inclined to wander! But, apparently this was always the case!
Advance to Accidental – Back to Introduction
Back to Foreword Index – Back to Denton Family Bible
