From Bold Street to Fiji in 1904
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| Susan Rust has been retracing her grandfather's footsteps in Warrington Picture: Dave Gillespie DGB300408 |
BANANA plantations on Fiji are a world away from a sleepy solicitor's office on Bold Street.
Yet Herbert Lawton Gerrard made the swap in 1904 and now, more than 100 years after he left on a boat for the south sea island his granddaughter, armed with his old diary, has paid a visit to his home town.
Susan Rust, from Auckland, New Zealand, has been tracing the footsteps of her grandfather's early years thanks to clues in his diary.
She said: "Now I'm here it means so much more. Last week I found the church where he and my grandmother, Dora Lee, married."
Although the date of Herbert's birth is unknown, his first known home was above his dad's greengrocer's shop on Lovely Lane.
He wrote in his journal: "The back rooms were devoted to the storage of chests of tea, spices, cases of salmon, tinned fruit, jars of jam and all the commodities which went to make up the major part of which was stored with flour bins and bags of sugar and other heavy articles."
He goes on to recall how the shop would stay open until 11pm on Saturdays so that families could buy their shopping.
Mr Gerrard talks about his school days and one particular teacher who enjoyed being sarcastic at the expense of backward scholars of whom I was one'.
"How we rejoiced when a big lumbering scholar whom he had goaded to a frenzy, chased him armed with a long pole used for hooking maps from the walls," he wrote.
After school, he got a job working at a solicitor's office. Mr Gerrard identifies his boss as Mr B, of Bold Street.
Mr Gerrard worked as an office boy, progressing to a law clerk and described his boss as a well-dressed man with a blond moustache which dropped over and completely hid his mouth'.
His colleagues would often wonder what their boss would get up to while away on business and the diary notes: It was rumoured that he was a very gay dog when out of town'.
But soon Mr Gerrard headed off on a boat to Fiji after being informed by a friend that there was a job waiting for him there.
Having left behind his wife, Dora, when he arrived he found there was no job. But he soon found himself managing a banana plantation and was joined by Dora and his sister Margaret.
Another diary marked out his first trip back to Warrington in 1930, 26 years after leaving for Fiji.
Much of the diary is taken up with his observations of the weather: "England is indeed a gloomy place after Fiji." And he comments regularly on an Ashes cricket series and, in particular, on the efforts of a young Don Bradman.
During that visit, he travelled to Grappenhall, Penketh and along Folly Lane where he noted great changes to the area, particularly the number of new houses.
Mr Gerrard, who died in Fiji in the 1960s, was one of eight siblings and now granddaughter Susan, aged 65, is trying to trace any relatives of those brothers and sisters who may still be in Warrington, so that she can learn more about her grandfather.
If you can help Susan, e-mail her at susan.rust@hotmail.com.
5:52pm Friday 9th May 2008
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