Person:James Best (10)

Family story: James Best was in White's bar Oxford. (White's Bar was still going when my brother and I were in our teens exploring the night life of Oxford. It was situated near the crossroads at Carfax. As you face Carfax from the High Street, it was about 5 buildings before the cross on the left hand side. It has now gone.) White's bar in the early days of my grandfather was notorius for it's hard drinking, hard hitting clientel. Apparently someone commented to James (Jim) that the girl he was dating (Ivy) was no good as it was rumoured that she had a child. Jim apparently replied with his fist's. Jim is supposed to have run away from Ireland due to his getting involved in a jewel heist from a jewelers in Co Cavan around the age of 16. He told us that he hid the jewels in a tree by a bridge in Belturbet, and, as the police were searching for the culprits, he left promptly for England. (He never returned to Ireland). He went to London, and it is unclear as to his movements untill we find him in Oxford. I think I can remember him saying that he got work laying the rail tracks (Navvy) and that is possibly how he ended up in Oxford. He met Ivy, and according to her, his courtship consisted entirely of walking. Straight backed and tall, with brilliant blue eyes that could peirce you with one look, he walked ivy off her feet and into his life. Gramp was a great walker! WW2 Story. When war broke out, he was put in the army, but hated it so much he went AWOL...."Spud House" punishment (on numerous occasions). He applied to go into the navy and was accepted where he grew a fond love of the sea and ships engines. He was a stoker of coal down in the bowels of the ship and was extremely contented with his lot. He told me that one time they put into port (Holland, Denmark, Belgium I am not sure which one) after a big battle, and he said there were thousands of bodies floating in the sea.. He also had been to Harlem, NY, and told my mother he had also been on Bondai Beach, Australia.. Jim would have nothing to do with the Roman Catholic Religion that he was born into...Apparently his sisters were devout, as also his mother. He being the youngest child and the only male in the household, he said he had been hounded, and what he saw of Catholic Priests in Co Cavan, put him off relion for the rest of his life. He liked gardening, keeping chickens, walking, riding his bike, and rabbiting with his Jack Russell. He worked many years at Morris's Oxford, many years on the night shift. He told me that he was a test driver?... As a little girl, he would push me in my pushchair to Berinole park in headington, and he would buy me a "Strawberry Mivvy" ice cream from the little shop that used to be by the park gates. Sometimes he would rock me to sleep at night with "Tura Lura Lura" or "Irish eyes are smiling" or other Irish lullaby's. He got on extremely well with my father, and there are some good drinking stories that I will add later. As said here before, he had bright blue eyes that could peirce. As he grew older his eyebrows grew bushy which to me as a child would take one look for me to behave. He was a man of few words, and I remember well "Have you got your key" which was, apart from the "ha ha ha my hearty" was mostly all that he said through all my years with him.

Tirty tree (33) Tumb (Thumb) Bastarding, Naked, Frying pan, Bets,.....Suicide.

Story he told me once of a cousin? female, in Ireland. She was young and fell out of a tree. She broke her leg in the fall and had to crawl all the way home, miles?....She was forever after a little "Touched" in the head...

Sisters were called (I think) Ruth and May, possibly Alice. Poss psychaitric nurse, shool governess, nun?

1. ↑ The General Registry Office (Scotland).

   The General Registry Office (Scotland) . "Register of Births for the District of Shettleston, in the County of Lanark 1826"