Look what I have Done!

I feel that I am a lucky guy, all the hard yards are done now and I can sit back and enjoy myself. Life was not so easy for me. I have had some good times and some bad, some have been just awful. Sometimes I wonder how I survived at all and it took some mighty courageous deeds at times and some that you might say were downright dangerous and perhaps not all that well conceived or executed. But I survived maybe even flourished.

All that is behind me now, I can sit and reflect on my life, I am now enjoying myself in a way that I never thought possible. All those years of hardship and uncertainty are behind me, I am really in heaven. I don't have the slightest worries, my view of the world is superb. I can observe without being observed, no security cameras on me.

During my lifetime I have seen much of the world, I have seen many people suffer and for no good reason, other than the deeds they have done. I have seen others living a life of opulence while causing others to suffer. All that regalia and pomp, strutting around with guns poised and that old cat o nine tails always at the ready. I have stood indicted, been convicted, sentenced only to have the execution commuted to world travel, with free board and lodgings. I have sailed across the oceans of the world, resettled and made a new life. A new wife, more travel, I have even had more than one identity change.

I can look back now and see my descendants enjoying such a good life. All the early suffering and sacrifices that I made have been worthwhile. I pass my time by observing from afar. What is this behaviour that I observe. In my time the necessities of life were simple, Why is it that these descendants of mine need all the paraphernalia. Just what is it that they are doing. I must observe a little more closely.

What exactly is he doing? A list of names in some sort of pedigree, is he breeding dogs? Maybe pigeons or even race horses. One of my sons was a jockey. I am curious, what is it. Oh, I can see my name there, yes it is my name. Oh, my other name too, or one of them. What is he up to? Well that will stop him, I never told anyone in my new country what my real name was.

Bloody hell! He has the record of my first marriage. How did he get that? Well I did say that I was a widower when I married my second wife. And my mother's name too. Poor Mum I guess she never knew what happened to me. What! My first wife married again just two years after I set of on my great adventure, not much loyalty from her. Well can't really blame her, no husband and I really didn't treat her very well and all.

Yes I did abandon my first wife. Well, I got in with the wrong crowd for a while. Fancy stealing a desk and thinking we would get away with it. I didn't know that it had all that money in it, 27 quid and almost half in gold Sovereigns, and I didn't see any of it at all. Sentenced to death under an alias, I was. Lucky for me, and them that I watch over, I was transported to the other side of the world. That bloody policeman at the trial, fancy him knowing who I really was, written up in the Newspaper and all so they told me. Glad that Mum couldn't read, hope no one told her. I wonder if Uncle Bill ever realised that I used his name, that one he was Christened with. Mum told me about that one day and that he did not use it any more, it was just a mistake by the Vicar she said. I thought "well, if ever I need to be someone else then that would be a good name to use.

Never thought that I would cause so much trouble so far down the line. In those days you were who you said you were, well mostly anyway and who you really were didn't matter that much. Not many records kept and checking not easy nor often done. Now look what is going on. Why do these people seem to be suffering such an identity crisis, was never the case in my day. You knew who you were even if others didn't. No sophisticated research needed looking at who preceded them.

I am a lucky guy that I don't have to worry about that. I had never really thought that my descendants would need to go to all that trouble. All because I changed my name a couple of times.

Oh look what I have done! My Great Great Grandsons searching for the truth, if only I could tell them what I really done. What a story they could write.

Lindsay Threadgate May 2013