In November 2007 I made contact, through the internet, with a cousin I didn't know I had. His name is Dan and at the time he lived in Vancouver, Canada. We share a 5 times great grandfather, Thomas Greenwood, whose father-in-law was a well-known London comedian/actor called Joseph Shepherd Munden. (I wonder if the comedy genes in our son Richie, a standup comic in Brisbane, came from him). Over the next four years, Dan and I communicated by email, and then Facebook, but it wasn't until 2011 that we actually met. The venue was The Bull and Gate, a pub in Kentish Town, London, owned by our Greenwood family from the 1700s through until the mid 1800s. This pub features significantly in my book.
Since that meeting in London, Dan regularly reminded me that I should get on with writing the book about our Greenwood family, as I stupidly said I might one day. And to be honest, it became more and more obvious that the story was well worth telling. So that's how it began. I think I actually started around 2017, so I didn't rush into it! Now, four years on, I'm writing this blog and trying to remember the most significant moments of the journey.
Below is a photo of Dan and me not far from the Greenwood residence. The street sign is a result of the Greenwood Almshouses which the family set up to help the poor in that area. The other photo is the Bull and Gate as it looked in 2011. It has since become a gastro pub, but much of the interior is as it was in the 1800s. We have had a few meals and ales there over the years, and hopefully we will for years to come.
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