17 February 1886 - Station Road, Seaton Carew

Station Road

Seaton Carew

17 February 1886

Dear Brother & Sister,

You will think I have forgot you in not writing oftener. My excuse is that I am very much from home at present. I am out of employment as there is nothing to do all the steamers are laid up. There is 35 laid up here at the ports about here. There is more at the Tyne. There is above an hundred. When they will get away nobody can tell all trade is at a stand still. There is thousands of men walking about, cannot get work. You will see by the papers that I send you, some of the particulars of this last voyage when I was at Odessa. I got cold and was laid up ill. We had to come to Genoa to discharge from there. We came to Cardiff. I was ill all the time. I came home from Cardiff as they laid the steamer up. I am very near well again. I would like to get work on shore but there is a poor prospect. I did think about commencing a small business here myself as a tobacconist but as trade is, I have not commenced and I have had some heavy draws on what little I have saved. My only daughter as had the Rheumatic Fever no less than four times within this last two years. I have her in Yorkshire now for a change. She has just recovered from her last illness. The Doctor and all here gave her up. One day he told them she was dying. Thank God she got a turn for the better that same day. The Doctor told us we would have to send her away as the place was too cold for her at present. She is with a cousin of my wife’s. My wife is far from well with attending on my daughter. My eldest son Tom is still at Newcastle Post Office. My second son Richard is at home as the shop he was at paid the assistants off as there was no trade. He is a grocer. He paid. I had to ask you if there was any prospect of him getting anything to do where you are. Will you let me know as there is nothing doing here. My youngest, George, has gone to Richardson to serve a time as an Engineer. I do not know if Kitty has wrote you lately. He has had a windfall this …

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