Publications
From Hastings to Peking . . . with Old King Cole!, by James Gilman, published September 2010 in Sussex Family Historian (vol. 19 no. 3, article, pp.143-145) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 15860] & The Keep [LIB/508844] & CD SFH40 from S.F.H.G.
Preview:It was a GILMAN who removed the arrow from King Harold's eye at the Battle of Hastings! This was the proud claim made by my father to me many years ago which more than made up, in its imaginative scope, for its sad lack of any historical evidence. But then, my dad was a Hastings man.
James GILMAN was born in the Old Kent Road in London in 1901, the son of another James GILMAN who owned and managed a military tailor's shop. Around 1905 they moved away, firstly to Southall and then to Hastings where, my dad's mother having died when he was five, James GILMAN senior remarried and settled eventually in a house in Waldegave Street, right in the centre of town. My dad was brought up there and attended the St Andrews School before beginning work at a retail shop for the well-known J B WARD. His feet may have been planted firmly on a Hastings shop floor, but his eyes were fixed upon a place much further afield and considerably more exotic: Peking, China.
James GILMAN was born in the Old Kent Road in London in 1901, the son of another James GILMAN who owned and managed a military tailor's shop. Around 1905 they moved away, firstly to Southall and then to Hastings where, my dad's mother having died when he was five, James GILMAN senior remarried and settled eventually in a house in Waldegave Street, right in the centre of town. My dad was brought up there and attended the St Andrews School before beginning work at a retail shop for the well-known J B WARD. His feet may have been planted firmly on a Hastings shop floor, but his eyes were fixed upon a place much further afield and considerably more exotic: Peking, China.