The following are letters written by my late father to a dear friend during their quest for information regarding my father’s heritage…

(Dad’s name was Peter and his friends’ Ray)

ODE TO A RAY OF LIGHT.

“What’s in a name” quoth the bard of old:

For partial yokels a great deal, I’m told.

So what perfidy, Albion, commit ye anew

Deserting fair Somerset for Catherine the shrew?

Whose yellowing tomes all coner’d in dust

Bead testimony mute to ancestral lust

For me yet naught do tell

But the Great-grandpa could not spell

Unless – My God (dare it be said?)

Old Gaffer (Arrrrr!) were never wed!

But nay! That cannot be –

Yon ancient Cooks without or Cooke’s with “E”

Honest men of Suffolk were and true

Who though, for England’s sake, with pike and yew

Would march and fight and slaughter

Never would – perish the thought – do what they didn’t orter!

So for futh’rence of they genetic search

I prithee, Ray, assume the blessing of the Church!

But whether or not Gaffer did plight his troth

Too many Cookes, forsooth, do spoil the broth!

So stay ye, awhile, work on thy task

For distant Zimbabwe (Rhodesia in mask)

Dwells, in U.D.I., a rebel aunt maternal

(Gone happ’ly not yet to rest eternal)

To her an urgent missuve I’ll direct

For input data on James Joseph more correct

Then process it in PLAN and COBOL on 2903

And pass, anon, ye feedbacke for FINDe to thee.

Peter Wronsley November 15, 1976.

Shakespearean

ODE TO THE IPSWICH LAD

Alas, poor Somerset is no more custodian of thy illustrious past

For yonder house of St. Catherine has encroached upon the archives silent

-Most silent of thy ancestral cast –

“Tis Cooke?”, they say, “then search thee well

For like the summer rain they fell

In seventy? Seventy one? Or Two?

Then have no fear you’ll find a few.

Take ye the scrolls and through the sea

The ever rolling sea,

Of faceless, dead, identity

Search for the root of Peter’s tree

Planted by God

In fair England’s sod!

James for England!

My kingdom for James!!

Alas – but James is not enough

-Ah but it were!!

For James Cooke were registered in Ipswich in 1871

But as he had no Joseph he could not be the one.

Then 1870 shows some gain,

For yer another with sim’lar name.

James Joshua, note no “E”,

-begon perhaps to eternity –

Here again ‘twas Ipswich fair.

Could it be that Joshua sat so poorly on his head

It made him groan and cry to all instead –

Joseph for Joshua!

My kingdom for Joseph!

And let yon Registrar stew in his mire of erroneous records!!

And yet St. Catherine fair confusith this transcriber more

By sallying forth another.

James Joseph aye, but Cook t’with no E,

That so essential to you lineage be,

He were born in Eighteen Sixty Nine,

And registered in Aston – nay not Under Lyne –

But Aston be not Ipswich

And Ipswich it must be

So bang went our final chance and this poor scholar cussed

Four years I’ve scanned, and Seventy Two had none

So – t’would seem to me that steps most dire,

Must be trod to find your Mother’s sire

For to give ye James Joseph Cooke

I must forsooth but Cook the Booke!!

Raymond Jones-Davies, September 28, 1976.

ODE TO THE LOST LAD FOUND

The Taming of the metaphoric Shrew id done

And fair St. Catherine has yielded forth thy true ancestor’s son

Prithee, sirrah, rejoice for Master Cooke be found.

Tho’ rest assured we’ll leave him deep in his hallowed ground

Now Twelfth Night be past, no one will scoff or Lear

For thou hast got at last thy pedigree so dear.

The Tempest of the Winter’s tale is like the dream of a Midsummer’s Night

And Love’s Labour and not indeed been Lost but won by all that’s right.

To take the name of Joseph was but a simple ploy

But sadly it created a seeker b’reft of joy

The search was long but did not weary limbs

And gladly was accomplished without resort to kings

No help from John., nor Richard two or three

No Greensleeves from Henry Eight to speed our revelree

The task was done, no need for sorcery or tricks

Nor aid from any Henry, Four, Five or Six.

Tales from Greece, intrigue from Rome

One should have held a sim’lar tone

Had Troilus and Cressida heard ought so strange

Or Timon or Titus such a plot to derange?

Coriolanus, Cymbeline and Julius Caesar too

Were as silent as Pericles and bid our cry adieu

For Anthony to rip the asp from Cleopatra’s breast

Would have been a simpler task than our sharp acid test.

The horrors of Macbeth and dark Othello’s doubts

Seemed there within the archives of thy ancestral clouts

‘Til from a Third World Hamlet you brought a hoary tale

Would make the Merry Wives of Windsor weep and surely wail

For much sought James and Joseph were never meant as one

Like two Gentlemen of V’rona each other’s son

As Romeo and Juliet their union was not blessed

But Measure for Measure we’ll let the matter rest

All’s Well that End’s Well in this Comedy of Errors.

That like the Merchant of Venice was made of hollow terrors

Much Ado About Nothing this task cannot be named

For just As You Like It your heritage you’ve gained!!

Raymond Jones-Davies, April 27, 1977

TO St. CATHERINE - AGAIN

Dear Veronica and Raymond, think not that these months past

I idle have been – nay! A stirring tale I have now to tell

Of your kith, my kin, a play forgotten, the soldiers cast

Lord Chelmford’s road with good intention paved to Hell,

Of Supreme, Regina Victoria, battles glorious, the Thin Red Line,

Saving Natal from foaming waves of Zulu warriors wild

Who, on Islandwana’s field, with assegais ashine

For Cetewayo, their King, killed man, woman, beast and child

T’was there that Great-grandpa Cooke (a yeoman, indeed!)

Breathed for England his last and left as widow

Ellen (nee Kelly(?) – t’is not sure) with bairns five to feed

Of whom the eldest, James, we know now

In Ipswich (sans Joseph) in (October) “seventy-one was born

And only at Baptismal font Joseph, too, became.

There – now you have it, of all mystery the plot is shorn

Yon James and James Joseph be one and all the same

So if cryptic Catherine’s James’s dam Ellen be

Tondor, I pray, on my behalf, so much gold as buys for me one sheet complete – a pedigree

Fit not for Cruffts, mayhap, but for a stray outside the fold

Mongrelized, ‘tis true, to a certain degree

But more English, I’ll lay wages lavish

Than Naidoo, Bongo-Bongo, Singh and Padayachee

-or, for that matter, MacTavish!!

Peter Wronsley, March 26, 1977.