Today Frances reads from the 1907 Christmas Budget - a special edition, written by the seven "home siblings" (Enid, Edmund, Arthur, Bernard, Cuthbert, Avice & Vera), along with contributions from their parents (Rev Dr John Charles Cox and Mrs Marian Cox.) The poems, limericks and stories in the Christmas Budget were all written by the Machell Cox family.
The Budget was read aloud by Bernard, Cuthbert, Avice and Vera; they read it to each other, at home in Sydenham on Christmas Day, after tea and presents. It was then posted to the other UK siblings - Enid in Liverpool, Edmund in Derbyshire and Arthur in Plymouth. It was then posted to Wilfred in Canada, Neville in South Africa and Aldwyn in Nyasaland (Malawi). It was then posted back to England and was stored in the bottom of a wardrobe and then in a garage for about 70 years.
The 1907 Christmas Budget, along with the rest of the Machell Cox Family Budgets (80 years of content), are safely preserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Edmund is the great grandfather of Frances, and she is thoroughly enjoying deciphering the handwriting and sharing these fascinating documents through this podcast.
Edit: Captain Cook in fact landed in Seventeen Seventy in May 1770, not June 1770.
Intro - 00:00
1906 Christmas Budget - 2:00
Bernard's Editorial - 3:57
Mother's Lost Art of Letter Writing - 8:44
Cuthbert's Song of the Budget - 14:50
Arthur's Phonetic Alphabet - 18:36
Bernard's family limericks - 23:38
The Young Man from Nantucket - 32:25
You can contact Frances by email - machellcoxletters@gmail.com
or X/Twitter - @CoxLetters
or Blue Sky - @Coxletters.bsky.social
All content is subject to copyright and belongs to Frances Thompson and the Bodleian Library.
