Eric Treacy (pronounced "Tracy") who was Bishop of Wakefield from 1968 to 1976, had two passions in his life: his church and photographing railway locomotives. From 1936 to 1940, he was vicar of Edge Hill, Liverpool, and his excellent relations with his railwaymen parishioners gave him a great start with his hobby. During WWII he was a padre with a Lancashire regiment, for which he was awarded the MBE. After the war he moved to Yorkshire, where he became Rector of Keighley and then Archdeacon and Suffragen (or deputy) Bishop of Pontefract. Of course. throughout these years he was gradually making his reputation as one of the world’s greatest railway photographers; his eye for composition meant that you could often distinguish a Treacy from any other photographer’s work. In 1968, when the Bishopric of Wakefield became vacant, the Prime Minister and Archbishops were bluntly told by the people of Wakefield that they would accept none but Eric Treacy, and he was enthroned on 17th March 1968. He played a large part in the life of Wakefield, not least by his visits to Wakefield Prison; the inmates there regarded the fortnightly arrival of "Bishop Eric" and his wife as the high spot of an otherwise mundane existence. Treacy (along with writer Alan Bennett and others) was a fierce opponent of those who wished to close down his beloved Carlisle-Settle railway line, and it was perhaps fitting that it was there that he died.

Visitors to Appleby Station will find a plaque commemorating Treacy, who suffered a fatal heart attack on the station on 13th May 1978, doing what he enjoyed most: photographing trains. He left a wife, May, whom he had married on 16 June 1932. They had no children. (Ironically for a churchman, an ancestor was William de Traci, one of the four knights who murdered Thomas Becket.)

ERIC TREACY: 2 June 1907; Willesden (51N33 000W14); 2.05 am GMT. David Fisher from copy of birth certificate. (Treacy was a twin, but his sister died a few days after birth.)

 

The truth about the life of Dick Turpin was less romantic than the fiction concocted about him. Turpin's ride from London to York in only fifteen hours on his mare Black Bess was given credence in the novel Rookwood by Harrison Ainsworth, but the feat had probably been achieved by John ("Swift Nicks") Nevison some thirty years before Turpin was born. Son of a publican, and apprenticed as a butcher, Turpin was outlawed for stealing cattle. He joined a gang of smugglers and took part in several brutal robberies in rural Essex. In 1735 he teamed up with Tom King, but accidentally shot his partner while aiming at a man who was arresting King. Turpin fled to York, and it was there that he was arrested for horse-stealing, tried and hanged, on 10 April 1739, on what is now York Racecourse. The prison cell where Turpin spent his last night has been preserved as part of York Museum.

DICK TURPIN: 21 September 1705 O.S. (2 October 1705 N.S.); Hempstead, Essex (52N02 000E20); time not known. Betty Gosling quotes Great Men of Essex by C. Henry Warren.

 

It's amazing how much birth data you come across by reading biographies and autobiographies, although most of them contain no birth-times. I have just finished reading Give Me Ten Seconds (2001), the autobiography of former political commentator John Sargeant who, I was surprised to find, was born with the Sun in Aries. Funny, there is a distinctly Taurean look about him; maybe he was born with Taurus rising? His sense of humour has been to the fore through his appearances as chairman on Have I got News For You, but he is no newcomer to comedy. Do you remember Alan Bennett’s sketch/satire programme On The Margin in the 60s? Apparently John Sargeant was in that but, although I recall the show, I can’t remember him. Anyhow, he was born in on 14 April 1944 in Oxford, birth-time not known.

 

Finally, not so much as an "update", but a "downdate", concerning the famous medium and spiritualist Eileen Garrett who died on 15 September 1970. The data I have for her is: 14 March 1892; An Uaimh, Ireland (53N40 006W40); 5.30 am Dublin Time (05.55 GMT); Thomas Csere from birth certificate. This seems conclusive enough, yet page 145 of The Encyclopaedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley (2nd edition, Checkmark Books, 2000) gives the birth date as 17 March 1893 and the place as Beau Park, County Meath.