Anyone fancy trying to decipher a letter from 1877? Pics attached

[ChocChipOwl]

I can get most of it but not all and you lot are so good at this!

I have ...

Dear Charles Edward,

I was very pleased to receive a letter from you in such a bold handwriting with a drawn figure representing perhaps old ? with his sticks making towards the flagstaff - all this I think well done for your age and recommend you to go on and prosper

You will be pleased to hear that I am better and ? next Monday to be able of the day is fine to get out for a walk and ? you cannot be with me - love to your mother ? ?

Your affectionate grandfather

J Franck

@Jewelanemone That's what I was thinking. The middle looks like Timothy but it doesn't begin with a T. Possibly a P?

It looks like ....prothey to me but that doesn't make any sense

@AnotherSpare you could well be right! And he would have been known in the UK as he was in the civil war.. fits in with a flagstaff too

Yes, it's definitely old trot with his stick

So a human being with a walking stick and not an animal

That's exactly what it looks like to me. Why would he capitalise 'Brothers' and not 'sister'?

Looks like a 'P' to me too.

@Jewelanemone I don't think he would. Clearly is an articulate man who can string a sentence together so it's not a grammatical error I don't think

Or a dog carrying a stick... as they do!

I've sent a screenshot to my husband. He works for the police - maybe it'll find its way to the graphology department (if they have one!) 😆

@PinotPony of course!! A stick in a dogs mouth!

I think it is Brothers. Sister is capitalised too if you look closely - much larger S than in the middle of the word.

@Jewelanemone ha ha fingers crossed! I just don't see how it can be brothers ..

It would make sense that it's 'brothers', but would he capitalise them? They aren't proper nouns and he seems quite 'grammatical'. Can't think what else it would be, though! 🙂

I'd say that the last word ends "they", so not brothers

Could it be a squeezed-in 'Dorothy'?

Nouns did used to be capitalised in older English. It would have phased out before this letter but perhaps the writer was old-fashioned. Mother, Sister, Brothers could all be capitalised here, it's just less obvious with Mother and Sister.

I think that could be Anthony at the end not Brothers

Boys held in higher regard so used the name and only one so easier to write than all the sisters' names

Maybe Timothy

Could this be the old trot?
konkykru.com/e.branston.comical.cat.html

Fascinating about 'old trot'

The writer is running out of space when it comes to mother, sister and pnothing. The final word is trying to fit in the space and not over-run. I'd go for brothers (plural) with that last curve being an Ess. He knew he was going to write two nouns after mother and that space taking up comma, but realised he had quite a lot to put in the sign-off in the remaining area. Little did he know that decades later others would pore over his missive.

@MMBaranova I wonder what Mr J Franck would think of it all!!

@Wheretheskyisblue that's definitely a contender! It was clearly a thing ... whether a personal reference to a family member / animal or a popular known thing

The last letter of the word trot (?) is the same as the letter at the end of 'that' , so I think it is Trot .

He has a similar 'help I'm short of space' issue with Monday (inside right page). He curves down under pressure.

The capital Emms of Monday and Mother are similar.

The leading Ess of Sister is larger than that of stick, but similar to that of Staff. sadly there isn't a leading upper case B to compare with.

I'm sticking with Brothers, but a short note about handwriting causing us to ponder a word does raise a smile.

@MMBaranova and all this before I ask for help later in the week for my latest letter. From 1790 😀