BBC "Who Do You Think You Are?" Paul Hollywood (WDYTYA Series 12 Episode 1)

[Clarkey500]

I agree that the first half was pretty much just a ww2 segment but it was still interesting in a way.
But the second half was a lot better, with the McKenzie family, especially the postman doing 120 miles a week by foot. 

[ScouseBoy]

I was born about 4 years after my dad returned from 4 to 5 years  overseas service.   So, I had the benefit  of seeing the photos  taken by my dad  in his travels,  and him   telling me some stories.

I think  he  was lucky to survive his escape from France in 1940,   as I believe  he ended up in the Water when his ship was sunk.

But I think he concealed that  detail  from both his mum  and his wife.

After 70 years since the end of WW2    A lot of  the younger generation   just cannot comprehend how things were  that length of time ago.

[frostyknight]

I found the section about the post runner really interesting and felt that more time could have been give to this part of the episode and much less time given to the WW2 segment. I taped the episode and have to say that I fast-forwarded through some of it. More genealogy please! frostyknight

[Rena]

As I like to research the life of my ancestors I found all of Paul's programme very interesting and as we're having a year long commemoration of the end of WWII it's understandable that this subject would be included in the series.  What surprised me was learning that missiles were fired from cannon guns over thirty miles away 

The Mackenzie half also interested me as that's my dad's side of our ancestry.  I never imagined they could walk from west to east of the Highlands and back again in only six days! 

[Stanwix England]

I enjoyed the programme, although I agree that the details in the first section dragged on a little bit.

[Milliepede]

Didn't really enjoy it and wouldn't watch it again.  Some of the older episodes I can watch over and over. 

[cms]

The book that mentioned his postman ancestor and got his name wrong ... How did they know this was him? I hope conclusions were not jumped to! Any info on that from anyone? It was certainly an eye opener that such a job existed.
Like most people here I groaned at the length of time spent on the war, then got more interested when the family line went further back. I think the programme needs to be an hour and a half long to get into the genealogy more and less of the travelogue, nice though that was to see.

[Skoosh]

@ CMS, that occurred to me as well, Donald became Duncan I think? Donald can also be Daniel but not Duncan but Duncan the post-runner was a more interesting subject. Are we being conned.

Skoosh.

[cms]

Interesting. I hadn't remembered the names but just as you say, I have an ancestor from Scotland who swaps between Donald and Daniel, which I beleive is to do with the translation from Gaelic. It could be that Duncan being such a similar name was just a mistake in the account given in the book.  But there would have been many with the same names in that area so how were they sure it was the same man?