More Lileys
I had imagined that one page would be enough for the information I had on the Lileys, past and present but, as luck would have it, I have a lot more to chronicle. So, please just enjoy the voyage through the various odd characters in my family. Opposite is my father again - a man of many talents. Not only an accomplished artist, broadcaster and writer, but also he tried his hand at amateur dramatics one year, when teaching at Weaver's School in Wellingborough.
The rest of this page will be devoted to the stories of other Liley.

First, a Family Tree
This is my 'extended' version of the Liley family tree, after having three serious sessions online (using ancestry.co.uk) .  Digging around in parish records and trying to 'go back' as far as possible, is both exciting and frustrating.  You would have thought that it would be an easy task to trace a family's roots.  But, not a bit of it. First, most male Lileys seemed to have been christened James, Joseph or Joshua in the 19th century, and then William and John all the way back to Elizabethan times. This might seem a small problem, but when several Jameses or Williams are born in different branches of Liley families all roughly at the same time, it can get complicated. Â
But I think I have now got some semblance of truth from all the information available. Â
My father got back to 1783 before he hit his 'brick wall' and could go no further. Â With the digitalising of parish records I have managed to scale that wall and get back to 1574. Â I haven't really tried to go beyond that as yet - it's an exhausting process and I need a take stock. Â
But there it is, the fruit of my labour, spread out on the dining room table.

Back to Elizabethan Times
John Lylie and Margaret Brooke top the table in 1575. Â They probably lived in a little hovel and knew nothing about Elizabeth I, the Armada and Walter Raleigh with his potatoes and cigarettes. Â From what I can see, they lived up in the West Riding of Yorkshire in a small village, probably quite close to where Rochdale is nowadays. Â
If you look down the record to the third entry, you will see a name has been written (misspelt the first time and then corrected). Â That's John Lyley's marriage record to Margaret Brooke, written by a legal clerk on 6th February, 1575

Lileys and Extended Family

Franz-William Stahl (Born 1840) and his wife, Angela Stahl (Briggermann: Born 1849). This is the only known photograph of the grandparents of Gisela LIley, my mother.

Gordon Stott and Audrey Stott (nee Liley). on their wedding day.  Audrey is the sister of Charles Liley (my father)

Kumi (Izumi) Liley, the first wife of Adrian Liley. Taken in a Tokyo park.
​

Albert Carl Liley (my grandfather) as a young man around 1916
Gisela Liley (my mother)

Gisela Liley in around 1955, when studying to be a nurse in Manchester.

This is Bergischen Land in the centre of Germany, where Gisela grew up (the village of Dieringhausen is in the middle of the map)

Gisela Liley and Adrian Liley in the back garden of their first home at 92Â Nest Lane, Wellingborough around 1958

Gisela Liley and Adrian Liley at Wimbledon in 1977
The Cheltenham Lileys

Stephen Liley and Rachael Liley on their wedding day

Tom Liley (Stephen and Rachael Liley's son) at the New Inn pub on Tresco in the Scilly isles, 2018
Sporting Lileys
Probably the most impressive of Liley sporting achievements has no photographic evidence.  My mother, GISELA LILEY, was a discus thrower of some standing back in the late 1940s and actually held the record for the whole of Nord-Rhein Westphalia in Germany for an amazing 25 years.  She would have thrown for Germany at the Olympics had the German team not been banned, following the war.  Other highlights were STEPHEN LILEY playing tennis for Northamptonshire and ADRIAN LILEY winning the Northamptonshire Junior Singles tennis title in 1974.

STEPHEN LILEY
Wicket keeper for the Bayshill Cricket club (Cheltenham, Gloucestershire)Â from the mid 80s.

ADRIAN LILEY
I did this rather mad leap from 10,000 feet in Headcorn, Kent, the summer of 1989 for reasons which I can't remember.  Wonderful experience only marred by breaking my left leg in three places on landing.

LOTS OF LILEYS
This is a team picture of the Bayshill tour side in 2017, about to embark on four games against local teams on the Scilly Isles. Â Pictured are: Â TOM LILEY (tallest in the back row); and STEPHEN LILEY, JESSICA LILEY, JAMIE LILEY AND ADRIAN LILEY all in the middle of the front row. Â Great tour too. Â Won one, Lost one, one match cancelled due to rain and one abandoned because of my broken collarbone.

ADRIAN LILEY
Back in 1984 and 1985 I coached, managed and captained the company football team while working in the Arab state of Qatar for the national oil company as an English instructor.  Here I am in the company colours.  I also captained and coached my departmental side to two successive cup victories.