John & Jeannette's Home Page

We're going to spare you the traditional photograph (well, if you really want it just click here!) but we will tell you a bit about ourselves.

We are John and Jeannette Simpson, a husband and wife partnership based in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, UK.
(And we are NOT related to this person anihomer.gif (6263 bytes) - nor OJ either!)

We are both on the PCC of St Nicolas', Old Shoreham, and John was Treasurer for 12 years, as well as still looking after the website. Neither of us are natives of Sussex,so it was a spooky moment when our genealogy studies (see below) turned up the fact that John's 26xgreat-grandfather was William de Braose, who rebuilt the very church which John now helps to maintain. In the churchyard is the grave of a Russian Princess, who was also an actress.In trying to find out more about her, we discovered a fascinating story for which the research led us to London, Russia, Italy, Finland, Georgia and Estonia, and is the subject of our book. We have set up a separate website for information about the Princess and events to commemorate her 95th anniversary. We are very fortunate that our past experience gave us the skills we needed to undertake this project.

From 1987 to 2004 we traded as MCW (Mobile Computer Workshop) offering computer consultancy and training throughout Sussex (and often beyond). We used to offer non-profit-making courses through Adult Education centres to provide computer skills for people who might otherwise not afford the training. However an increasing number of government schemes to provide totally free training meant that people did not want to pay even the relatively low fees asked for these courses and they ceased to be viable.  The public now has perceptions that they can, for example, do a free course for a couple of hours in the local library and come away knowing all there is to know about the Internet. 

We find this very sad because the level of knowledge is becoming increasingly shallow, even though the programs used are becoming ever more complex, and when people run into problems they do not have the skills to cope.  Also all the equipment purchased through grants to set up these local free training centres has a limited life - will the funds be forthcoming when it needs to be replaced?  Still, since June 2004 it's no longer our problem, and we have been able to concentrate on developing other interests which are much more fun and our stress levels have dropped considerably!    We have added an extra C to our trading name - MCCW now stands for Malt, Craft and Culture Workshops.  Read on, and you'll see why that reflects what we now do!

We have a long standing interest in Japan, its language, people, history, and culture and for many years taught several evening classes in Japanese language as well as giving talks about the culture of Japan.  In 1996 we set things in motion for the founding of the Sussex Japan Society, which ran very successfully for nine years.  Although it was eventually dissolved in May 2005 we continue to host its Web site as a resource on things Japanese. 

For some years Jeannette had been giving talks on Japan to various local organisations and we gradually extended this, so that we eventually had quite a large repertoire of subjects between us. Although health considerations have now (2023) reduced what we can do in this respect, we still have considerable resources with which we can often help people.  More details here.

Jeannette started her career by teaching German and was asked to take it up again for Worthing Adult Education centre.  The first year course she ran was very successful, and she was asked to teach a second year course as well.  Eventually John took over the beginners classes so that Jeannette could concentrate on the higher levels.  We finally phased out our teaching of evening classes in 2007,

We went to Belgium regularly for many years and are especially fond of West Flanders.  Belgium is arguably the producer of the best beers in the world, and so we felt duty bound to make a study of this aspect of the local culture, making a point of visiting all the local breweries and checking out their products.  John already had the certificate of the Wines & Spirits Education Trust, and we both attended one of the first certification courses run by their offshoot, the Beer Academy. 

Having tasted and studied extensively over many years (and having built up a huge collection of Belgian beer glasses!), in Autumn 2004 we offered a course through the Worthing Adult Education centre to introduce people to the superb range of Belgian beers.  This proved so successful that we had to run a repeat soon afterwards and it opened up a new avenue for us.    One result of the college tastings was a request for us to run tastings in Belgium, and the first of these took place in February 2006.  We ran courses at several AE centres through 2005-7, but, like a lot of other AE tutors, we found that the levels of bureaucracy being introduced were totally disproportionate to the time spent teaching and in 2008 we pulled out of Adult Education completely.  However, it's an ill wind that blows no good and we subsequently offered tastings in conjunction with a local pub, the Red Lion Inn, Old Shoreham Road, Shoreham-by-Sea. 

We did not confine our beer studies to Belgium.  We always had an interest in UK real ales, and our visits to Japan and Germany to keep up our language skills provided opportunities to check out the local beers of those countries.  We  also made field studies of the beers of Portugal, Spain, Atlantic Canada and Newfoundland, and used a very good online supplier to obtain  other world beers. We set up a section of this website with information about Belgian and world beers , although we no longer run beer tasting courses, and some of the information there is out of date. Our latest venture is studying the non-alcoholic versions of wines, beers and ciders. We have been delighted to find some excellent beverages with which you can indulge yourself all night and yet not show a blip on a breathalyser!

We always manage to make time for our genealogy interests.  In the early 70's we had traced Jeannette's family (Cousens) to the 1550's in South Devon, and John's (Simpson) to the 1830's in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, by old-fashioned foot-slogging around record offices and church vestries, but became rather overwhelmed by the mass of information we had accumulated on paper.  When we found the Family Tree Maker for Windows program it inspired us to start again, as it is so good at managing data.  We have been astonished at the amount of genealogical information which has become available on the Internet in such a short time, although we would urge caution in adopting ready made family trees which may look right but may contain serious errors - take them as a guide by all means, but cross-check all the facts with the original documents.

We subsequently  tracked down manorial records which extend the Cousens line to 1500, and information found on the Internet and contacts made via discussion groups have taken us on trips to San Diego, Toronto, and St. John's Newfoundland.  We have discovered new relatives and have had lots of fun meeting them and getting to know their world. We have been able to show some of them our corner of Sussex, and the Devon farm which the Cousens ancestors were cultivating in Tudor times; we subsequently took them on a tour around the rest of England, Scotland and Wales, and have made a couple of return visits to Newfoundland.  On one of those trips (which often took in the Newfoundland Folk Festival) we discovered Le Vent du Nord, a brilliant French Canadian group, in 2008. Since then we have been to their concerts in England, Wales, Belgium, and British Columbia, and got to know them personally. Jeannette arranged through their manager to add Shoreham-by-Sea to their UK tour, and they have returned several times. The group likes the Shoreham venue, the Ropetackle Arts Centre, and their concerts here are always sold out. Our travels have prompted the group to promise that when the history of Le Vent du Nord is written we will be included as the fans who have made the longest and the shortest journeys to their concerts: Vancouver Island (nearly 5,000 miles) and Ropetackle (a 10 minute walk from our house!)

Although John still has a 'brick wall' with his direct male Simpson line at about 1800, he made a surprising discovery when he decided to try DNA testing. He found that he had a very distinctive marker in his DNA - one expert researcher suggested his ancestors came from a little green planet just beyond Betelgeuse!  This provides a cast iron guarantee that anyone with the surname Simpson who shares this marker must be related. He found that he had matches in the USA, and correspondence with these 18 distant cousins established that all shared a common ancestor around 1600, whose son (or grandson) was one of the early pioneers in Maryland.  Three of these cousins have visited us in the UK, the most recent in Summer 2023. The task  is now to push John's direct line in the UK further back, to try to identify the common ancestor.  John had his testing done via Family Tree DNA in the USA, who offer the best value testing service using cutting edge technology and, most importantly, have comprehensive databases to match with.  

Our own documentary research threw up the fact that John's great-great-great-grandmother had been a paintress for the short-lived pottery of H&R Daniel in Stoke-on-Trent. Looking into the work which they did, we found that they were pioneers of enamelling and gilding techniques who produced stunning wares. Their products were rarely marked which makes identifying it a fascinating detective job. We joined the Daniel Ceramic Circle in 2009, and ended up on the committee, with Jeannette as Secretary and John as Journal Editor for 10 years, and website manager still. In 2015 we co-authored a book on Daniel Earthenwares, a previously neglected field, and in 2016 won an award for the research and editing work. In 2018 we co-authored the Pocket Guide to aid identification of Daniel wares by their shapes.

Return to World of Beers home page Return to John & Jeannette's home page

      Return to MCW home page   

Return to Sussex Japan Society home page