My father, John Pearson Sayer, JPS or Jack as he was always known, was always very family conscious and the study of his family tree became his major preoccupation during his adult life. Not for him the long summer holidays on a beach in Devon; rather he would set off in pursuit of a particular ancestor or set of ancestors, happily spending hours in record offices, libraries and parish churches tracing every possible connection.
His quest took him all over the country but principally to his favourite county Yorkshire where he found the earliest 14th century records of the Sayer family of Worsall. The resulting accounts, written up in his neat legible handwriting, are proof of the orderly and scholarly approach he had to the study.
Another of Jack's passions was the Social History of London on which he was an acknowledged authority and was often called on to help in the training of London tourist guides.
The world that Jack belonged to was the world of Punch and he loved the skill and the gentle humour of the black-and-white artists whose work appeared there. He himself had a great talent for drawing which he used in his professional life as art director of an advertising agency and also in the work he did for the Strand magazine. For them, drawing on his knowledge of London, he produced a series of pictorial maps of the city (and later of other English cities) for the centre spread of the magazine month by month over several years.
I know if he were alive today my father would be immensely pleased and proud to know that there are members of the present generation of Sayers who value the work he did and have undertaken the painstaking and time-consuming task of publishing it on the web. On his behalf I would like to thank everyone concerned very sincerely.
Gill Ward
16.11.06