The last episode of Series 19 of Who Do You Think You Are? featured the actor Ralf Little.
Ralf Little is best known for roles in TV series like The Royle Family, Two Pints of Lager and A Packet of Crisps, and Death In Paradise.
Much of Ralf's episode was a little like a Boys' Own adventure - full of aeroplanes, war, and football!
As seems to have been quite a theme this series, Ralf found out previously unknown-to-him things about his grandparents.
He had known that his grandfather did 'something in the war,' but not what - or that his service with the Royal Navy's air division involved working as an engineer on 'Seafire' aircraft. The Seafire was the Naval version of the well-known Spitfire planes of World War Two.
His grandfather had made his way to the Royal Navy as a medical assistant, a job that continued his prior medical experience - namely working as a male nurse in a mental hospital.
This entire episode in Ralf's grandfather's life was unknown to him - but vital to the history of Ralf's family, as this was where his grandfather had met his grandmother, who was working in the hospital laundry.
What really thrilled Ralf, though, was the story of another ancestor - who played international football for Wales.
...Although it's safe to say that his ancestor's relationship with football was not straight-forward, being entangled, as it was, with one of the (several) Welsh religious revivals.
Traditionally, football is a less popular sport than rugby in Wales - certainly in a 'national sport' sense - in part due to the dislike of football by many Welsh chapels and religious leaders.
The links between football and hooliganism, foul language, and a culture of drinking, meant that many chapels saw the sport as a bad influence on young men.
The most Puritanical of chapels saw sport in general - and football in particular - as taking away time that could be spent in the service of God and the community.
For most, though, it was the culture of alcohol and gambling that caused them to try and divert their congregations away from the sport.
