Category: Family
-
Kathleen’s letters to Aelwyn 1950-51
It is fascinating and lovely – if disorientating – to observe your parents’ courtship, and I have had that opportunity.
-
“the Morbids”
When I was seven I woke up one winter’s night in tears because we weren’t on a camping holiday.
-
Poems by Kathleen Edwards
My mother loved writing poetry, and her best friend Elspeth Yule – known as Speff – presented Mum and Dad with this beautifully transcribed and delightfully illustrated book of Kathleen’s poems to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary on 25th August 2001.
-
Le gros commandant Whof Whof Whof: part 2 – The Large Wynnstay Collider
Would you mind awfully taking a DNA test for me, to give a definitive answer? I’ll pay for it, and I promise I won’t try to claim your castle.
-
Le gros commandant Whof Whof Whof: part 1
When I shared this rumour of our aristocratic ancestry with my daughter Rachel, she was initially excited, picturing her 4 x great grandfather as Colin Firth playing Mr Darcy. Less so after her first seconds of research uncovered le gros commandant Whof Whof Whof.
-
Kath’s writing
Pieces written by my mother, mostly for the Watford U3A Creative Writing Group.
-
Aelwyn’s writing
Pieces written by my father, mostly for the Watford U3A Creative Writing Group.
-
Aelwyn’s War
“I paused to look out of the window, and saw a line of bullet-holes erupting on the upper side of the wing, heading straight for me.”
-
Rhys Jones in the Battle of Normandy
My father’s cousin, Rhys Jones was called up in 1941, and served as a tank driver during the Battle of Normandy, landing on D-Day, June 6th 1944. He set down this account of the war in about 1966, after retiring from running a shop in Llanuwchllyn in Wales.
-
Smokey’s 49-year vacation
I was prepared to leave it at that, and leave a bit of mystery in his life.
-
Llanuwchllyn
“Three of those people are your relatives”. That should have surprised me, but it didn’t. After all, this was Llanuwchllyn.
-
Totality
I’ll be eighty, thought Aelwyn. Some people get to eighty, don’t they?
-
The bubble car picture
And now, perhaps fifty years later, I was looking once more upon the bubble-car picture.
-
Taid
Taid seems to have preferred the schoolroom to the farm, and perhaps the effort he made to learn English as a child led his part of the family away from the land and into more comfortable (if less beautiful) workplaces.
-
Nain
I am lucky to remember all four of our grandparents, although Nain – Maggie as she was known – is the one I remember least well, as she died when I was seven.
-
Two photographs from 1933
If you have stood on a mountainside and seen birds flying way below perhaps you experienced a feeling of dominion, tempered by vertigo, the exhilaration and surprise of something seen from an unfamiliar perspective.
-
Gan-gan
When as teenagers we heard of this affair, my brother and I liked to think of Davy as some sort of brute, and of Jack as the handsome knight rescuing her from his clutches.
-
Six Spades
Aelwyn felt the familiar tingle of anticipation as he turned over his cards, and held them close to examine them. Not bad, there might be something on here…
-
No Dragon Wood
And perhaps the path through the wood once followed a regular course…
-
The Ticket Drawer
Should she have died with no tickets in the drawer, no holidays to look forward to, no plans?
-
At Pantclyd Farm
Thomas lay on his side, his head turned away. Richard contemplated him, His mouth was dry as he took in the strong back and the muscular brown arms.
-
Bit Nicer
“The girl in that bed over there says some people die when they have an operation. Is that true?”
-
For Dad
…maybe, underneath it all, I wanted our children to have just as happy a childhood as Rob and I did.