Thursday, February 14, 2008

Shooting The Past...

Saturday 9th February

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, just the day for an interesting trip out. Ever since Christmas, Graham has been researching our family trees. He first became interested when we were on holiday in Canada in August 2006 and we visited relations of my great uncle (on my mum's side) He'd emigrated to Canada early in the 1900s, but come back to fight in the First World War. (But that's another story)

I know very little about any of the family on my dad's side, except every so often he'll come out with a gem of a story about something that happened to him or his family and I'll stop and think, wow... I must hear more and record everything before it's too late. Perhaps the most striking thing and this is very sad is that my dad (Pryce Watkins) lost his mother (Selina nee Proffitt) when he was only 11 and lived with a variety of relations between then and the time he was sent away to work on a farm near Stratford-On-Avon aged 13 and a half. Happily, there on an adjoining farm lived a girl whom he met two years later on her 15th birthday (he was having his hair cut in a field at the time) and was later to become his wife, my mum. (Marjorie nee Wynn)

Dilloways Lane was where my dad lived between the ages of 8 and 13. Both his grandparents and another uncle lived in one of the bungalows to the left.

This is probably the view my dad would have seen on his way home from one of his many escapades.

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