28 August 2009

What a day . . . . !

Just two birthdays today so meet my Auntie Katie.

Well, ok, she wasn't exactly my aunt; strictly speaking she was my mother's cousin & therefore my first cousin once removed. Anyway, she was born today in 1911 in Stretham (Cambs), the fourth of the six children of John Langford & Harriet (nee Sindall). Sadly both her parents died within two years of each other (1920 & 1918 respectively), so the four youngest children (all girls) were sent to live with relatives.

Although the boys, the two oldest children, were only 16 and 14 when their father died I have always assumed that they stayed in the village. But I digress . . . .

Katie went to stay with Aunt Kate (my grandmother) in Biggleswade and stayed with the family (or thereabouts) until she married Harry Marshall in Digswell (Welwyn) in 1935, with my grandfather as one of the witnesses.

Together she & Harry had five children and they eventually settled near Mortimer in Berkshire, where Harry died in 1968. Katie then became a "Ten Pound Pom" and joined her oldest daughter in southern Australia. And there she stayed until her death in 2003.

Oh, and one other birthday today . . . . . mine!

More soon.

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