Family

A Memory of Whitchurch.

My family on both my mother and father's side at one time came from Whitchurch. My gran and great granny were born there. My great granny never left the town in all of her 92 years,she died in 1948 after having 11 children. Looking at these photos i know that the must be relations in them as back in the early 1900 we were related to most of the people who lived there in the lower classes. They ran the pubs,betting shop,butcher shop worked as bricklayers,owned the coal yard which my cousin told me her mother said that the relation who owned it never would make a lot of money as children were sent to him in the winter with no shoes or coat, carrying a bucket so the mother could heat a room and cook. He would give then a bucket of coal for free as they had no money to buy any. We still have relations there now but over the years we have lost who is married to who. The surnames over the years are,Williams,Jones,Owen,Penlington,Ackerley,Cartwright,Gollins,Bickley,Barlow,Slawson,Adams the list is never ending. My mother went to live in Whitchurch ins St Mary's street when she was 13 to become a nanny to the bank manager family. She stay with them until she married my father in 1954. Her mother Gladys lived in the Bargates along with another sister who married into the Ikin family. Newtown Road and Yardington Road was the street most of the family lived in over the years. The first census shows them in Newtown Road. I know they were there before then but as everyone in a family named all the children the same names it is hard to work out who belongs to who. My great granny named 3 of her daughters Mary after herself. Shame they have knocked a lot of it down to make way for ugly buildings. As someone said without the past who are we,where do we come from. We need to know the past to know who we are as they who have gone before are carried on in us and our children.