Malinda , her stepmother and her sisters

This is actually a cheat as I created these and blogged them on my other blog, much earlier in the year but I suddenly realized that I hadn't put them on here. This is for posterity ... and for all the ladies who visit this blog and leave me such nice comments here and on UKS... thought you would like to read the story behind them. These are of DH's mother and siblings and were taken at St Leonards, Hastings where they lived at the time.


The younger girl is Winifred ... known for most of her life as 'Billie' and is half sister to the other two. She looks at least 12, making it about 1933. The older girls are Dorothy and Malinda,who would be by then about 20 and 22
Around the time of this photo, their father Tom started his relationship with Jane,'wife' No3. Linda (MIL) told me that Dorothy was commanded to run messages to Jane. She would not refuse him even though she hated it.

The second LO is of Linda, as she preferred to be called, walking along the pier with her step mother ...'wife' No 2.
I think this may be a few years later than the other and I see that I have dated it late 30's, on the LO ...so hard to work out these dates. Has anyone any thoughts on the possible dates of these photos? Do you think I'm about right?

Again, I am not sure when Tom left them but his first child, with Jane, was born in 1934 and so he could have been running two households for a while!!!. Jane was only just over a year older than his oldest child, Linda and went on to have five more children, four of whom were boys. (His only other son was the baby who died ... in the earlier LO)
I have a poor photo of Tom around this time and I cannot imagine what this young girl saw in him ... I think it was his charm. He stayed with her for over 30 years.

Thanks for dropping by.

Take Care xx

Horace and Euphemia Bullock

My Nana, Euphemia, met Horace Yelland Bullock when she was employed to nurse him, in 1912. He had Rheumatic Fever and then developed Pericarditis, which nearly cost him his life. I actually found a doctors letter that talks about it and the fact that he had RF again during 1916 too. When he was well and ‘Ritchie’, as he called her, was about to leave, he had a relapse but his sister Edith discovered that it was a rouse to keep the woman he had fallen in love with, close by.
At this time Euphemia had a huge decision to make … Her young niece wrote to her, begging her to come and nurse her mother who was dying from Cancer. This was Euphemia’s oldest sister, Jessie, who lived in Canada. She knew that if she went, the separation could have a terrible effect on Horace’s health and as he had proposed and she had accepted, she used the wedding plans as an excuse not to go. Her sister died soon after and her niece did not communicate with her for about 40 years.
Once she was betrothed to Horace (Bully as she affectionately called him), she was able to continue to work as a private nurse for other families until their marriage at the end of 1913. Her last post was with Lord and Lady Howard de Walden, who gave her a Crown Derby coffee set as a Wedding gift. She treasured this all her life and proudly kept it on show, in a glass china cabinet.

If you look closely at the Wedding Party above, you can see two servants in the back row but in prime position, in the front row, sits Horace’s mother. There was none of Euphemia’s family there, possibly due to her not going to nurse her sister but it could have been the distance as Fife to London was a long journey. The ladies to the right of her are nursing colleagues. The one in the middle, with all the feathers round her hat, was a matron and it was she who gave her away.

Thank you for reading this.
Take care xx

Reg, Marjory and Leslie

I am so thankful that I persuaded my Mum to jot down some of her memories when she was alive. This meant that I knew the background to this photograph when I came across it.

This is the day my Mum met Granny Crombie for the first time …well the first time she remembered. She was her mothers’ mother, it was 1920 and Marjory was barely three. Her granny was Mrs Ritchie, but the family used her maiden name …Crombie … not sure why.
On the day of the photograph the family had gone to visit her at Cupar, before going to the photographers. I think it was the visit that had caused her little sad face.

Mum remembered...

“I felt afraid as I entered Granny Crombies’ house. It was dark and gloomy, unlike ours, and a large grandfather clock was loudly striking in the corner. Large dark furniture filled the room and the couch we three children were firmly instructed to sit on, seemed so uncomfortable. I wanted to wriggle about because the horsehair stuffing was sticking through the black shiny covering and pricking my legs but I was too scared to move too much. We didn’t stay long and I was glad.”

Thanks for dropping by xx