Frank trained as a teacher and moved to Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. He married Jemima \u2018Minnie\u2019 Gaulter in 1913. Barbara, Bridget\u2019s mother, was born in 1922. \u201cMy mother adored her grandfather Robert, and the feeling was mutual. The letters reveal a warm and loving relationship that was not separated by distance.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cRobert died before I was born, but I feel as though I have got to know him through the letters. They have also allowed me to encounter my mother as a girl, through his doting eyes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>
Emily passed away in 1932, and Robert lived on at the cottage with his daughter Edie and Nellie Thornhill. She was always called \u2018Aunt Nell\u2019, but it was unclear what her exact relationship was to the rest of the family.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cThe letters are filled with lovely anecdotes. In one, Robert describes a visit to his son Bob in Leeds. On the trip Aunt Nell had a fit, which in those days meant that she was of a nervous disposition. Details like these make them live again.<\/p>
\u201cThere\u2019s also a story about a cat getting stuck up a tree in Holker. They had to call the fire brigade
Another charming letter recalls the day when Robert was astonished to see \u201ca man on a bicycle race past wearing tights\u201d. More followed at set intervals, and he was astonished at their speed. It began to rain, and he worried that the cyclists would get soaked in their thin costumes.\u00a0<\/p>
Robert\u2019s close relationship with his granddaughters resonates through the letters. In one that he wrote to Barbara he says, \u201cI am enclosing a PO for 5\/, will you please divide it with Elsie and we wish you a \u2018Many Happy Returns of your birthday\u2019. The reason I am sending it now is on account of us having the decorators in and Granddad was afraid under the circumstances he might overlook it. You must excuse
Robert\u2019s close relationship with his granddaughters resonates through the letters<\/p><\/blockquote>
Robert\u2019s comments also reveal tantalising glimpses of Barbara\u2019s childhood. He\u2019s glad to hear that she enjoyed picking apples, but \u201cshe must be careful not to fall from the tree\u201d. He\u2019s also thrilled that she is allowed to keep a kitten that her friend gave her as a birthday present.\u00a0<\/p>
Interestingly, there is little comment on current affairs or world events in the letters \u2013 Robert is more interested in the world outside his front door. \u201cHe regales Barbara with the amusing antics of wildlife in the garden, and describes them precisely. His generation loved nature, and was very knowledgeable about it.<\/p>
\u201cThey were a normal, gentle, loving family who lived at a time when you depended on your neighbours, and everybody supported each other through difficult times. My mother, Barbara, helped at a nearby farm during hay-making, and she got to know the family well \u2013 one of the farmer\u2019s daughters, Hannah, was a bridesmaid at her wedding.\u201d<\/p>
The correspondence is all the more precious because it has reawakened memories of Bridget\u2019s own childhood holidays in Holker during the 1950s. \u201cEvery year my grandfather Frank spent two weeks at the cottage with Edie and Nellie. From the age of six I was allowed to accompany him, and how I loved those visits.<\/p>
\u201cWe would journey up on the train and be met by my aunts, who would always prepare a special ham tea. The cottage was small and cosy, with scrubbed stone floors covered in rag rugs. The parlour was a museum piece, with dark, horsehair sofas and pictures of General Gordon on the wall, who fought in the Crimean War. There was a peat house at the end of the garden, which was the privy of years gone by \u2013 it
\u201cMy aunts made delicious dark, sticky gingerbread and jam by the bucketful. Everyone in the village shared their produce, including blackberries and redcurrants.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cThe garden was how I imagined the Garden of Eden to be, with lichen-covered fruit trees among flowering shrubs and bushes that seemed to go on forever. Like my mother, I helped at the farm and I\u2019ll never forget the smell of the milk in the cooler or the sight of huge hoof prints left by the Shire horse.\u00a0<\/p>
“The garden was how I imagined the Garden of Eden to be”<\/p><\/blockquote>
\u201cAt Holker, I enjoyed a freedom of mind and body that I\u2019ve never had, before or since. If I can\u2019t sleep at night, I imagine walking up the fell behind the cottage with my grandfather and seeing Morecambe Bay and the hills of the Lake District in the distance.\u201d<\/p>
Reading the letters inspired Bridget to discover more about Edie and Nellie. \u201cAunt Edie had special needs, and was unable to live on her own,\u201d she remembers. \u201cTo me, she was a warm and loving person, always smiling.<\/p>
\u201cAunt Nell\u2019s background remained a mystery, however. I had a vague memory of my mother saying her grandfather, Robert, had \u2018taken her in\u2019, and with hindsight she must have been a companion to Aunt Edie.<\/p>The family, c. 1926. Left to right back row: Edie, Frank, Robert and Neville Thornhill, a cousin. Left to right middle row: Minnie, Emily and Martha, Robert’s sister. Left to right front row: Barbara’s sister Elsie, and Barbara.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\u201cWith the help of genealogist Jane Hamby, I discovered through census returns that Nellie Thornhill was born in Huddersfield in 1880, the daughter of Thomas Thornhill and Mary Ann Wood. Thomas was Robert\u2019s older brother. When Nellie was born Thomas and Ann weren\u2019t married. Although they went on to have more children, she didn\u2019t stay with the family.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cNellie\u2019s road can\u2019t have been easy. She virtually gave up her life to care for Edie. Nellie died in a nursing home in Ulverston in 1960 and was buried in Flookburgh Churchyard, near Holker. I was so pleased that she had come home and was laid to rest with Robert, Edie and other members of the family. Sadly, their graves were unmarked, so in 2007 I commissioned a headstone to be erected with their names and dates.\u00a0<\/p>
\u201cHolker is the place where my roots truly lie, although the cottage was knocked down years ago and replaced by new houses. I make an annual pilgrimage to the village and the churchyard so I can relive those cherished times with those I loved so dearly.\u201d<\/p>
Frank passed away in 1979, and Bridget remembers him with great fondness. \u201cHis love of literacy inspired my own enjoyment of writing. He was a caring, steady Victorian man, dependable and always there in a crisis \u2013 just like his father Robert.\u201d<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n
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