AS PROMISED.....

As I reported recently I have made contact with Peter Barker who is the grandson of Mary Ann Abbotts who was the elder sister of my grandmother, Esther. I've always been very curious about my grandmother's brothers and sisters and although I have information on most of their families I particularly wanted to know what they looked like. Now, at last, thanks to Peter, I can put faces to two of them, three if you add Daisy who some of use will remember and whom I already had a photo of. Pat kindly told me a bit about his early years and his memories of his grandmother.

"I was born in the rear first floor room at 23,Doynton Street,N.19.  I am the youngest of six children born to Lilian Maude Timms. I recently lost my remaining sibling,Tom, who was the eldest, he was eighty nine and my hero  - he was a navigator on Lancaster bombers during the war. I went to Hargrave Park School, which has featured in your blog, and then on to William Ellis, in Highgate Road,N.W.5. I well remember shopping with my mother in Junction Road, and in particular buying fish at the wet fish shop. Also, I remember Tommy Tapping, at my local sweet shop,in Dartmouth Park Hill. I remember little of my grandmother, Mary Ann, I must have been pre school when I used to visit with My mother. She lived on the upper floor of my Aunt Rose's house, on the corner of Dartmouth Park Hill and Hargrave Park. I think that it may have been 108 Dartmouth Park Hill. She seemed to be very old, but in truth was probably only in her late sixties. She used to sit in front of a large black cooking range in which she heated a poker to red heat, and plunged it into her glass of stout."

Left to Right : Liliam Maude Timms (with baby Peter), Elizabeth Sarah Abbotts, Mary Ann
Elizabeth Abbotts, Daisy Timms.

Lilian Maude Timms (1903-1987) and Daisy Timms (1907-1989)) were both daughters of Mary Ann Elizabeth (1872-1951) and her husband Charles Timms.  Elizabeth Sarah Abbotts(1879-1945) was Mary Ann's sister.

I have to thank Peter (who is my second cousin) for sending me this wonderful picture and putting another piece of our family history jigsaw into place. I know he has some other fascinating pictures and hopefully there will be a chance to see them in the future.

 sister. I'm assuming that this picture was taken outside St.Peter's Dartmouth Park Hill.