General Chat

There was a little bit in the parish magazine asking about a teacher who taught me at primary school and had been a student there when Fred was in the same class.Somebody was doing a PhD based on some letters that were found in her house and was looking for memories.

She was always just a little old lady school marm to me and everybody else. A bit strict but alright. We never knew, or cared, much about her. She made us dance round the maypole for a start, and that would endear nobody!

I have contacted the lady doing the study and our Miss French had more to her than we knew.

She was born in 1895 and actually went to university. A veritable pioneer because she even graduated which was almost unknown for a woman at that time but it was pioneering university, Aberystwyth.

She always ran the first aid at school, dispensing sal volatile like a dealer and I now know that she had intended to go into nursing but was unable due to catching scarlet fever so took up teaching.She was, however, a member of the Red Cross for all her life appearing at different events in her uniform and manning a first aid station on the beach in summer.

Unknown to almost anybody, she was also one of those many, many women who were left single following the loss of a fiancee in the first world war. He did not, in fact die doing anything heroic but was standing outside the chateau where he was stationed, watching bombing over towards the sea when he, himself was bombed.

Their love story can be traced through the letters she kept between them, including one that makes reference to a corn field but gives no exact detail. The lady said that the last letter that had been sent to Miss French (I can't think of her as Dorothy) is extremely fragile. It must have been re-read so many times as she lived alone all her life in a bungalow she had bought herself (no mean feat for a woman at that time either). One of the letters makes reference to something that happened in a cornfield, I don't know what but he did ask her if it made her feel grown up!

I wish I had known about all these other aspects of Miss French when she was alive and I am so glad she had her moment in the cornfield to remember. Hope they are having plenty more together now too!

Sharron - what an uplifting posting.

It's lucky the letters were saved!!

I have love letters, sent between my grandparents - not exactly 'lovey dovey', but enlightening!
Grandad lodged with a couple who went away a lot, as they had a market garden business. At these times, grandad would invite gran, his best mate, Stan and his girlfriend around,and they would play 'lights out'! :-S

I think those letters were very,very dear to her, especially the last one.

It is sad, and a shame she never found love again.

Naughty ancestors :-)

I was born a respectable almost ten months after my parents marriage. I once mentioned that to my mother and she said that as soon as they were married, “ your dad wanted to do it properly “ .I assume that they had been doing it improperly before hand :-D :-D :-D

:-0

;-) ;-)

I do hope Miss French and her sweetheart are making the cornfield rockk on a daily, if not hourly basis now.