Family secrets.....

.....the weather's still miserable so it seems like a good day for a bit more family history research, today it's the turn of the Forsters.

Sarah (born 1849) was my great great grandma, she was a widow and a charwoman....the latter no doubt the direct result of the former in the days before the welfare state and despite the fact that my great great grandad John died rescuing a small child from a pit heap slide when he was only in his early 30's, he left a wife and 4 sons. My Ma remembers her as a little old lady who habitually wore one of those sunbonnets with a frill round the back indoors and smoked a clay pipe.....but possibly even more memorably she used to magically produce 'black bullets' (a minty sweet) from the bottom of packets of tea for my Ma and her little friends in the 20's. She also produced another surprise package, my Ma's (great) Auntie Annie about 10 years after she was widowed.....the story goes that she was 'taken advantage of' by a local doctor while 'in service' to the same and later had to go out charring with the baby tied on her back. 10 years later however she was described as 'living on her own means'.....I sort of hope that implies that some sort of financial retribution had been exacted in the interim from the dastardly medic! I've hit a bit of a brick wall now though, I really need to dust off the voice recorder and take it round to my Ma's to give her another grilling for more names and memories......might give the Clementson branch another go in the meantime......