A real gardener at work

Like yesterday's garden blip, this picture dates from 1931 or 1932. Here Lorna's father Albert is felling a tree in the family's Sheffield garden. He would have been aged 49 or 50 at this time, and working as an iron and steel merchant in the city.

While we have been waiting to receive details of Lorna's father's military career across the three wars in which he served, we have come across a snippet of information about his experience of the Boer war. It comes from the memoirs of his niece (Lorna's first cousin) Diana (the baby daughter of Lorna's Uncle Percy L and Aunt May blipped on 2nd June 2020). This account reads:

'The only "war-like" uncle, my father's eldest brother, regaled me at great length with fascinating stories about the Boer War, in which he had fought as a young man, which was romantic and exciting, and he had obviously thoroughly enjoyed riding over the veld. But although he had also fought throughout the whole '14-'18 war, he said very little about that, probably because it was too hideous to talk about.'

We are grateful to Cousin Diana's grandson (Lorna's third cousin twice removed) for sending this to us. He has also provided some other interesting material that we will blip in future gaps between Lorna's war diary entries.