My mum is 94 today so my (little) brother Paul and I have come to spend a couple of days with her. We arrived yesterday- she wasn’t in as she’d gone out to lunch and to see an Elton John tribute band. So we amused ourselves….i showed Paul some card tricks I have been learning. I think he was suitably impressed.
This morning we took her to do a “big shop” but then she was off out again- this time to afternoon bingo with birthday cake provided. So Paul and I decided to visit a couple of local cemeteries to find family and other people we knew
First we went to the old graveyard at Overton Church In Frodsham. We grew up in Frodsham and various family members are buried in this graveyard.
This is the grave of our paternal grandmother, Dora. Dora had 10 children- the last two being twins, one of which was our dad. His own father, Thomas, died only a few months after he was born. You can only imagine what a hard life Dora had. Of the ten children, four were girls and none of them made it to adulthood. You will see on the gravestone that three of the girls died between November 1924 and November 1925. It’s difficult to imagine how she coped but she did. Both Paul and I remember her although she died when we were quite young.
All six boys survived to become fathers and grandfathers. One of them, Thomas, was buried in the same plot as his mother and is mentioned on the gravestone
His wife, Kathleen, is buried nearby along with her parents, Walter and Emilia Corker
Another brother, Ken, is also buried in the same graveyard, in a separate grave along with his wife Barbara and one of their three children, Kim, who died aged 50, far too young.
Their other two children, Leslie and Lee, are still alive. No doubt Leslie (red) is currently and rightly being completely unbearable to Lee (blue).
Before moving on we popped into the Ring O’Bells Pub for a pint. This is a lovely 17th century pub which is mostly famous because the parents of Daniel Craig (James Bond) once ran it.
The graveyard at Overton Church is now full and Frodsham has a new cemetery located just outside the town. It’s a very nice setting and we had a walk round. We found a few people we knew who were buried there, but no family
Our last stop was to the top of Frodsham Hill where our dad’s ashes were scattered. As children we played on the hill and we had a lot of memories about what it was like then.
The air quality and the light was good and we got some good views
In the evening we took mum out for dinner at The Chimneys, one of her favourite places
And so we returned home having had a lovely thought-provoking day and helped mum celebrate her birthday. So I’ll finish with a photo of the birthday girl
Pearl Blog 3 