A Legacy Restored

My Great Aunt Maud Ames left Bristol in 1944/45 soon after her sister, our maternal Grandmother Kate (Ames) died    

Maud disappeared from family view - painfully  for our Mum, her niece.

 

Even though Great Aunt Ada (Maud's sister) knew of her whereabouts but would not disclose it to Mum.

 

Mum, in one of her mystical moments, thought she remembered an address in Alum Rock, Birmingham.

 

She persuaded her brothers Wally, Fred, and maybe Harold to drive to that address.   I thought that it was a fool's errand.

 

Amazingly they encountered one of Maud's former neighbours.  She gave them an address near the old and small Birmingham Airport.  By then she'd been married but  was widowed from Cecil Spencer (I have a vague memory that he was known as Bill)

 

So it was that Maud re-entered our lives.  She was simple in the best sense. We loved her dearly. She visited us often

 

 

I would visit Maud on my way to and from my College in Nottingham.  She would insist on giving me tern shillings was it five pounds?

 

She also gave me her husband's Gold Watch, that would have been in about 1975. It didn't work.  I've carried it with me for all those years.  

 

That was until recently when I got my trusty Clock and Watch repairer to fix it

 

I have no plans for it -  'twould be shameful to sell it.   

 

I hope that when I leave this life it will pass into the possession of someone who values our Ames/Finch/Povey history.