Family Stories by Lois

This time tomorrow…

My children are getting ready to go off to university, my son for his second year at Salford University, my daughter for her first year in… Ulster! We’ll be flying with her across the Irish Sea to Belfast tomorrow, then staying for a few days at our beloved Portballintrae before she starts at the Coleraine […]

More
Bits and pieces by Lois

My friend Andrew Simpson is in a film!

I posted recently about my friend Andrew’s exhibition; he wrote the text and his associate Peter Topping painted the pictures for an on-street display about the small Manchester town of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. http://loiselden.com/2012/09/06/presenting-the-history-of-one-small-town/ The company of McCarthey and Stone are developing a site in Chorlton and instead of having boring, tatty hoardings round the building site, they have erected smart green boards for […]

More
Family Stories by Lois

Granny Anne

I remember Granny Anne from when I was little. She was very little herself by the time I knew her, bent over, and shuffling along the corridor all smiley to open the door for us of her tiny little house. Her husband Tom was an engine driver and he continued to wear his uniform bowler hat, even when the new modern […]

More
Pubs and and pints... beer, wine and spirits by Lois

Right at home… in the Home Cottage

My husband Bari grew up near Redhill, Surrey,  and visited many, many pubs in the town… but one he never went in was the Home Cottage, near Redhill station. Redhill is a comparatively new town, in terms of English history, it started around 1818 and grew with the arrival of the railway. Redhill is one of the only places in the whole of the country where Fullers Earth […]

More