I just thought I would like to share with you a little about Connie, Rhoda and Milly. They are the three young ladies you see sat together, my new doll style which is getting some welcome attention and I thank you all for that. But Connie, Rhoda and Milly were my great aunts, the older sisters of my grandfather. I have been lucky enough to be surrounded all my life by strong women. I lived with my Mum, her sister my Aunty Irene and my grandma, Ida and my grandad, Jim. We lived in a great house in about 35 acres surrounded by woodlands and fields, with my uncle next door, my great grandma and her daughters, Milly, Connie and Rhoda next to my Uncle James (my mother's brother James, who went on to have a son called James and a grandson called James, just to add to the confusion). And next door to my great grandma lived her youngest son and his wife and family. We all lived in close proximity and tended to socialise with one another and as a child there was always to possibility of a fresh cake or the opportunity to play with some one because until I was six there were no more children within miles of us, so my great aunts became very important and very close.
Aunty Connie, on the left, never married, she was very deaf and very shy, she was always open to playing with boats in the bath and I would return down the lane wet through and wearing her cardigan because my clothes were sodden. She was the gardener of the household and had the most beautiful camelias and azaleas planted in beds around the house. Although shy, she was a woman of strong opinions and bold ideas and I remember her fondly. Aunty Rhoda, in the middle, was the youngest of the three sisters, she was the social butterfly who loved her clothes and loved to dance. She made amazing ballroom dancing costumes and had the biggest collection of costume jewellery I have ever seen, most of it from the 1920's and 30's so heavily influenced by art decco. She was the only one of the sisters to marry, she married my Uncle Geoff when she was in her mid fifties and they had a house in the next village but she returned every day to Harley House to spend her days with my aunts and her mother. Aunty Milly was the middle sister, she never married and lived in Harley House until she was well into her eighties. She was the cook and cake baker, her speciality were Conversatione Cakes made only on special occasions. The most forceful of the sisters, she travelled extensively when young women didn't go off on adventures and was probably the one most in touch with the outside world. I remember them only from when they had retired and settled in a house my grandfather built for them and his mother in the 1950's, Harley House. By the time I came along in 1966 they were homebirds settled in their routine and living quiet gentille lives, with the odd cruise up the Rhine or on to the Fjords. They had all been born in the house I shared with my family, Higher Kingsley Farm, but they had made the bold move to run a business together in the 1930's and ran a hotel for twenty years on the sea front at Blackpool called The Shirley. It was very successful and at Christmas they got so many cards from people who remembered the elegant tea dances and Aunty Milly's glorious afternoon teas. They seemed like very happy times and they had so many stories and memories to share. I played with them, gardened with them, baked with them and was generally spoiled rotten by them and have very fond memories of these strong ladies living their lives to their own beat.
