Instant Cousins

Category: Other Stories

  • Writing letters, part two

    My mother’s letters were always quite short. Notes mostly, about her week, who she had met or visited. In October 2000 she was very busy with the British Legion annual Poppy Appeal. She had been a member of the Women’s Branch of the British Legion since the 1950’s when my father had joined the Legion.…

  • Letter writing, part one

    Now, in 2025, the number of letters being written are very few. In Denmark a decision has been made to stop collecting and delivering letters because the cost is now so prohibitive and there has been a 90% drop in the us of letter delivery. Given the annual and sometimes sharp increases in postage in…

  • A Great Man Has Fallen in Israel

    This is a story that is unique to my sister in law’s partner. He shared some documents and newspaper accounts of his great uncle Richard with me and we thought it was worthy of posting his story on this blog. The title of this post is a biblical reference to Samuel 2 when David asks…

  • Whoops.

    I have missed my posting target this week and normal transmission will continue next week with an interesting story behind the 1911 Census return for an address in Acton, London, where my grandmother was living at the age of 20 before she met her husband, William Wilcox.

  • St Helena

    An island in the Atlantic Ocean In November 2023 I wrote a post about my Great Uncle Sid. Sydney Wilcox was an Uncle who was definitely known to my Aunt Dorothy because of the photographs of him visiting her and my cousins in the 1950’s. Sid was a soldier with the Middlesex Regiment, the Diehards.…

  • John Cook 1952 -2023

    My close friend and former colleague at the Caldecott Community has died. He was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease early last year. He was advised immediately that there was no cure. He spent the remainder of his life preparing for death and receiving love and attention from all those who knew him, his daughters and…

  • How it all began

    I blame it on my maternal grandmother, Grace Wilcox. In 1958 my father, Bill Carver, decided that he wanted to be a publican. I was ten years old and living with the best part of my entire family of six siblings and my parents, in Redhill, Surrey. Bill Carver was a very successful turf accountant,…