|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| notes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Great-Uncle Bill was nicknamed 'Stoat'.21 He lived in 'grand-parent's' house with Great-Aunt Emma before she married. He worked on Pond Park Farm, and joined the army in 1914. He was stationed in Grantham of all places, and had an illegitimate son there. He went to India soon afterwards but continued to write to the young woman, name unknown. He lived in Great Grandfather Young's house with his unmarried sister, Aunt Emma. Both Great Grandparents, Henry Samuel Young & Mary Ann Wade had died. The cottage would today sell for thousands as it was old and thatched and had plenty of land, though the stairs were only ladders,21. Uncle Bill worked on a farm called Pond Park. He had a terrier dog given him for company which he called Trixie. One day, according to Doreen Young, he got badly burned from the burning hedges in the fields. Rosa Young tended to his injuries. Uncle Bill was the only boy in his family accepted for the army in 1914. By sheer coincidence, he was stationed at Grantham to begin with. Grantham then, before the era of the car, was like foreign parts. He had an affair with a girl which resulted in a son being born; and then Uncle Bill was sent to India, but he sent money for many years to this girl as Rosa Young used to have to write the envelope and post it. Uncle Bill was the bad apple of the family. He swore, he told rude jokes, he drank. He referred to tea as "char" from his time spent in India. He always chewed "twist", a very strong, brown, hard baccy. Every now and then a stream of brown evil-looking liquid would be spat out on the ground. He drank: every Saturday and Sunday night he was drunk. He either walked a mile to the Three Horseshoes at Bannister Green, or nearly three miles to Pye's Bridge Tavern. Had there been any traffic he would have not survived his journeys home as he lurched from side to side of the road, hung over gates but always made it home. Bit by bit Bill's cottage fell into disrepair. Edwin Young kept patching the thatch, but birds nested in it and caused havoc. When water started coming through Uncle Bill moved downstairs and brought his bed down. After a few years bit by bit the roof collapsed, then the downstairs ceilings until it was quite unsafe. Uncle Bill bought a wooden hut, about 14 feet by 8 feet and had it put up in the garden, and he moved in. It contained a bed of some sort, a table, a chair, and had pots and pans and cups hanging from hooks all around, also a large earthenware jar full of fermenting wine and dead bluebottles! All the antique furniture was buried under the cottage ruins. Uncle Bill lived in the hut until he was so ill and old that he was taken to St. Michael's hospital in Braintree where he died.21 He left a will, written in 1953, in which he left to Hubert Young "the property and hut, £700". He gave £100 to a local woman, Mrs. Spriggs, of the Council House, Braintree Road, Felested, with whom he had struck up a friendship. He may have gone drinking with her. Any money left was to be divided between them both, the remainder of the estate - mainly the land - was to be given to Hubert Young. Witnesses to the will were O.B.Salmon, (Oliver according to June Whitear), a gardener, and JC Salmon, a cost clerk, of Cock Green. Hubert Young, was at the time living on Bannister Green and had helped Bill out in the last few years of his life. Edwin Young, his brother, who with Rosa had looked after him for so long were not remembered in the will. There is some evidence Bill was having second thoughts about his will when he was in hospital in Braintree shortly before he died. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouses | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Modified 22 Oct 2005 | Created 24 Feb 2007 by Reunion for Macintosh |