Before my grandmother died, my great aunt—her step sister—came from London to nurse her while she was ill. On the death of my grandmother great Aunt Bessie (Elizabeth Meek) returned to London but came back to Leicester to bring up the family, as she did not want to see them split up. There were stories recounted of how aunt Bessie was swindled out of the business owned by her husband while she was in Leicester, which may be true or apocryphal. She was a widow who had left the foreman of the business in charge while she was here; this is all hearsay. She never had children of her own so taking on a family of six must have required a great deal of courage and resolution of doing what was considered right. The eldest son, my uncle Alf, became head of the family and started work at the age of twelve as a dairy roundsman. My aunt Em, the eldest daughter, assisted him until she went into “service”, under the guidance of great aunt Bessie.
My grandfather moved out of the house and what happened to him during the next twenty years is unknown to me. However, in 1924 he was committed to the workhouse (Hillcrest Hospital) as aged and infirm after discharge from the City General Hospital where he had been seriously ill for some weeks suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis (a big word to wrestle with as a small child), there being nowhere else to go. He was supported in the workhouse/hospital by his sons until his death in 1966. His hands and feet were permanently locked in a clenched position and he walked with difficulty with the aid of a stick. He was a regular visitor to the horse sales at Leicester Horse Repository, which stood in Charles Street, and he had quite a reputation as a judge of horses and as an unqualified horse doctor. It was said that he would sit all night with a sick horse. His wishful promise to me was to buy me a nice little horse that he had selected.
My paternal grandmother, I believe, originally lived in Curzon Street on the Humberstone Road and later, round about 1890, they moved to Syston. At the time that I remember her she was living in St. Leonard’s Road, Clarendon Park with her eldest daughter, my aunt Nell (Nellie Blanche), a maiden aunt I could never really understand as she was such a serious and uncompromising spinster and, to me as a child, rather frightening and extremely remote. She worked all her life at Wheeler, Son and Kilpack, wholesale grocers. The back entrance to the house in St. Leonard’s Road was on Montague Road, and Edward Road was off Montague Road. I often wonder if my grandparents knew, or knew of, each other.
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