Acknowledgements

My special thanks to Ruth Walker, Museum Assistant at Lincolnshire County Council’s Church Farm Museum, Skegness, on which ‘Brumbys’ Farm’ is modelled, for all her interest and help in my research.

I am also deeply grateful to those who so generously gave me their time and expertise and also shared their memories with me; Caroline and Gwyn Morris; Renée Bradford; Linda and Terry Allaway; Pauline Griggs; my sister and her husband, Robena and Fred Hill, and all the staff at Skegness Library for their ever cheerful and friendly responses to all my ‘difficult questions’.

To all of you, my love, my gratitude and my thanks. Your kind interest is a constant source of inspiration.

M.D.
Skegness, 1996

Epilogue

On 19 September, 1964, the marriage between Robert Eland and Danielle Hilton took place in the local church, the bride walking proudly down the aisle on the arm of her father. As the bridal party came out of the church into the blustery sunlight, the two grandmothers, Esther and Beth, walked side by side, their arms linked, beaming proudly. The bride paused as she walked down the path and, lifting her long white gown, she moved amongst the gravestones to lay her bouquet on the grave of her mother, Kate. Then she stooped and from the bouquet she plucked a single red rose and laid it on the grave of Matthew Hilton, the grandfather both she and her new husband shared.

Mr Arthur Marshall, still the owner of the Grange and all the surrounding farmland, save that belonging to Esther Godfrey and Brumbys’ Farm, was delighted to sell the crumbling, derelict house that had once been his family’s home to the young Mr and Mrs Eland, and though he still retained the ownership of the land surrounding it, he granted them the tenancy to farm the land too.

So Rob and Ella painted and decorated and rebuilt their new home and moved into the Grange where Rob had always vowed he would one day live.

Two years later, Ella was able to say, ‘And now we’re a family,’ as she laid Rob’s son in his arms, the two old ladies hovering impatiently in the background for a sight of their first great-grandchild.

Two more boys were born to Ella and Rob and then a little girl with bright red curls and a smile like the sun appearing after storm clouds; a little girl they named Esther Elizabeth.

Peggy retired from her job in Lincoln and came to live in her own rooms in the Grange, becoming self-appointed nanny to Ella’s growing family, and Philip Trent was a regular and frequent visitor, bringing his mother, too, whenever her failing health permitted.

In the winter of 1975, Jonathan Godfrey died peacefully in his sleep and four weeks later, losing the will to live without him, Esther faded, withered and died. At her bedside, Beth Eland sat holding her hand until the end.