FAMILY

LINKS TO FAMILY PAGES

FRED MILBURN


FAMILY OVERVIEW

I have three children, two grandsons, one sister, and five cousins.  My parents generation have all left us now, my Uncle Bill, who had a Fish & Chip shop in Barnsley for so many years was the last to go, in 2017.


My dad was an only child and in any case, we were always closer to my mum's relatives for reasons of religion, that great definer of "insider" and "outsider".  My sister and I wandered farthest from home, although Martin has also spent much of his life outside the UK.


Barnsley was a coal-mining town, proudly working class and unassailably Labour Party in its politics.   By contrast, my kids grew up in Africa with a benign climate and lots of space.  The next pic is from a holiday in Kariba, before Tom came along.  Just Joe and Wendy enjoying the freedom of growing up in Africa when Zimbabwe still felt like paradise.





The next image is two photos taken 20 years apart, both taken at the same spot during family holidays to Cape Town.  You get a sense of the middle portion of my life devoted to bringing up three children in Southern Africa and ultimately letting go as they set off on their own across the world.




The four of us have been spread out across several continents for the past decade, but we do try to get together as often as possible.  This next pic is from the last big family get-together while my dad was still alive.  We were able to get my sister over from New Zealand also.  This was at the nursing home where my mum spent her last few years.  Her dementia was quite advanced by then, as was my obesity.




No comments:

Post a Comment