George & Jill Russell, photographed in 2007 

The memories of Jill Russell

The eldest son of Alfred Loaring and Alice nee Newberry was named  Tom -perhaps after his grandfather?  He became a blacksmith and is said to have worked in American Gold Rush( as a child I was given an illustrated post card that he gave his mother, which she posted to my Gran to tell her he had come home safely ). Unfortunately, it has been lost.

Tom married Olive Scammell of Tisbury in Wiltshire. He was employed as a blacksmith at the Pyt House Estate nearby. Tom also had water divining skills and I remember him demonstrating these skills on  my parents lawn at Poole in the nineteen forties.

All I know of his family is that Wilfred  Loaring was Tom's son. We used to visit him and his wife - Auntie Dolly- at Wareham. His daughter Winifred married and had a daughter who lived near Tisbury. Alfred’s next child was Elizabeth, sadly she died at age 14 .

Kate, the next daughter, went into service becoming a parlour maid probably in Parkstone, where she met Walter Palmer, who she married June 1905. Walter worked as a fitter at the Gasworks. They lived in a rented terraced house that they called ‘Winsham’ for some 50 years! They frequently visited Winsham.  Walter was my Granddad, and he often spoke about Tommy Ackland*( landlord at the Old King’s Arms) and  the Northcombes*.

Somehow Kate had acquired nursing skills and was often called upon to return to Winsham to attend births or laying-out at deaths! When Gwen was a small child Kate would take her along with her; later Gwen was left to keep house for Walter.

 Gwen, my mother told me this was why she was unable to take up a career or even a steady job!    However, they all were fond of Winsham and made many friends there, for example the Eveleigh family at Seabourgh and the Brights at New Inn at Wambrook.

Alfred Loaring's second son was John Newberry Loaring. He became a baker in Wednesfield (nr Wolverhampton) married and had two children, Leslie and May. Both died young.

Alfred’s widow-he had died in1909- Alice suffered a tragic death in 1919; she died from burns resulting from her bedclothes catching light from an adjacent candle. She was living in Winsham at the time. A newspaper account of the incident told of two soldiers, just returned from the WW1, who heard her cries for help, but were too late to save her.

I have just remembered about Kate’s younger sister Sarah born 1883, who was my great aunt and my mother’s aunt .  I always knew her as Mrs Woodley   She lived in Worcester with  three children, Harry,  Rose(who was treated as delicate)sent me at least one postal order for birthdays, and Kitty.

My mother married Leslie Matthews in 1932 he was from a  long family line of fishermen living in Poole. l was their only child and was born in 1937.   We moved to west Dorset after the war, so I grew up around the border with Somerset and joined Crewkerne YFC.

In 1960 I married George Russell from the Golden Lion at Thorncombe.  His grandmother Jane White lived at Axe Cottage when a young single woman. One of her sons, James White*, is named on the World War I  memorial at Winsham. Both our grandmothers came from Winsham!

Kate Palmer	Walter, Kate & Gwen Palmer
Sarah Woodley	James White's name on Winsham War Memorial