Tuesday December 29, 1981

Bournemouth.

 A fried breakfast. To Bournemouth for the day. Feel horrible. Hot, sweaty. Diabolical throat. It is only to be expected. I'm ill every Christmas. Bought new jeans in the January sales. To our horror, the sale at Habitat doesn't start until January 2. Sod it. Back to Chillandham Cross at 6. Too hot and snotty to eat. Sat talking with Frank and Bessie about the Dixon ancestry. Bed at 12 gasping like a bronchil Spaniel.

Notes:

Alison Mary, my wife, was born at Wallasey, May 21, 1958, the second child and only daughter of Frank Dixon [born Sept 15, 1927] and his wife Bessie Braithwaite [born June 4, 1922]. Frank was the youngest child and only son of the three children of Thomas Dixon, of Colne, Lancashire, and Mary Ellen Dixon [nee Jobling]. Thomas Dixon died in November, 1955, shortly after the birth of his grandson, Graham Dixon, born Nov 3, 1955. Mary Ellen Jobling's family arrived on a barge in Colne from Liverpool. She died in May, 1978, aged 92 [?]. Thomas Dixon had a brother, Ernest, and two sisters, Clara and Ada.

The Braithwaite siblings.

Bessie [yes, Bessie not Elizabeth] is the eldest child of Albert Braithwaite, of Colne, and Nora [nee Birch]. Albert died in January, 1966. Nora died in Oct 1958. Bessie was followed by Joan, Margaret [deceased], Hilda, Allen [the wild only brother]. The Birch family had connections with Hubberholme, and one uncle occupied the George Inn there. But you know how people are. Things get passed from generation to generation and become muddled.

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