Shirley Ann Hankins-Symonds of Ross Road, Hereford, has memories of her remarkable nan (From Hereford Times)

Shirley Ann Hankins-Symonds of Ross Road, Hereford, has memories of her remarkable nan

8:00am Thursday 21st June 2012 in Letters

HM QUEEN Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee has brought back fond memories of my grandparents Harriet and Evan Jones of Crooked Well, Kington. What made Granny Jones such a remarkable woman was that she couldn’t read or write, although she mastered her signature helped by Mossy, another character granddaughter, who was well known as a Kington guide who lived with her.

But Granny Jones understood money, and while Evan ran a fruit and veg shop in Bridge Street, Harriet would meet the train in her pony and trap to collect fresh fish delivered from Harrogate and deliver it around Kington and Lyonshall. The local children would have lots of fun sliding on the ice on the station platform as it fell off the crates in which the fish was packed.

Harriet and Evan had 16 children between them – losing five, two of them to a Christmas tree fire, another, Christopher, was killed at Givenchy, France at the beginning of the First World War.

He is mentioned on the Cenotaph and shares a headstone with his brother Edward who died three weeks after the war ended, from Spanish flu.

But although Granny Jones led a busy life, she donated money to the building of the Victoria footbridge that spans the River Wye in Hereford. She also gave a donation to having a clock installed on the face of the market hall at Kington to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

SHIRLEY ANN HANKINS-SYMONDS, Ross Road, Hereford