Hello Ambrose
My Mum was Mary Anne Jackson, her mum was Caroline Dighton before she married. My mum was born in 1940 in a tent or trailer around Belvedere.
Her father Arthur Jackson died in a fire at the BP oil refinery on the Isle of Grain in 1952.
She had 3 brothers and a sister, Billy who died aged 5 in the workhouse, Isaiah, Sam, and Kath.
I know her granny was bed bound, lived to ninety something and smoked a clay pipe.
I used to see Lally and Lil, little Lally, Keith and Tony. Young Lally is the same age as me, and in the summer holidays, I stayed with aunty Kath, uncle Jim, little Jim and Tony Ralph, who lived close to Lally.
I also remember visiting family at Iwade, I also remember Sammy Dighton,
Nelson, Naily (spelling?) and my great aunts, Emily and Ruby, there may have been a Beatrice, they were proper Romanl gipsy women.
I just about remember my grandmother Caroline, who died when I was 4 or 5.
I'm interested finding out more about my Romani family, I can't remember much, as it was over 50 years ago when a lot of this happened.
I was slowly doing a family tree with help from my mum who knew a lot about the family, I wish I had done it a bit faster, as we sadly lost her on 5th June 2016, aged 76. Then my dad on June 14th 2017.
We have also lost aunty Kath, who was only 62, and uncle Sam, who was only 64. I only have my uncle Isaiah, who is related by blood, and he still lives in a trailer.
