These are my wife’s parents, Oliver and Dorothy Cousens. Not sure if they were married at the time. Their daughter, Dot, is 60 today and doesn’t look a day over 40. Remarkable.

Yesterday I went to see my Uncle Paul, now in his 80s, and he told me that his father, Charles Frederick, had been in the Army during the Boer War, which may explain how he met my grandmother. Another lead to follow up. Paul and his brothers and sisters apparently never met any of their grandparents, and Paul can’t remember any uncles or aunts, though it seems a couple of female cousins once came to stay in Norwich. At a time when travelling was infinitely more difficult, the miles that separated Charles and Rosa from their families were a huge barrier.