Dear Jeff,

I hope you don't mind me contacting you. I just want to say thank you for sharing all the information about your family and where they used to live.

My great grandmother, Edith Johnston, was born at number 38 Gilpin Grove in 1905 ... so to see a photo of the back of the house on your website is amazing.

Thanks again

Kind regards

Jo Colbert

Hi Jeff!

My sister was round this afternoon and she told me that she had seen pictures of Gilpin Grove on the internet! "Have a look," she said. So I fired up my laptop and there it all was.

My nan and granddad were Elizabeth and James Brown who lived at No. 32 and they had 10 girls and 6 boys:- Violet, Ethel, Percy, Doris, Richard, Lilian, Ellen, Ann, Lucy, Frank, Margaret, Fred, James, William (my dad), Elizabeth and Maud. It must have been chaos in that household!

My father was William Robert Brown (known as Bill) and my mother was Florence Rose Allen but she never lived in Gilpin Grove. My dad died in 1982 aged 78 and my mum in 1998 aged 83. I was the youngest of their three children: Janet (me), Beryl and Alan. Attached is a photo of me with my mother taken around the time we would have been visiting my grandparents at No. 32.

Andrew Scott and Albert Sanders (was Shotbolt) are my cousins - their mothers were my dad's sisters: Lily and Doris! There's 10 years between me and my sister so my recollections are faint but I do remember seeing Albert at several of the family gatherings (weddings and funerals usually). We did have a reunion many years ago when my son was just a boy (he's 45 now!) and there were 150 of us there then!

I would love to get in contact with my cousins to find out where they all are and how they are doing so I wondered if you would be kind enough to send Andrew and Albert my email address.

I think the youngest of my aunts and uncles would be around 80 now so I don't expect there to be many of that generation left but would be thrilled if any of my generation would like to get in touch with me. I managed to print off the picture of Andrew with cousins Vicki and Anne for my scrapbook but I’m not sure which of my dad's brothers or sisters the girls belong to. I think about some of them very often and it is so exciting to think that we could be exchanging news in the very near future. Thank you Jeff.

Regards

Jan Neale (née Brown)