The letters Maria found were written in the 1920s, by my family to Frances Lightfoot, the oldest daughter, when she was away from home staying with relatives in Manchester. That is how I did not recognise them when she had them at the Zest for a Day event in July. I did notice the name Lightfoot but did not look any closer, thrown off scent by the Manchester address.
Maria has produced some beautiful artwork already which can be seen on her blog
http://virtualandvisual.blogspot.com
using text from the letters and pictures of her family. However, I have now been able to send her some images of the actual family, from my meagre store of photographs.This is Ada, the mother of the family, and my grandmother, on a photo taken in black and white and hand-coloured by my father.
The letters mention her coughing badly because the weather was bad, and the fact that the washing wore her out. She suffered from asmtha and died young, so I never knew her. But I have been told she had a temper and used to throw things. My dad looked a lot like her. He had a temper too, but learned to control it. Like me. He once said to me ‘your eyes strike fire’. He had a lovely turn of phrase, and the letters bear that out.
Angela Topping 