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The family was devoted to the good-looking Uncle Lennox
and I doubt if they ever recovered from his untimely death,
during the War of course. In fact his Father, Grandfather
Charles Lennox died the following year and one can’t help
wondering if there was a connection.
The second child born into the family was IRMA, also a
family name I believe, who married Jan van Zanten.
The third was our JESSIE (now we know where her name
came from) married to Jock Brownlee and the Mother of
Irma and Denis.
And the fourth was SIDNEY who was known as ‘Uncle
Bonnie’ and was married to Beryl Wilson. They had two sons
who of course would have been Denis’ cousins; Rodney and
Gregory. Gregory is missing from the photo of the cousins
below.

JESSIE’S BROTHER, LENNOX CHARLES
STRETCH (1900-1941)

DENIS, IRMA, WITH COUSINS: UNCLE BONNIE’S SON RODNEY, AND UNCLE
LENNOX’ SON RICHARD ALDWORTH (DICKIE) IN FRONT ABOUT 1944

Now we have summarised the heredity in outline of Irma’s and Denis’ TERRIBLY POSH
grandparents who seemed to have had perfectly ordinary children, except for Aunty Irma.
I find it strange that in all the years that Denis and I were together the only relatives I met were
Aunty Irma and his sister, Irma. Uncle Bonnie and Uncle Lennox had died before I met Denis
but I never once met his cousins who by then they had lost touch with.
But before we go any further we must talk about a certain well-documented and highly
commended Stretch and for him we need a chapter all to himself. We cannot just tag him on to
the shirt tails of all the other family members; we must give him the status he deserves.

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