In the last edition we asked readers to share their childhood memories. Brighton actress, Kate Dyson, answered the call with some glorious memories of her famous Auntie Dolly…here’s the first instalment.
They might have been likened to a Penny Farthing. She, a handsome six footer, sallying forth in full sail like a magnificent galleon; he, the diminutive five foot nine figure at her side, dwarfed by her majesty. This though, only in stature, for the love these two shared was of equal measure. No question of that. He was Percy Sedgwick, my Great Great Uncle; she, Dolly Shepherd, his wife and my beloved Auntie. And then, of course, there was Molly, their only daughter, an unmarried schoolteacher. A little bossy, though good hearted, she strode forth with a step that would have been better suited to a Sergeant Major, ready to organise anything or anyone like a military operation. Always in the shadow of her Mother on whom she doted, it took me forty years to recognise the fine qualities Molly had inherited from Auntie. If ever there was such a thing as an enlarged heart, not as a result of disease, but because of the disproportional amount of love that was therein, then it would surely be found within these three people. Continue reading My People – Part 1