Family Of 14 And Still Take In Lodgers!

A Memory of Saxmundham.

John and Charlotte Freeman lived in the white houses by the motor bike. ( I'm sure I have photos of groups outside the house with this bike!).  My great grandfather was a blacksmith with his smithy in Church Road. He made many of the fences that protected trees on the Hurts Farm estate.  They had 12 children.  8 boys (Thomas, George, Sam, Fredrick, Sidney, Percy, John and Bill)and 4 girls (Elsie, Rose, Honor and Kate - Percy and Kate were twins). Thomas was a Lance Corporal with the 4th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment and died in 1916 aged 20 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Percy used to cut gents' hair in a shed in the garden in Albion Street where he lived. His brother Sam lived next door. Rose (Hulme) had a laundry the other side of the railway line in Chantry Road and used to have whist drives for the soldiers there. (I think it was later a motor bike shop.) She later lived in Albion Street as well with her sister Honor and brought me up.  Bill and his wife Gladys lived in one side of this house and Kate the other until about the late 1970s.  I had many happy memories of flitting between Mill Road and Albion Street!  ( Carol Allen nee Clark)