Advent Calendar Day 16

Alfred Crouch and Blanche Elizabeth Braban

Blanche was born in 1880 and died in 1972.  Alfred was born in 1873 and still alive in 1939.

His foster parents were Alfred Crouch and Blanche Elizabeth Victoria Braban who married in 1901.  In the 1911 census it showed they had two children, one alive and one dead.  Their daughter Chrissie (Emily Christina) born 1903 and their son (Harold Victor) born 1902 and died the following year.  Chrissie married Cecil Jarrett in 1924.

This was the couple that brought Dad up in 2 Church Terrace, Church Lane, Salehurst, Sussex.  He was described as a "visitor" in the 1921 census but the story handed down was that it was a private fostering arrangement.

Dad always called her Dolly; maybe that was her nickname because she was such a small short lady .  His 1946 wedding photo newspaper article named him as the foster son of Mrs A Crouch and she was in the wedding photo but not Alfred. She wasn’t even as tall as my grandmother who was about 5ft 3in in that photo; she is on the right.  Blanche is the little lady front left. 

Mum and Dad's wedding in 1946

She was always Granny Crouch to me and as a child I never queried why I had three grandmothers.  I never dreamed of asking, you didn't in those days!  My grandmothers were called "Nan Hastings", "Nan Robertsbridge" and "Granny Crouch".  a nice easy way to identify them when talking about them but certainly not to them!!  She was a lovely smiley person with rosy cheeks when we saw her and she would bustle about the cottage.  She used to wear a big wrap around pinny to keep her clothes clean.  

We always visited her when we went down to Robertsbridge.  It was an inner terrace with an outside lavatory the other side of the pathway which ran along the back of the yards behind the terraced cottages.  We used to sit in the front room which was very dark and had a large wooden clock that made a lovely sound when it chimed.  The table had a deep rich burgundy coloured chenille type cloth over it.  The cloth had tassles all the way round it.  At Christmas time she used to give me a sip of her port and lemon drink.  She had a lodger called Jack Catt who would sometimes come and stand in the doorway to say hello but usually he sat in the back kitchen.

When I was a child we all went to visit Granny Crouch’s daughter, Chrissie, and husband Cecil when they lived in New Road, Lewes.  He worked as a corporation gardener.  Their house was in New Road, over the tunnel for the railway line from Haywards Heath to Eastbourne via Lewes.  I was fascinated by the rumble of trains as they passed through the tunnel and laid down with my ear to the floor!