Coughtrey home index to chapters photos notice board
Uncle Frank Ansett, 1904 to circa 1985
| My Uncle Frank was appenticed to a joiner when this picture was taken in about 1922. In about 1928 he married Ethel Martindale,
and they settled down in Abbey Wood, later moving to a semi in Bexleyheath, where he lived for the rest of his life.
He remained a joiner by trade, so was known by the Coughtrey tribe as 'Chopper'. He hated this nickname and apparently
was furious if ever he heard anyone use it. Oddly, his own mother and sister referred to him only as 'Chopper', except when he
paid his monthly Sunday visits to us in Normandy Avenue and later Connaught Road. As I remember it, only two things happened during these visits. Either my uncle impressed my grandmother and mother and irritated my father by boasting of all the amazing middle-class gadgets he'd bought, such as a washing machine and refrigerator, or he shocked and offended my mother and grandmother by proclaiming his atheism. There were many acrimonious and deafening debates as a result of this, usually ending in tense silence until teatime, when all was healed by the sumptuous spread (laid on every Sunday, whether my uncle was there or not). |