My Mum and Dad - by Grace Enid Russ (née Baglin) 1933-2006

Florence Eveline Jenner (1901-1994) and Edward William Burgess Baglin (1906-1969)

My dad always liked animals. He had 240 mice when he got married. After his marriage he expanded into rabbits as well and up until the 2nd World War he used to show his rabbits and mice, and mum's cats, at the Fur & Feather Shows'. Mum said "he used to have everything except cows and horses". He also specialised, as an amateur, in Dahlias, and used to show these as well. He was always interested in `Banding' and played, firstly a cornet, then a tenor horn in the Kingswood Salvation Army; Staple Hill Salvation Army; Kingswood Evangel Mission and the Albion Dockyard Band.

When he left school he went as an apprentice to the Barber and quite liked the hair cutting side but couldn't get on with the shaving, which was a necessary part of the job. So he then went to work at Miles' Boot Factory, Kingswood, Bristol; and when they were taken over by G.B. Britton in the 1950's he stayed on, but moved to their Soundwell Road Factory in Bristol.

My mum was born in Stapleton Road, Bristol but was brought up in Abertillery and Crumlin in Wales until she was in her early teens, when they returned to Bristol. Upon their return they lived in Ashley Road, Bristol later they moved to Thicket Avenue and from there to Ridgeway Road, and finally to the Haven (between Pool Road and Middle Road), Bristol. All the children were married from the Haven. Gran and Grandpa Jenner later `retired' to West Park Road, Downend.

Mum was the eldest and was therefore the one who had to stay home from school whenever Gran was ill, or was having another baby - Mum was quite often `in charge' of the broad because Gran was a sick woman and always in and out of hospitals.

Among her memories is how they put halfpennies on the railway line so the train would squash them into pennies! Another one is her brother, Russell, used to get into arguments with boys and then say, "My sister will get you", and she would then find herself fighting the boys on his behalf, and then, in turn, get into trouble at home for fighting! She courted Fred Wymark for six years, engaged for two. His parents had a shop and he wouldn't get an independent job, at it was expected that when they got married they would live in with his parents and help run the shop. Her parents were unhappy with this arrangement, and she felt the same way, so they finally parted. Mum then went out with a Leslie Lang and said he was a nice man, but was very tall - over 6ft. One day she overheard someone remark, "There goes the long and the short of it", and so she wouldn't go out with him anymore. Then she met my dad - and the rest is history!