Mrs Mabel Chilton (1913 to 2009)
This recording was made by Mrs Mabel
Laura Chilton, widow of Reginald Thomas Chilton of Worth Street,
Carlton,
Nottingham, in about 2006. Mabel was born in a 3 roomed house on Carlisle
Road, Carlton on the 14th March 1913. She was the 5th child and 3rd
daughter of Harry Woolston Dring (a general carter) and his wife Polly nee
Raithby and a granddaughter of Clark and Emily
Dring, a Huntingdonshire
couple who had settled in Carlton in the early 1870s. Her father, like
many other Carlton men, became a soldier during the first World War but
was fortunate in surviving it relatively unscathed. However, Mabel's
mother suffered much illness when her children were young and died, aged 41, in 1922.
For much of her
early life, therefore, Mabel's elder sister, Winnie, took care of her brothers and
sisters though all played their part when they could.
Quite when the family moved to number 29 Worth Street, 
Carlton is
uncertain but it was there that Mabel was to spend more than 70 years of
her life. Mabel and Reg got married in August 1940 and though they never
had children their marriage was long one and ended only with Reg's death
in the 65th year. Their pleasures were simple ones and they never had a
television for they were content with their garden, their church
activities and the companionship of their friends. Reg's hobby was toy making
at which he was very skilled and Mabel enjoyed making dolls for charity.
As she entered her 90s, Mabel underwent a number of operations
for skin cancers and was hospitalised a few times as a result of falls but
aided by her many very good friends and neighbours, she continued to live
alone in the house that she and Reg had made their home so many years
before. It wasn't until about a year or so before her death that she was finally persuaded
to move into a Carlton nursing home. In August 2009 she collapsed and was rushed
into the Queens Medical Centre,
Nottingham where, on the 31 August, she died. 15 days later she she
was reunited with Reg in the grave in Carlton Cemetery just a short walk
from the house in which they had spent so many years together.
Mrs Lorna Kelsall (1931 to 2005)
In this recording Mrs
Lorna Kelsall nee Bednall recalls her early life in Radford Woodhouse and
Aspley, Nottingham in conversation with her brother. The recording was
made shortly before her birthday in July 2005.
Lorna was born on the 13th July 1931 in a nursing home at Sherwood in Nottingham. She was the daughter and first child of Samuel Edward Bednall of Radford Woodhouse and his wife Hilda nee Dring and spent the first 5 years of her life in Radford Woodhouse, a coal mining village on the edge of Nottingham. In 1936 her parents moved to a new home on the Aspley housing estate to the north-west of the city and it was there that Lorna lived until her marriage to William James Kelsall (known always as Jim) in 1951. The couple subsequently had 3 sons, Michael, Nigel and Jeremy. but later they divorced and Lorna resumed her maiden name.
On leaving the William Crane School, Lorna started work at the age of 15 and during her long working life had many jobs and was amongst other things a mannequin, a personnel clerk, bus conductress and an assistant accountant. She had a very strong entrepreneurial drive at one time running a shop and market stalls while still doing accountancy work. Later in life she established and ran her own courier service but despite this still had time and energy to become an organiser for the Nottingham Victim Support scheme. Her chief pleasures was to holiday with her grandchildren in her caravan at Chapel St. Leonards near Skegness, where she had spent so many happy hours as a child. A heavy smoker all her life, her death at the age of 74 on the 21st August 2005, followed a severe stroke. With the consent of his widow, Lorna was buried in her beloved son Michael's grave in the Wilfrid Hill Cemetery, Nottingham
UNDER DEVELOPMENT
