Sometime between August 1906 and the 1911 census, they must have moved a few roads away to Siguirville, 18 Tanyard Lane. The 1911 census shows that her father was working as a beam man and two of her brothers were working at the same tannery. I believe this would have been Samuel Barrow & Brother which Kelly's Directory shows was a tannery in Tanyard Lane. It was apparently the largest and oldest tannery in the area ......... It was knocked down to be replaced by residential housing in 1961.
In June 1925 Amy’s brother William married. The family were still living at the same house but Tanyard Lane has now become Oakdene Road (RH1 6BT).
Ronald Frank Musgrove was born in March 1926. An amended birth certificate was subsequently obtained for Roy Dalrymple Musgrove who had been born in October 1924 as initially his birth certificate showed him to be illegitimate. In 1927 Jack swore before a Notary that Roy was his son and this enabled an amended birth certificate to be issued.
They went on to have a daughter named Irene in 1935, my birth mother, who was born at 68 Station Road, Copnor, Portsmouth. Amy’s father, John McTear, died in December 1939. Both her sons and her husband were in the Royal Navy so Amy was pretty much left to bring up my mother alone.
Presumably as Amy married at 21 and had two children straight away and one later in life, meant that she didn't have the time to go out to work.
Jack bought a terraced house at 128 Orchard Road, Fratton, Portsmouth. Amy became ill in 1941 with some form of infectious disease and my six year old mother became her carer. They lived there alone and my mother had to do various household duties including the shopping before and after she went to school. During this time Amy had two strokes. Irene recalls : "My mother told me she had put a purse in the drawer with money and the address of her sister Nellie. Should I not be able to wake her I was to take this to Fratton Station and give it to the staff and they would get me to Redhill. As it was Roy came home on leave and took us to visit Flo. After returning from a visit she had her third stroke and died."
Amy died on 12th January 1946 at 15 Redstone Park, Reigate, aged just 41. Because of Naval duties her husband couldn’t get home for the funeral so Roy arranged everything. She is buried in Redhill although there is no gravestone.
In Week 37 I wrote about how Amy's husband, Jack Musgrove, re-married soon after Amy had died. My mother has no doubts that her stepmother was instrumental in the decision that I should be adopted. It is interesting yet futile to speculate but if Amy hadn't died and had been around that I may not have been put up for adoption and my life might have been very different. I would never have had the opportunities I got from my parents, had the happy times with my Sister and met my gorgeous wife.