A-Z Challenge 2003: Family Traits - F for FEISTY

My Theme for A- Z Challenge 2023

Family Traits, Quirks and Characteristics

F is for FEISTY

My Aunt  - Edith Danson (1907-1995) 

 

 

 

 Aunt Edith played a key role in my life and was a teacher, traveller, a great talker and my godmother. She was also a talented lady, who married for the first time at the age of 73. 

Edith was born 2nd September 1907, followed just a year and a week later by my mother, Kathleen, born on 8th September 1908, daughters of William and Alice Danson of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. They remained very close as sisters and most of the photographs I have of Aunt Edith show her almost always with my mother.

                                    
                                                       Edith (left) and Kathleen


                                    
                                                   Kathleen and Edith (right)

Aunt Edith was fond of regaling me with stories of the family and her life in teaching. She was the only one of the family to win a scholarship to Fleetwood Grammar School, riding the four miles on her bike in all weathers. She became a teacher at Burn Naze School in Thornton Clevelys (a poor area of town in the 1920's and 30's) and had a keen memory for past pupils (particularly black sheep) and humorous incidents such as excuse notes, written for absences.

I have my blog and Facebook to thank for a wonderful update on Aunt Edith. Ex pupils at the school set up a Facebook page on Burn Naze School Past ahead of the centenary of the school in 2014 and in a google search found my blog and got in touch. I was delighted to read comments from former pupils of "Miss Danson". who was remembered with fondness. 

 

"Miss Danson was my first teacher and was a lovely lady.

Just read Miss Danson's history and pictures - very interesting and I always thought she was a wonderful teacher with lots of patience and understanding. 

I started Infants in 1963 and Miss Danson was my first teacher.   

What a lovely  tribute to a wonderful teacher - my first teacher at Burn Naze School in 1956.

 

 Fantastic tribute and pictures - just as I remember her.

 

Amongst learning our tables, reading and writing etc. who remembers knitting class with Miss Danson, making a sackcloth needle word case using blanket stitch,   with Miss Hampshire, pounds, shillings and pence and "real" writing with Mrs.  Bullough,  paper mache monsters with Mr Brown and  making hand puppets with Mr Blair". 

   

 Edith must have been great to know in her 20's, with tales of the young men she went dancing with in Blackpool.

                                                                
                                                              Kathleen & Edith

Like my mother, Edith was talented in painting, embroidery and dressmaking, loved dancing, music, reading and baking - though there were some apocryphal cooking moments when my uncle (her brother) stirred a rice pudding, thinking it was very thin - she had forgotten to put in the rice! Another time she was proud of a tart with a golden pastry crust and fresh blackcurrants from the garden - until we took a mouthful - she had forgotten to add sugar to the fruit. "Scatty" was often a term used to describe Aunt Edith, as her mind was on so many things at once.

Edith kept home for her widowed father and brother for much of her life and travelled widely, even to Russia in Iron Curtain days, bringing back gifts to add to my collection of costume dolls.

In line with her spirit of adventure, she married for the first time in 1981 at the aged 73. a widower friend of my parents.  She died in 1995 aged 88. 


                                           

Aunt Edith (in blue) with her husband George, my mother Kathleen and her brother Harry.

You can tell from these photographs that Aunt Edith was someone who enjoyed herself. She took on the role of my godmother with great gusto and, with my mother,  left me with a wonderful legacy on how to get the most out of life, plus many fond memories of a FEISTY woman. 

 

 

                                                       

                                                     A Painting by my Aunt Edith 

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Onto  G  for GOOD LOOKING and GENIAL  

 

 

 

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 IN CASE YOU MISSED

A for ADVENTUROUS

B for BIGAMOUS    

 D for DEVOUT

E for ENTERPRISING  & ESTEEMED