New Offshoots
Now came what happens to most families as they grow up. The old home had served its turn and new offshoots began to spring up. First, Tram left to marry Ruth: and they set up house in Park Road West. Rather more than a year later, in June 1908, Dorothy and I were married, and lived for four happy years in Vyner Road, Bidston, below the Mill and the Observatory and adjoining the lovely sequestered shade of the pine woods.
Still, Mother, May, Arthur and Frieda kept the great house of Lingdale going. It was Father's wish that we all should keep house together, until, of course these fascinating young wives came along and took us away.
Then came Frieda's turn. There was a great wedding at Lingdale: but when she became Mrs Francis Clayton Scott, the old home was finally abandoned and never inhabited again, except by some Russian sailors during the 1914 war. They committed such acts of vandalism, and damaged the interior fittings so greatly that it was thenceforth useless for letting, without a vast expenditure on repairs and decoration: and it remained an empty shell until it was pulled down in the early twenties. Tram and Ruth having moved, Mother, May and Arthur took the house in Park Road West. Then in 1912 or 13, Arthur married Winifrede Jean Laird. Then came the 1914 war, and shortly thereafter Mother and May went to live in Windermere, where Francis and Frieda had already settled down at Matson Ground.