Now we have come to the end of the account written by Florence Cynthia Bond in 1957, I have decided to add a few words at the end of the text in order to let readers know what has happened to the few members of the family of which I have some knowledge.

Florence Cynthia Bond died in 1984 leaving no heirs. To the best of my knowledge, there are no survivors within her branch of the family, but I hope that this account, which she is the authoress, will live on for generations to come.

As I stated in the preface, my aunt, Elsie Chubb, died just before Christmas 1989. She married a total of three times. Her first husband whose name I can not recall, committed suicide, he is not mentioned anywhere in the account, neither has he been added to the family pedigree. Elsie's second husband, Sidney Starling, died of natural causes some while after injuring his head in a car accident. Her third and last husband, William Pratt, died of cancer in January 1982. My aunt had spent a very long period devotedly nursing him in his gradually failing health. She had made the last few months of his life as comfortable as possible. After the death of William Pratt, Elsie moved to a retirement home where she was well cared for until her own death in 1989.

Moving to the Milne branch of the family, Christopher Robin Milne (see page 27) married his cousin Leslie de Selincourt and they had one daughter. At the time of writing all are still surviving. Christopher Milne has published two auto-biographical books as did his father. The books were available in my local library and I believe the books are still in print.

Lastly I come to my own branch of the family. My father Harry Entwistle died in 1971 from a heart attack. I was visiting my mother when my father rang asking if he could cadge a lift home from work, (he was a bus conductor and was due to finish a late shift at about eleven p.m.). I replied that I did not wish to do so as I was starting a new job the following morning and wanted to get back to my house and have an early night. My father said that he would order a taxi, but for some reason he decided to walk the three mile journey instead. On the way the heart attack struck, he was seen staggering by some neighbours but they assumed that he was drunk! (I think it is only fair to point out that I had never seen my father the worse for drink.) Somehow he managed to struggle home unaided, but died shortly after on the kitchen floor.

My mother was totally devastated by the death of her husband and I think that she never completely came to terms with it. At first she lived on her own, but after a short while, my great aunt, Lilian Hollister came to live with her.

My mother died suddenly from a heart condition in 1973 just twenty four hours after finishing work as a home help. She was actually sixty seven years old, but had fooled everyone as to her real age, including her employers and myself! My aunt Elsie had mentioned that my mother was older than I had realised, but I did not believe her at the time.

My great aunt Lilian moved into a retirement home in Colchester and died in hospital during 1976 after a short illness.

I married Olive Mary Turner on my twenty second birthday in 1969. We have had two children, Paula Evelyn, born in 1970 and Christine Elsie, born in 1976. Paula has now left home and is living in Clacton-on-Sea, but Christine is still living with us at Elmstead.

Last year, while on holiday in Cornwall, we visited the farm at Earth Barton. The chapel17 is still there but is no longer used for religious purposes. On the walls there are some ancient inscriptions but they are now unreadable. The farm now runs a bed and breakfast service and is noted for an extremely high quality cuisine. We hope to stay a few days there later this year. During the holiday we visited a museum in East Looe. One of the exhibits was a postcard produced during the 1930's which referred to Thomas Bond18 a former Clerk to the council. It seems that not all of his activities were publicly known!

Looe's historian Thomas Bond 1765 was clerk
to the twin boroughs about 40 Years. He was
also chief officer of the Looe Diehards, a well
found volunteer Artillery which he himself had
mobilised. Tradition quizzes him as wearing
engraved upon his sword "My blood for the two
Looes"-and for an invariable order to his men at
drill "Don't fire boys 'til I'm round the corner".
After his death a great hoard of gold was found
in the house, so much that a waggon was used
to carry the sacks away!

We found out from the curator of the museum the location of Thomas Bond's home, and that it now has been converted into the Golden Guinea Restaurant. We found the establishment, went inside and had a cream tea. So far, I am unable to find out what happened to the sacks of gold!

I hope that this work has given you, the reader, even some of the pleasure it has given me in preparing it for you. As I mentioned in the preface, I have had a massive amount of help from my wife, and I am quite sure that without it I would not have succeeded in completing the task.

Peter Entwistle
Elmstead
Colchester
1992

17 This is part of the first settlement of the Bonds (see following links) Retutn

18 I am sure this refers to Thomas Bond who is mentioned in the main text as "Seven times Mayor of Looe". (see following Links) It seems in doubt that East and West Looe, as they then were, in fact had an official mayr 1972, but just a town clerk. Return

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