Twisleton family lunch greeting Royal Oak 25 November 2017

This room has a familiar feel though I’m more used to drinking round the corner than in this so-called function room.  It’s not got such great memories - my father’s and brother’s wakes were here - but today’s events are laying down some good memories with the connecting up of the Twisleton family under the auspices of Lang Tom from Winskill. Here’s the famous picture of his dad Frank so-called Craven Giant my father gave me which first got me going on Twisleton genealogy helped by local priests giving me access to their registers. Where’s my godson - Tom Twisleton - you’re a real reminder of Lang Tom and his dad the Craven Giant!

Just for information, my mother, whom you’re going to hear from shortly, lived last in Settle behind this pub, or more precisely the Naked Man, at 5 Whitefriars. My father Greg was born above his parents’ shop near what’s now Car and Kitchen. Tom would visit there as he no doubt visited here to share about Temperance. Tom would also visit his cousins up at Twisleton’s Yard in Upper Settle 3 or 400 yards up from The Folly. All places worth visiting if you’ve time in such a busy day.

One outcome of Tom Twisleton 100 is much family connecting up on ancestry.co.uk and more informally through phone, e mail and visits which my youngest son James - made more famous by the new book - and I hope will be ongoing. My wife Anne and I were visited in Sussex by Michael and Michael & Nathan’s mother Alison Trousdell last year. We also were privileged to meet Marcus Turver and family with son, James, earlier this year in Hong Kong. Marcus’s mum Betty visited my mother Elsie in Settle around 2000 and on another occasion my late friend New Zealander, Tom’s grandson, Dick Twisleton, rest his soul, visited mother. Dick’s the author of The Descendants of Ella & Harry Twisleton and editor of the reprints of Tom’s famous soldier son Frank Twisleton’s With the New Zealander’s at the Front and Letters from the Front . Frank’s works have been much quoted in New Zealand over the World War One centenary.

Another contact whose passing I lament is Tom’s son-in-law Bill Rawlinson, married to Sally, who did so much to hand on the Twisleton legacy whose family are here today. I’m grateful to my cousin Anne Twisleton-Boyle for being steward of the Twisleton documents in the late 1980s whilst I was a missionary in Guyana, South America - we never imagined things would so take off, thanks to ongoing local interest in Twisleton sites like the scars, hall, yard and of course poet Tom who I’m sure your late grandfather my dear uncle was named after.

Enough from me - unless anyone else wishes to I speak - I have a 1 min greeting from my mother who at 95 sends apologies from St Ann’s Home in Burgess Hill down the road from us in Haywards Heath.