Recollections of an Early Childhood
An interview with Desiree Carlton, great-niece of John Wield
Desiree was born in 1941 at Toronto House, now the Alliance Chemist , on
The Broadway , Woodhall Spa . Her mother Zena Parker, nee Lee was the
daughter of Grace Mary Lee, nee Dickinson , the sister of John Wield's
wife, Asenath . She remembers that Asenath had two elder sisters, Lucy and
Elizabeth Dickinson and two brothers, George and Joseph Dickinson .
Lucy's married name was Rose and her grandson , John Rose, is a councillor
in Metheringham .
John Wield's Victorian corrugated iron bungalow was one of only two
erected in Woodhall Spa, the other one being in Horncastle Road close to
Kirkby Lane . She remembers it being very cosy and homely and she loved
going there for tea and cakes and watching the trains go by. John and
Asenath regularly took her to the Teahouse in the Woods where she would
enjoy watching red squirrels running around in the many trees which grew
there at the time .There was always a great welcome at the house and she
described them as a wonderful couple and John Wield as a fantastic man .
She recalled that Asenath called John "Jacka" and sometimes "Bumpy"
which she assumes were terms of endearment . He was employed full time
as a bath chair proprietor, taking clients from the railway station to the various
hotels and guest houses and from there to the Spa Baths . She described
John as an inventor and when he was not servicing and repairing his bath
chairs he made cameras , spectacles and monocles , worked in the garden
and pursued his first love as a photographer . Desiree remembered his dark
room in the cottage and the many hundreds of glass plates in the shed .
Desiree contracted tuberculosis in her lymph gland when she was six years
old after drinking a glass of milk and spent twelve months in an isolation
hospital . She remembers John and Asenath's two children Effie ( short for
Euphena ) and Cedric and last saw them in 1953 . Cedric was a teacher and
went to teach in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia She last saw John Wield in the
early 1960's, she thinks 1962 , when she was living in Thornton and John
Wield was in a home in Woodhall Spa. Desiree now lives with her husband
in Metheringham , where she enjoys painting in watercolour.
Paddy O'Neill - February 2009
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