Penelope Ransby

 Peter Ransby and Alida Wilton were married at St Nicholas Church, Ash, Kent on 27th September 1941, just six weeks after they met.

We are a truly international family. Of the five Ransby siblings, Penelope and Virginia were born in England, Stephen and Josephine in South Africa, and Noël in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

I have tried to put my life in the context of my generation by referencing the world around me and events which influenced it. The post-World War II British diaspora. The Boer War, long-remembered in the Transvaal. The last of the boarding school generation, perhaps a residue of empire. Growing up with Depression-era grandparents. The inevitable, but sudden and violent, end of the French colonial empire. Developments in medicine removing the dread of polio epidemics. The advent of jet-powered aircraft on commercial routes which revolutionised air travel.