United Kingdom - Ireland

Aug. 08, 1951 - Joanna, 73, leads bus-load of Westons to a picnic: It took the Weston Family six months to arrange their picnic. They picked Chertsey, Surrey, because it was there Dad and Mum did most of their courting. And what was good enough then for the olds uns is good enough now for their fifty descendants. They saved up for it on the bob a week plan. And when they had almost 60, postman Dick Weston, 34, of Elliscombe-road, Charlton, London, hired a big red double-decker bus. Yesterday the bus-load of Westons descended on Chertsey with radios and portable prams cricket bats and dart-boards. And seven big crates of food. Nothing was spared, for this was the first big get-together of the London Westons since 1938. Loading the laughing procession from the roadside down to the river came smiling Mum, who is great-grandma Noana, Weston, 73. Look what Dad and I started, she chuckled. And she grinned at Dad, Bert Weston, 75, retired furnace stoker. Behind her came her twelve children, eighteen grandchildren, two of her great-grandchildren, and a smattering of Weston in-laws, two generations of husbands and wives. Last of all toddled two-year-old Jennifer, youngest of the Westons. Give me a big family every time, said great-gardma Joanna tucking up her skirts for the over fifties race'. They keep you young. And she was second at the winning post - just behind her daughter, Lil 52. The Westons ended up their day with a sing-son. Tears of happiness were in Joana's eyes. Isaved a shilling a weak, like the rest of the grown-ups for this, she said. Three pounds out of Dad's pension and mine. And look what they just gave me. She opened her hand and showed three crumpled pound notes

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Arrange Bats Bert Chertsey Courting Crates Crumpled Descendants Descended Double-decker Eighteen Ended Enough Fifty Furnace Generations Get-together Grandchildren Grown-ups Hired Husbands In-laws Leads Nothing Pension Picked Portable Postman Pound Pounds Prams Radios Retired Roadside Saved Shilling Showed Skirts Spared Stoker Tears Tucking Two-year-old Weak Weston Youngest

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