Not that I do, actually. Remember Lily, that is. She was one of my lovely great-aunts and she died suddenly, aged 62, when I was just 3.

Lily was born 128 years ago today to Sarah (née Helliwell) and Frank Marsden, both aged 24 and living then in Cowper Street, off Claremount Road in Northowram ward, Halifax.

Working out where that is, I realise we would have passed just beneath the site of Cowper Street when I occasionally succeeded in pestering my dad to divert from the main road as we were driving back from Halifax, up on to New Bank and down the narrow lane called The Incline – just because it was steep and fun for a small child! (Not so much fun for dad rejoining the busy main road by Shibden Hall!).

By 1901 the family is at 62 Lister Lane and Lily has a nicely rhyming little brother, Willie. In the following year they have a family photograph taken along with the Foster family – thanks to my great-aunt Dora for labelling the picture in the album! Dora is the camera-shy baby on Sarah’s knee mid-front row, so the date will be ca 1902. Lily is standing behind Sarah and Willie looking direly cute in a sailor suit in front of Frank and next to the euphonously named Lister Foster.

I did a bit of hunting and discovered that John Foster was a fruiterer/greengrocer, like Frank. Whether they were partners at some point or rivals, I don’t know! In 1901 John, Eveline (Evelyn), Lister and Doris May are shown living at 38 King Cross Street.

Sisters Hilda and Florrie come along in 1904 and 1906 and by 1911, Lily and the enlarged family are living in 38, St Mary St, Halifax, Yorkshire on the census date, 2 April. Aged 15, Lily was a sewing machinist, specialising in underwear – no pretensions to ‘lingerie’, it seems!

By 19 June, 1921 Amy, 8 and Lena, now 4, have completed the family, who now live at 41 Stirling Street. Lily, 25, is still a sewing machinist but we know now that she is still sewing ‘undies’, working at Croft Myl Manufacturing Co. in West Parade, as is her sister Hilda, my grandma, now aged 17. Calderdale Companion has this as a later name for Harella, so perhaps it reverted to a previous name? Another little mystery to track down…

As an aside, Croftmyl/Croft Myl later became the home of fashion firm Harella which moved to Halifax in the 1940s and grew to be a huge exporter of fashions across the world. Harella was the second biggest exporter of ladies’ clothes in the 1960s and was apparently unique in having “live” models for its garments for inspection by the factory’s head passer. Models had to try on coats and lined suit jackets to be inspected – as well as model heavy winter garments in the heat of the summer and lighter clothing in the winter months.

The 1939 register has Lily, Dora and Willie still at Stirling Street but the register itself gives us a clue as to things to come for Lily. No change in the job, but the later change of surname tells us her next big step.

On 23 December 1943, at the age of 48, Lily married Ernest Wilson in Wesley Chapel, Halifax. He was a 61-year-old widower who worked as a shop assistant at a plumbers’ merchant. He lived at 22, Ashbourne Grove, Halifax, which later seemed to inherit the ‘family hub’ status that Stirling Street held for many years. Ernest had been married to Lily Sutcliffe in April 1906; he was then an iron worker and she a worsted weaver but they had later become ‘chapel-keepers’ firstly for Wesley Chapel (they are living at 32 Waterhouse Street next to the chapel below left in the 1911 census) and later moved to 13 Chapel Lane, next to the Salterhebble United Methodist Free Chapel (later Christadelphian, 1965) – below right. Presumably Lily and Ernest were then still caretaking and it was her death in 1931 that led to his move to Ashbourne Grove.

On the marriage certificate ‘our’ Lily was an Overalls machinist, a sign of wartime changes. They lived at Ashbourne Grove and both were, I gather, active members of Wesley Chapel (possibly how they met? I believe Lily played piano for the Boys’ Brigade PE routines as my mum later did at Ebenezer. Lily and Ernest did not have very long to enjoy their marriage, as Ernest sadly died in 1948.

Lily continued to live at 22 Ashbourne Grove and Dora came to live with her, as later did Hilary, their niece, for most of the year when her guardians (my parents) were working in West Africa, joining them when they came home on leave, as she was still at secondary school. Hilary recalls the sisters holding chapel ‘Busy Bee’ meetings in the front room, entailing sewing, knitting, tatting or other crafts and no doubt a good bit of gossip that helped earn Dora the family nickname of ‘Eyes and ears of the world’! Hilary would be designated teamaker and server

The one tale I know about Lily and me is from my mum, who had been getting a bit desperate because I wouldn’t stop crying but happily found that her aunt Lily had the knack, despite not having children of her own, and could settle me down pretty well instantly. (I suspect mum was more than tempted to leave me with Lily!)

It was Hilary, still only a teenager, who found Lily on that morning in 1958; Hilary had been cooking a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast of gammon as a treat, and went to fetch Lily but found she had passed away peacefully on the sofa in front of the fire.

As it’s almost no longer the anniversary I will stop and publish this now! I hope to find more personal tales of Lily to add.