With thanks to the Foster family in Canada the photos c 1911-1917 show the former 18 Bath Rd Terrace, home of Emily Veale. Mary Patrick (nee Foster ) believed to be right with possibly Ethel Veale step-daughter of Emily.
In 2009 Bob Cullis shared with the Remembering Rodborough Project his memories of Emily Veale:
“Another thing I remember must have been in the 1947 winter. At No 18 Bath Road Terrace, which is now, I think. 105 Bath Road, an elderly lady lived who was fondly known as Granny Veale. A remarkable lady she was in her 90s, wore a cloth cap, long overcoat, held together with a safety pin at the throat, black boots… men’s boots with holes cut in for her bunions! Some people were frightened of her. I found her an absolutely fascinating character. In fact, I think she was quite a well-read lady. She’d been widowed three times; each of her husbands had been Army officers. In fact, the last one was an Army doctor. She kept chickens and pigs… with which I was fascinated. You entered the area where she kept pigs, by going up her back garden, through a dark shed, which to me was always known as ‘Over the Way’. She clutched my hand and said, ‘Come on lets go over the way’. Now a magic thing would happen. I remember distinctly going through this shed, entering blackness as she shut the door, crossing the shed in total darkness and she’d open the other door into sunshine. And to me going through this shed… was entering another world!
This amazing world… chickens, cockerels and pigs. And a lot of the fences and the pens were made of all sorts (you couldn’t get wire netting in those days) often bed ends. And the place was fondly known by locals as ‘Bedstead Farm’. Now this piece of land later became the area on which Clarke Brothers UK operated and it’s now an industrial estate. But one incident with Granny Veale which always sticks, was in the winter of 1947, she had a cockerel which was what she’d term as ‘frosted’. Obviously got the cold in it! I entered her house with my mother, I was amazed in the black lead grate (which had an accompanying black lead oven) was a low fire and in the oven was this cockerel… alive! Apparently, she was trying to defrost it… as she said ‘Thaw it out’. I can remember running into what was her front room and there was a cake. She’d made a cake and left the cake in the living room with the cockerel in the oven. We went into the front room and she went back to the living room (presumably a cup of tea or something) and there was this scream and we ran in. And there on the table, on top of the cake was the cockerel… daintily picking out the currents! That was Granny Veale all over.”