My mother's father Bill Bird (William Norvel Wilberforce Bird) was, like his three elder brothers, educated at Victoria College in Jersey. Jersey was considered to have a warmer climate than England and was popular with Indian Army officers. At the end of his schooling in 1895 he and his best friend Frank Collas went by boat to Buenos Aires and then on horse back across the Andes to Chile. All four Bird brothers were out in Chile although Bill was the only one to stay, becoming the Manager of a Nitrate mine in the Atacama desert inland from Iquique. There he met his wife Ruth Blake, whose father Arthur Blake ran the port in Iquique (huge in those days with often over 300 vessels waiting to load copper and nitrate and bringing in supplies). Ruth's mother was, we are sure, Chilean so we all have some Spanish blood.
Bill and Ruth had four children in Chile, Mary (Q) who married Jan Kent, Bill who left aged 10 to go to Cheltenham and then went out to Australia to work for his uncle, thus not seeing his parents for almost 13 years, Walter (Piggy) who was a Mosquito pilot during the war and the youngest Squadron Leader and who was killed in 1944, and finally my mother Beatrice (Beatle). There was a big age gap between Q and Bill at one end, and Piggy and my mother at the other. Q was pretty much married when my mother was born in 1922.
Life was obviously good in Chile and they had numerous staff including a driver for their large Chevrolet; my grandfather and Piggy played polo a good deal.
In 1928 nitrate crashed and my mother, being the only one left, came back with her parents through the 'new' Panama canal to Liverpool. Neither Bill nor Ruth new England at all, neither ever having been there, so they journeyed down to Southampton and caught another boat over to Jersey.
Bill and Ruth had four children in Chile, Mary (Q) who married Jan Kent, Bill who left aged 10 to go to Cheltenham and then went out to Australia to work for his uncle, thus not seeing his parents for almost 13 years, Walter (Piggy) who was a Mosquito pilot during the war and the youngest Squadron Leader and who was killed in 1944, and finally my mother Beatrice (Beatle). There was a big age gap between Q and Bill at one end, and Piggy and my mother at the other. Q was pretty much married when my mother was born in 1922.
Life was obviously good in Chile and they had numerous staff including a driver for their large Chevrolet; my grandfather and Piggy played polo a good deal.
In 1928 nitrate crashed and my mother, being the only one left, came back with her parents through the 'new' Panama canal to Liverpool. Neither Bill nor Ruth new England at all, neither ever having been there, so they journeyed down to Southampton and caught another boat over to Jersey.
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