My family. A rich tapestry of characters and events both past and present ranging from my poetic mother, my father, funny and serious in turn and politically aware, to other family members and their friends, heroes, villains and the downright eccentrics who entertained us with their antics. Not forgetting the Tobys, the family dogs all given numbers, Toby number one, two, etc. Our homes were located in such diverse places as 'Scabbyhills' and the 'Debtor's Retreat' and our spooky haunted house. There were sad times, also. Ill health, unemployment, and the scandal of illegitimacy that almost split the family, but the goods times outweighed the bad. Who we are today, we owe to our ancestors. Those stoical farmers and hand loom weavers stretching back to the early seventeenth century in Cheshire who left their rural homes for a future life in industrial nineteenth century Lancashire. This is their story.