Margaret Wilkinson (nee Rendell) was my first cousin, the sister I never had, a little older than me, we spent many hours together at the primitive family home. The Railway House, Tufts Junction. Lacking electricity or running water it was never the less home for the Rendells including Margarets younger sisters Cynthia, Joan and Janet, mum and dad, Uncle Ernie and Aunt Eileen. 


We lived there ,carefree, during the war years, when the whole of the Forest of Dean was a munitions dump. The transportation of the ammunition was mainly by rail and one day  a set of wagons  became uncoupled from the engine and started to run back towards Lydney. Grandfather Rendell, Uncle Ernie and my father Frank chased after the runaway, applying  brakes to slow its progress. Grandfather ran ahead and managed to change a set of points. The errant wagons went through buffers and crashed down into the River Lyd. All the children were told to run and we did so, up the hillside to the main road. We later learned that the wagons contained phosgene , nerve gas. Such was life in the early 1940s. 


A couple of times a year I would visit Margaret, at Whitecroft, and we would sit in the sun reminiscing about our early life together. A lovely lady  I, as will many others, will miss her, but remember the good times, they were precious.