SDFHS member, Karen Francis, describes how she started investigating her Ridout ancestors and encourages other family historians to publish their research so that it can be preserved.
Reg and Elsie Ridout. Photograph taken about 1916.
In March 2004, I decided to find out a bit about my maternal grandparents, Reg and Elsie Ridout. I started off with what I knew: Reg had run a fish and chip shop at 38a Kingsmead Street in Bath; Elsie smelt of lavender and baked gorgeous chocolate cake. Not exactly a lot to go on, but what do children ever really know about their grandparents? Well, my mother knew her grandfather’s name, which was John Arthur Ridout, and that he died in 1953, the year my two year old self met him. I dimly remember a tall man, wearing brown tweeds, folded awkwardly into an armchair like a stick insect; he offered me a Cadbury’s chocolate biscuit, which my pudgy…
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The Ridouts of Sherborne and Bath 