Something that had constantly puzzled me over the years was that I'd never heard anything about the family my grandfather had left behind in Hampshire, when he made the move to Australia in 1925. Obviously his parents would be gone, but did he have siblings, and did they have children? I remember asking my Dad, but he said that his father had never wanted to talk about his family back in England. Despite many years of searching for direct Erwood family in the Southampton area, I had been unsuccessful up until early 2013, a fact which had been somewhat disappointing for me. Then, one day in February that year, a hint came up on Ancestry.com which grabbed my attention. It appeared that this person had a direct link with my family and it looked like ​his grandmother was my grandfather's sister. It would be an understatement to say that I was fairly excited by this! I made contact with the contributor, a gentleman by the name of Ian Cameron, to find out that he had uploaded the tree on behalf of an old school friend named Bob Matthews, and my connection was actually with that friend. He very kindly put me in touch with Bob and it indeed turned out that his grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister, and he was my second cousin.
 

After several emails exchanging information and photographs, we had developed a bit more of an understanding about our respective families. Bob's mother, Evelyn, my grandfather's niece, was born not long after my grandfather immigrated to Australia in 1925 and had some wonderful memories from her mother (Pop's sister), which Bob relayed to me in emails.

Around this time I was also in the process of planning my first trip to Britain and Paris for December 2013 / January 2014. I mentioned this to Bob and that I would really like to meet them all when I was over there if he was happy to do so, and he immediately jumped on board with the plan. So, in early January 2014, I made the trip down to Ringwood in Hampshire and met my English family for the first time. I was even able to meet Ian Cameron and thank him in person as he very kindly picked me up from King's Cross Station in London and drove me down to Hampshire.

I spent a wonderful few days with them all, Bob and his lovely wife Liz, their son Phil and his family and another cousin, Tricia and her family. And then there was Bob's mother, Evelyn. A wonderful woman of 88 at the time, sharp as a tack and full of wonderful memories, and who was incredibly emotional when she met me.
 

On a cold, wet day I was taken on what for me was a pilgrimage to Netley Abbey village where Pop was born. It was so special to wander around the ruins of the beautiful Netley Abbey where he played with his siblings when he was a child, see the house the family lived in at the time he left for Australia and to visit the Netley Military Cemetery where his brother, Freddie, is buried.

I had a short but wonderful time in the beautiful south of England with my family. Family dinners where we laughed a lot, swapped stories and tried to work out why it appears my grandfather had never made contact with his family again once he moved to Australia. Aunty Eve (Bob's mother) said she vividly remembers her mother, my grandfather's sister, saying up until she died 'I wonder what happened to our George'. I got the impression that the fact that contact had been lost with him with absolutely no explanation had been very sad and hurtful for the family over the years. We came to the conclusion that this was more than likely because of his marriage breakdown once he arrived in Australia, and subsequent health issues (the story of which is told in The Adoption Story). Possibly once all that had passed and he moved on to his new life, he did not know how to relay any of this back to his family in England, maybe concerned about how they would react. We also believe that there's the possibility that he may have written to his mother, Julia, in the couple of years between leaving for Australia in 1925 and her death in 1927, but that because of the difficult person she had become, she may have not passed this on to his sisters. Whatever the reason, it's good to have some sort of explanation as to the why, even though it is quite sad, and I'm glad I was able fill in some of the gaps for them, especially Aunty Ev.

I am thrilled to be able to now say that I have family in England. I was made to feel so welcome and so much a part of the family and I thank them all very much for that. I am also extremely grateful to Ian Cameron, without whom this contact may never have been made. I am very much looking forward to visiting with them again in the years to come, and hopefully maybe one day hosting them here in Australia.

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​​Since that first meeting in January 2014, I have had the opportunity to visit a further four times, in 2015, 2017, 2022, and 2023, as well as being able to show some of the sights of Melbourne to Tricia and Roger when they visited in October 2015. Each visit has a host of wonderful memories of family catch ups, numerous 'girls day outs', and visits to many beautiful locations in England and Scotland.

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Below are some photos from each of these visits, commencing with that special first visit in  January 2014, and working down to the most recent.