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Anne Armstrong
Anne Armstrong was born on a farm in Berkshire (England). She has lived in Berkshire villages all her life, except for three years while studying for her teaching qualifications.
...view moreAnne Armstrong was born on a farm in Berkshire (England). She has lived in Berkshire villages all her life, except for three years while studying for her teaching qualifications.
Her family spoke in Berkshire dialect. When she went to Grammar School in the 1950s, she had to learn to speak and write standard English grammar - a task akin to learning a foreign language! However, she is happy that her voice still carries something of the 'old' accent.
She taught in primary schools until she took a break to bring up her sons; then resumed her teaching career in a college of Further Education, where her students could be any age from sixteen upwards.
She has a long-standing interest in history and genealogy and has consulted and transcribed baptismal, marriage and burial records from Parish Registers for various villages in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and Hampshire. This has given her an appreciation of the high points and low points of rural life from the mid- sixteenth century up to the present day.
While researching her family tree, she was not surprised to discover that she is descended from a long line of agricultural labourers on both sides of her family. Their achievements amounted to nothing more than the successful rearing of their large families and survival in difficult conditions. Her writing reflects her appreciation of their struggles.view less