Fred and Rose were both Ipswich kids. They were my maternal grandparents and I miss them still. Fred Crane was born on 6th February 1902 in Ipswich and Rose Cobb just over three years later on 20th February 1905. They married in early 1927 and had three children.
Frederick A. A. Crane 1927-1985 became a Professor of Metallurgy at Kensington College London. Rosemary Crane 1928-2012 married Geoff Gillett. Hazel Crane married Brian Rosher and became my mum!
Fred worked at Ransome and Rapier Railway Foundry in Ipswich, and played a very fine violin in the Waterside Works Band (The Ramsome in Ramsome and Rapier was apparently related to Arthur Ransome of “Swallows and Amazons” fame). He was an enthusiastic hobbiest carpenter and photographer, exposing and printing his film using a home made enlarger made from a waste paper bin and a huge lens.
When Brian died in 1966 aged only 32, leaving Hazel with two small boys, Fred and Rose left their home in Purplett Street Ipswich and moved to Bath to look after us while mum went to work. (I gather the house in Purplett Street is gone now. Half the street was lost to the A137 through route and a conference centre carpark!)
They lived in a flat in Moorland Road, over a shop, then a wardened bungalow in Twerton and ultimately Carehome (cruelly they had to live in different apartments at the home) and they died within months of each other in 1987.
Inseparable.
Rosher.Net 