The Story So Far

 

I started researching the Gibbs family history in early 2016 after finding a fascinating collection of letters written by my mother, Christiane, and father, Jeffrey, through the Thirties and Forties.

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My first thought was to turn the letters into a book, The Tunnel of Love, encouraged from the start by my friend, the best-selling author, Jilly Cooper, and this is still a work in progress.

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But the more I investigated my parents' story, the more I wanted to discover about their background.

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There followed many months of delving into the past, aided at first by clues remembered from my mother's stories.

 

These led to revelations through internet searches and then invaluable help from Jill Adams of the Adderbury History Association in Oxfordshire, Faith Renger, curator of the Malvern Museum in Worcestershire and Diane Yanch, Culture & Historic Precinct Supervisor for the City of Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta, Canada.

 

I now know more about the history of the Gibbs clan than my parents ever imagined and can pass on to my descendants a family tree that stretches back to the early 17th century.

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The chapters of this very personal family history, compiled in honour of my mother or Grandmere, as she was later to become universally known, start with her birth in Canada in 1908 and follow her eventful life until she passed away in Clevedon, North Somerset, in May, 2007, aged 98

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But the author's notes indicated by numbered asterisks in the text will take you behind the scenes to tales of clock-making in the mid-19th century and scientific and journalistic giants of the 20th century.

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I hope you enjoy reading this history as much as I have loved compiling it.

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Peter Gibbs

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