Dastardly money brokers led Uncle Jim off the rails (TT March04 p63)

I come from a large family. Correction. Those of my father’s generation all had sensibly-sized families, but my paternal grandparents had a huge family – four sons and three daughters, not counting those others who died young from diptheria, measles and croup and those other nasty, forgotten diseases. My grandfather died at an early age – and who can blame him? – but my grandmother lived on and on. Personally, I blame all this fecundity on the lack of television in Edwardian times.