A Letter of Welcome

I am the grandad and my name is Hugh Merrow-Smith.
I am 80 years old and am Julian's Daddy and Ruth's father-in-law.
My wife, Margaret and I have been married for 53 years.
We have five children and 10 grandchildren.
Our children have now all grown-up and have childrenof their own.
Our eldest is Stephen aged 53 and he has two children,
Gemma, aged 30 and William, aged 27.
Our daughter is Cathy and she is 51 this year. Her partner is John and they have three children.
Edmund is 16 and Thomas is 14. Their young sister is Kate and she will
be 12 at Christmas. Your new Daddy comes next and with Mummy, Ruth,
they will be your new Mummy and Daddy as they do not have children of
their own at the moment. You will be their first, and very proud we
will all be when that happens. Next comes Nicholas, who is 46 and he
lives in Singapore, and is married to a Chinese lady, whose name is
Jen-Hwei. Their children are Claire, who will be 8 soon and
Daniel who will be 6 in December. Our youngest son is Peter, who will
be 44 at Christmas. He is married to Janet, who was born in Nigeria
and they have three children, all girls. The eldest is Jessica, aged
16, then Bethany who is 14. Their young sister is named Amy-Jo, and
she is 6. Amy-Jo was born in southern Africa in a town called Orapa ,
which is in Botswana.
We are a very happy family and we get to see each other as often as
possible. I am writing this from your new home in France, as Grandma
and I have been invited to stay here for a little while with your new
Daddy and Mummy. Today is a lovely sunny day and is what we call All
Saints day, or Hallowe,en.
We live in a small village in Northamptonshire, near to Banbury, where the Fine Lady
who Rides a White Horse, comes from. Our village is called Kings Sutton.
The last time we all got together was on the occasion of my 80th birthday at the
end of March, where we all had lunch in the old Oxford Prison, which is
where my father was Chief Officer, until he retired and where I lived in 1949.
I can show you lots of photographs of that day