Fiona Chesterton

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  • A new feature: a family tree

    When I received the inheritance which kick starts my story, I was sent a copy of a family tree which had been painstakingly put together over many years by the Canadian officials who were trying to find any distant family of Jessie Heading and her son William Underwood to whom to bequeath his estate. The…

  • Return to Vancouver: Day 5 – and a jaw-dropping moment

    My first days here have been blessed with azure blue skies and bright sunshine. Saturday had turned extraordinarily hot – 34 deg. C and by the late afternoon, the sky turned a sickly sandy colour presaging the arrival of smoke from fires- both burning forests outside the city, plus a wood fire in Vancouver itself.…

  • Return to Vancouver: Day One and Two

    I arrived on a bright and brilliant afternoon, energising me miraculously after my early start from Cambridge, a long flight, and a frustratingly slow crawl through immigration and customs at Vancouver’s arrivals hall. I guess that’s the way with major international airports everywhere in these post-pandemic days. Flying is rarely fun any more. Once at…

  • Return to Vancouver- a second journey in my quest for my Canadian cousin

    Today I am returning to Vancouver, five years on from my first visit, following in the footsteps of my Canadian cousin Jessie. This is not a holiday – it is the completion of my mission to honour the memory of this Victorian woman, the story of whose ordinary – and yet extraordinary- life I recounted…