Skip to main content

Idiens & Osler descendants

John and Debby Idiens (left) and Heather Catchpole, with companion Michael, at the Fleece, Bretforton, together with Val Harman and Tom Locke on 7th July 2017.   Debby and Heather are daughters of Kenneth Osler (died at Normandy landings), whose father, George Percy Osler, was a fruit grower on land surrounding 1 Longdon Hill, Wickhamford for a few years before the Great War.  John is the son of Cyril Idiens, whose father John rented Wickhamford Manor in the 1890s and early 1900s.   Both the Osler and Idiens families emigrated to Comox, Vancouver Island, Canada shortly before the Great War.   Heather now lives in Somerset, but John and Debby came all the way from Malaysia.

During their visit to Wickhamford, John Poulter showed them the Mill, Alan and Maggie Lewis showed them 1 Longdon Hill, where George Osler had lived, and they also saw the Osler plot, which is now Stewart Nightingale’s nursery.   After driving down Manor Road, the Church was visited and the outside of Wickhamford Manor viewed.   A lovely time was rounded off with lunch at the Fleece.