TWINS AGED 85

Hokitika Guardian, 23 August 1939, Page 7

TWINS AGED 85

FIFTY YEARS APART. SUFFOLK TO MOUNT EDEN. AUCKLAND, August 19. i Puck of Pooks Hill might have been hiding under the guava buslies in' a Mount Eden garden the other day when Mr Edmund Raynham Boldero admitted in somewhat casual fashion that-he was the man mentioned in a London daily of July 17. The “story,” Which came from Ipswich, said that a grey-haired farmer in the village of Horringor had drunk a silent toast to his twin brother in New Zealand on the occasion of their 85th birthday. These twins have been separated for pO years, but there is a living link between them. The Suffolk farmer and the Mount Eden resident maintain a close association by letter. Actually they use tne air mail now. Long-lived Family. The Boldero twins are not the oldest of the .five surviving members of their family ,of 16. Mrs Isabella Coleman, of Morton .Morrell, is 95. Mr Henry Francis Boldero, a retired engineer of Royston, is 86. The youngest, Mr Albert John Boldero, of Ipswich, is 82.

The twins at school were inseparable except when Edmund “made” the first eleven of Framlingham College, They were so alike that in their earlier, days one wore on his arm a blue ribbon and the other a ribbon of red. Incidentally, Mr Edmund is invited each year to the reunion of the Framlingham old boys.

■ The London newspaper suggested that the Boldero twins were probably one of the eldest in the Empire. Mr Edmund, who was found tidying up a ' very nice garden with lots of .little shrub fences, said that that might be so, but, as becomes a man whose family roots have gone broad and deep into Suffolk soil many centuries ago, saw nothing remarkable in that possible fact. The son of a clergyman, the grandLiving Alone For Five Years. son •of a clergyman and the greatgrandson of a clergyman, Mr Edmund Boldero came to New Zealand 50 years ago after some financial crisis when his father died. He had been running a farm of 300 acres. “I had to get off somewhere,” he sai'd, “so I came:to New Zealand to join a brother who had a farm at Mangawai. Later I had a farmlet at Hamilton and eventually I came here.” Five years ago (his wife died, and since then Mr Boldero has lived alonC. For company he has a small dog, which is shut up in a shed if it persists in barking more than 10 minutes. Occasionally neices visit him. “I have kind neighbours,” he remarked, “and no enemies that I know of.” Clergymen in the Family. “Yes,” he said, “my family is overrun with clergymen. The last three generations were clergymen. My youngest brother, his son and his son are in the cloth, and I have five nephews who are parsons. I have been a lay reader. “i have never been ill and have had a Rector only once for some trifle. 1 have had an open-air life and am convinced that farming is the best occupation. Yes 5 I can cook, but my friends arb .allways ’ kind. Naturally in New Zealand I learned a lot, but, as a matter of fact, I had my best, lessons In cooking at the old vicarage in Dfiiikstoue, near Bury St. Edmunds, where my brothers and I shut sparrows of an evening and with the kelp of my sister who married a parson by the way, made sparrow pie. That can be an extremely good disli.V Games. Yes, Mr Boklero played cricket, “the best of all games if it is played.” More on the point he would not say.

Ancient Records, The London newspaper stated that the Boldero family could trace its an-cestry-back to 1400, that the village church is full of effigies of bygone Bolderos who for centuries were the biggest landowners in the district, and that three Bolderos were, colonels at Waterloo. “It may be so about the colonels —I do not know,” said Mr Edmund, who would be no more concerned if lie were told that an ancestor drew a bow at, Agineourt. “From the ‘Bold’ it might seem that we are of Saxon descent,” lie said. “We put the emphasis upon the ‘Bold.’ However, our family motto 'which is surmounted by a greyhound, is ‘Atidax Ero—l will be Bold.’ ” None can say whether the name Boldero was in existence before the motto, which raises a very interesting point upon which Puck, if he would only speak, must offer some interesting observations. : When Mr Boldero was a hoy what now goes for cultured English had not spread its dull uniformity over the land. There is a pleasant touch of ,country accent in his voice which recalls the remark of Earl Baldwin that when he first entered the House of Commons the counties of the members of all parties were still largely indicated by accent. “No, I have no wish to see England again,” said Mr Boldero. “England lias changed so much in 50 years.”