Lives at:  Rose Cottage, Albans Lane.

Age: Mid 70’s

Appearance: Just 5ft tall, small, and slender. She has soft grey hair and a pink bloom to her mostly unlined complexion. Blue eyes twinkle from behind her glasses.

Jessie was a ‘bit of a girl’ and still loves to flirt despite her age. She has a bird like quality, chirpy and alert, inquisitive too. Despite the slightly ‘dippy’ persona she sometimes displays and her love for pulling people’s leg, she is practical and wise and can be relied upon for sound advice. Her temper may be sharp but is short-lived and she rarely if ever bears a grudge.

Family: Husband: Tom (deceased)

Jessie was born in Milliwick, the youngest of a family of eight. Life was hard as a child but it taught her self-reliance and her indomitable spirit was borne out of the need to survive the comments that being part of the ‘poor family’ of the village attracted. Despite everything, she enjoyed her childhood. Bright and intelligent, her headmaster pleaded with her family for her to be allowed to stay on at school but with their finances as they were, even the little she could bring in as a factory hand was worth more to them than Jessie’s future.

Always rather earthy, she had a reputation for having an eye for the boys of the village. She was popular and they enjoyed her company, being less ‘starchy’ than was proper for her time but it wasn’t until the young Thomas Shepherd took an interest in her that she would come anywhere near earning the reputation she had. Head over heels in love with him, she abandoned her less than obvious principles and gave herself to him completely. Tom was equally smitten with the bright and funny girl but met fierce opposition from his family who thought the lower class Jessie an unsuitable match for their would-be solicitor son. Tom stuck to his guns and married her. They were to enjoy over fifty years together, their only sadness in the fact that they did not have the children that they longed for.

Currently: Jessie still confides and talks through her problems with her beloved Tom and often feels his presence in the house. Her close friends have become used to her referring to him as if he is still alive. Jessie is a regular churchgoer and has a large circle of friends, including the ever-hopeful George Harris.

           

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JESSIE SHEPHERD nee COOPER

Elderly widow.

Previously married to Tom, a local solicitor.