The Thurlow
girls,
Agnes born
1862, Alice born 1865, and
Enid born
1867
Toll
Gate House, London Road

Picture from the SWOP
website
Reference number BFP
: 06361 (house across valley)
We Thurlow girls are spinsters
all
And saw our Wycombe soldiers fall
For war
affected all our lives
And failed to make us into wives,
But
still we live quite happily
At
Toll Gate House as you can see.
We’re
not the only ladies now
Who
didn't take the marriage vow
For
further down there’s girls who wait
Still hopeful of
the marriage state,
It's just the way that things
worked out
With
insufficient men about.
The
Thurlow
girls were the daughters of James and Ellen Thurlow. They lived at Toll
Gate House, which was the family home of their brother Thomas.
Although they were already middle aged by the First World War
the
Boer war had also taken its toll on Wycombe men.
Florence
Nicholson, sister-in-law of
Charles Arthur Skull, also had rooms along the London Road which she
shared with her nursing colleague.
All of them were
to remain spinsters.
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