Family & Friends

FAMILY HISTORY

My family hail from East Anglia. My mother, Jane Orbell, spent much of her childhood in Stibbard in North Norfolk and went to boarding school in Felixstowe. Her father, George Orbell (known as Geoff), was a farmer and was married to Edith Mary French. Edie, as she was known, died at the age of 61 when my mother was only 22 in 1953. My grandfather died in 1964 when I was nearly two years old. I have no recollection of him at all. In 1954 my mother and her father moved to Emsons Farm, Linton, near Cambridge, only four miles away from our current family home at Ashdon.

My father's family have been East Anglian people for generations. His mother, Constance Norden was born in 1894, one of twelve children. Her father, William Norden was a blacksmith and was married to Mariah Cracknell. Constance was born in Linton, near Cambridge and grew up there. In the 1920s she joined the Post Office and worked in London and Leicester. She met her husband, John Dale in the mid 1920s. He had travelled south from Consett, having been born and brought up in New Cumnock in Ayrshire. My father, Garry Dale, was born in 1929. He was brought up in Ashdon and has lived in all three farmhouses which are visible from Hall Farm. In 1953, shortly after John Dale died, the family moved to Blackmore, Essex, where they rented a council farm. The farm was run by my father and his brother John. My parents met in 1955 and in 1958 they got married and my father moved in with my mother and her father at Emsons Farm in Linton. Six months later they bought Hall Farm, Ashdon from my mother's Aunt, Hope Chivers. I was brought up there and it is still home today.

>Picture 1 - My Mother & Father on their Silver Wedding Anniversary in 1983
>Picture 2 - My sisters and our dog Glen in 1982
>Picture 3 - Hall Farm, the Dale Family Home
>Picture 4 - A favourite pic of my mother and me in 1995

I have two sisters, Tracey & Sheena. Tracey is two years younger than me and Sheena a further two years younger. Tracey is married and lives in Upper Dicker (!), near Hailsham in East Sussex. She has two young daughters, Isabella and Ophelia. Sheena lives with her long term partner Alan Webb a few hundred yards away from Hall Farm. We all went to Saffron Walden County High School. Tracey did a degree in Zoology at the University of Reading and later formed a psychometric testing consultancy with her husband, Richard. Sheena has worked as a sports instructor at the Lord Butler Leisure Centre in Saffron Walden for nearly 20 years. She also runs her own First Aid Training business.

FRIENDS

Everyone needs friends - people who accept you, warts and all. Here are a few of the people I am proud to count as friends and who have been with me through thick and thin over the years.

NB THIS SECTION IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Daniel Forrester
I met Daniel during the 1992 General Election campaign when he was working on the campaign in Norwich, and we've been the best of friends ever since. He's American and has the biggest ego of anyone I know...except me! We only see each other every so often now, as he's a management consultant in Philadelphia, but whenever we meet up it's as if no time has passed at all. The mark of true friendship I guess. He's married to the gorgeous Nancy and will no doubt be the second President of the USA to have a wife with that name.
>Picture of Daniel Forrester

Peter & Juliet Clark, Helen & John Barrett, Patricia & Richard Abbott, Christine & David Norman
Peter, Christine, Helen and Pat are friends from Saffron Walden County High School and twenty off years later we are still in touch. Peter & Juliet still live in Saffron Walden. We don't all see each other that often but we all know we're friends for life.

The Nicholls Family
Denis & Marion Nicholls and their children Alasdair and Suzanne became neighbours of ours in Ashdon in 1978 and have been firm friends ever since. Alasdair was Tracey's first boyfriend and my regular tennis partner in the 1980s. Denis sadly died in 2001 and has left a hole in all our lives. He was an ebullient, caring man who really did bring a ray of sunshine into all our lives.
>Picture of the Nicholls Family

Tim Quint
Tim is a friend from my time at the University of East Anglia, where he was a fellow cohort in the Conservative Society. He's also now my lawyer and suffers from being a Gillingham supporter. I remember many a happy trip to Preistfield stadium in the mid 1980s, where we even had the dubious pleasure of being a few yards away from Steve Bruce when he broke his leg. Tim has stayed in Norfolk and has an office by the river in Wroxham. How I envy him.

Deborah Slattery
I got to know Deborah when I was working for Patrick Thompson MP in Norwich. In fact I think I recruited her and her husband Mike to the Conservative Party - she'll no doubt correct me if I have got it wrong! She went on to be a fully qualified Tory Party agent and to run the Norfolk Deaf Association. Although I haven't lived in Norfolk for 15 years now we keep in touch and are rarely at a loss for conversation - or argument, mainly about the fact that I always forget her birthday...