Sandie H: “She was our mother, if you signed her visitors book, you became one of her children.”
Barbara’s collection of plaster casts of purported to be footprints of big cats includes one that greatly resembles the Thylacoleo, a marsupial Lion reportedly extinct 20,000 years ago, Barbara was known as an eccentric and believed many undocumented species lived around Portland Roads.
My (Seamus) brother-in-law (Col) worked on the boats up this way many years ago and fondly remembers going to Barbara with an extremely painful migraine one day. She prescribed a tin foil pyramid hat – Col at that stage was willing to try anything – but now cannot remember whether the hat worked or not.
We met some yachties (world travellers who were in Portland Roads 30 years ago), who also had fond memories of Barbara and her cats. They remember she “had at least 50 cats – they were every where, on the seats, and every rafter had 3 or 4 cats”.
“She’d say ‘sit down’ and you’d say ‘where?’ There were cats on all the seats you know”
These yachties gave us some star sand that Barbara had given them.
[We have many photos of her writings and plaster casts as well as people to get more information about her from]