At the beginning of January, Kay Warrington the new Provincial President asked the six new Diocesan Presidents to meet for an informal meeting to get to know each other and discuss ideas and plans for the coming three years. Over lunch, I began chatting to the President of St Asaph Diocese, a lady called Beryl and as usual, we began by the usual questions of where do you live etc.

I told her a little of myself and then she said she lived in Ruthin but was originally from Dogellau in Gwynedd. “I know Dolgellau quite well,” says I, continuing with,” my grandfather was from a little village a few miles outside Dolgellau called Bontddu (famous for its gold mine that supplied the gold for the Royal Family’s wedding rings) and we went there every year for holidays and to visit family”. Beryl replied, “Really, my grandmother was also from that village”. Realisation very quickly began to dawn as both of us had the same family name of Roberts. Beryl and her family were the cousins we visited each year in Dolgellau, we had lost touch when the older members of the family died and we had not seen each other since young teenagers. What a coincidence, we were so shocked but delighted to discover that her grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister and we had the same great grandmother!! It has been wonderful to meet up with her a couple of times since through Mothers’ Union and she has been able to put me in touch with some other cousins I had lost contact with. We have both wondered what our Nain would say if she knew that two out of the six Diocesan Presidents in Wales were her great granddaughters!

Lynne