I recently received a most informative letter from Nicholas Wilson of Brindley, near Nantwich, Cheshire, about the 1910 postcard that was eventually delivered after 91 years in the post to Union Place, Worthing (The Argus, December 19).

Mr Wilson is Ruth Amphlett's nearest living relative. His grandmother, Dorothy Wilson, was Ruth Amphlett's maternal first cousin, almost the same age and virtually adopted by the Amphlett family after her father died when she was only six.

As Ruth Amphlett was born in 1883 (not 1893, as surmised), she would have been 27 when visiting Hadrian's Wall and was probably on her way home from Scotland via Ilkley in West Yorkshire, where Dorothy's parents resided at the time.

Edward Greenhill Amphlett, barrister, married Amye Charlton in 1882 and had three children: Ruth (1883), Edward (1885) and Flora (1893). The Amphletts came to live at 3 Elm Lawn, Union Place, Worthing, in October 1896 in the erstwhile house of Dr Frederick Dixon, surgeon and geologist.

They suffered a grave bereavement with the sudden and early death of Flora in 1921, followed by father in May 1930 and mother eight years later. Their headstone is to be found in Broadwater Cemetery. Ruth Amphlett then negotiated the sale of the property to West Sussex County Council by the end of the year and left Worthing for good.

Mr Wilson continues the story: "Ruth left Worthing in 1938 after her mother's death and went to live in Montgomeryshire, where she 'took in' to her house a number of Polish refugees, one lady of whom remained as her companion for the rest of her life. After the war, they moved to Headley Down in Hampshire. My family and I as a child were frequent visitors, as indeed was her brother Edward Charlton Amphlett, who was by now living in Folkestone. Although married, he died childless in 1968. Ruth Amphlett died on Christmas Day, 1962, at home, still being cared for by her long-term Polish companion."

Mr Wilson commented that Ruth Amphlett's handwriting changed little between that on the 1910 postcard and her last letter to his father in October 1962, which arrived much more punctually.

None of the Amphletts had any children, so the Worthing Amphletts quickly became extinct and a significant family in the social and economic life of the town in the first 40 years of the 20th Century passed into history.

-Anthony Brook, Shelley Road, Worthing