Archive: This story was first published by Buxton Museum in 2018 and appeared on Explore Buxton in 2020. The museum’s former Terrace Road building closed in 2023; it reopened in a temporary home next to Buxton Library in October 2026.
In its 2018 profile, Buxton Museum and Art Gallery described Cynthia as a regular visitor who used its public computers and shared memories of her father, Ernest.
The museum recounted how Cynthia lost an eye in an accident when she was four, and shared her memories of growing up with a prosthetic eye. Her mother died when she was eight, and her father brought her up.
Ernest had served in the RAF during the Second World War. On a family holiday in Downham Market, where he had been stationed, Cynthia visited the railway signal box with a family friend and helped operate the signals under supervision, the museum wrote.
In 1977, Cynthia and Ernest joined a charity parachute jump. The museum’s account says Ernest went on to jump again and also tried hang-gliding and hot-air ballooning.
The museum also shared Ernest’s recollection of a wartime Christmas in Norfolk: after trudging through deep snow to a telephone, he discovered the lines were booked, returned to his hut and then made the snowy journey again to reach his wife.
Read Buxton Museum’s original account for more of Cynthia and Ernest’s stories.
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