Brave mum-of-seven Susannah Hodge risked her life to save one of her youngsters from a collision that could have ended in tragedy.

 

There are sturdy fences along Dolvin Road today which keep pedestrians safe from busy traffic, but in 1867 the street was quiet enough for children to cross, or bowl a hoop along. In those days, Dolvin Road was a quiet lane bound for Princetown,  flanked on one side by its row of Bedford cottages and by the sleeping residents of the cemetery on the other. 

 

Wheeled traffic, like the horse and cart that was ambling down Dolvin Road on that fateful day, was usually slow but sure. It was a sudden scream of a railway train whistle on the line behind the cemetery that spooked the animal. It bolted, terrified, directly towards one of Susannah’s children.

 

Seeing what was about to happen, Susannah, 37 – mum to Emily, 19, William, 16, Mark, 10, Francis, 8, and Elizabeth, seven, Mary, five and Clarence, two – dashed into the street and safely got her little one out of harm’s way. But the brave mum couldn’t get out of the way in time to prevent herself being hit, and sustaining what newspaper reports described as “serious injuries about the head.”

 

Thankfully, by the time the news story went to print, Susannah was already showing signs that she would recover. It’s unknown which of her children she saved from disaster that day. Twenty four years later, Susannah, now in her mid-sixties, was still living at number 15 with husband Mark and the baby of her brood, Clarence, now 25 years old.