Frank and Wilma Payne (nee Newstead) adopted Jacqueline Willy shortly after her birth. Jackie married me and we had two children, Nathan Robert Carr and Rachel Deborah Carr. Nathan and Rachel viewed Frank and Wilma as one of their two sets of grandparents and were very fond of them. I loved them too and had an especially close relationship with Frank. 

The Carr family frequently spent the weekend at Frank and Wilma's house at 20 Redhoods Way East, Letchworth. Frank and I would go to the pub together and Frank would tell me stories about his career overseas with Imperial Airways, when he maintained flying boats, and with the United Nations, when he trained instructors in machine shop practice. His career took him to many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and to India and Pakistan. Frank worked overseas on bachelor status while Wilma stayed home in Letchworth to bring up Jackie.

Frank was quite idiosyncratic in his old age. For example. he liked to have the exact same food every day, egg and bacon for brakfast, a cheese sandwich for lunch, and meat and potatoes for dinner. He brewed his own beer. At the pub, he would always have exactly three pints of brown and mild. Also, after a lifetime of working overseas, Frank did not want to go anywhere further than their summer bungalow on the sand dunes in Hemsby, Norfolk. This caused Wilma a bit of frustration as she would have loved to do some overseas traveling.

Frank was a keen motorcyclist in his youth. When I bought a motorcycle in 1974, Frank in nostalgia went out and bought himself a motorcycle too - it was about 150cc and he paid just a few pounds for it. This caused everyone concern as he was extremely erratic, weaving all over the road. I decided to strip Frank's motorcycle down to refurbish it but never completed the project. A year or so later, Frank gave the motorcycle away to some young man as a box of parts.

Frank died in 1989 primarily from lung failure. Towards the end, he struggled for breath and insisted on having the windows open, no matter how cold, and a fan blowing air in his direction, Finally, he was prescribed oxygen and died a few days later. The Carr family were at his house the weekend before his death and when they departed that Sunday night, both Frank and I were tearful as we sensed that this was their last parting.

Wilma died from cancer in 1992. She had had ovarian cancer as a young woman but had been successfuly treated for it. That was why she and Frank could not have children and why they had adopted Jackie. Jackie and I separated in or about 1990. Wilma wanted no contact with me after that so, sadly, I was not present in her last years.

Frank and Wilma were devoted to each other, and to Jackie, and to Nathan and Rachel. They were kind, good-hearted, people.

- Peter Carr