Tilly Aston Recording Transcript
Title: With Love to My Niece
As I have drifted or struggled along through life I have gradually acquired many things. Always I have greatly desired to be happy and to spread the same infection around me. This wish has been amply fulfilled.
First in a joyous fashion after the manner of the young and later in an atmosphere of hope and serenity, which I trust, may remain with me to the end. Achievement was another aim with me from the beginning and whatever effect my life attainments may have upon others there has been a fair amount of personal satisfaction in my victories over circumstance. I have striven after knowledge and won a little but the chief thing I have learned is the immensity of the store available and this I can never expect to appropriate in this life but eternity is still ahead of me. Then as I reach the quiet atoll of maturer years with time to dream in this calm of solitude I know that the best thing I have sought and won is the affection and loyalty of a precious circle of friends, for while happiness, achievements and knowledge grow less important with the passing of time the bonds of love are strengthened and drawn faster with every hour that slips away. And that is why I believe that my spoken words recorded here for you to keep will be a tie between us wherever each of us may chance to be.
Date recorded: 15th July 1937
Speaker: Matilda "Tilly" Aston
Digitally enhanced: December 2002