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Mary was born on the 22^nd of August in 1915 in Sheffield and was the youngest of 6 girls and she is the last surviving member of her family. After marrying my father Mr Ronald Iosson they moved to the village of Comberbach in Cheshire in the 1930's. She had a total of 5 children of which 4 survive. I used to have an older sister but sadly she passed away during the war succumbing to that deadly disease diphtheria. I am now the eldest and have a brother, Malcolm, and two sisters, Shena and Ghislaine.

She still lives in the same house in which she moved to when they first moved to Comberbach and in which all of us were born. All through her life she has looked and cared for all her family and has been always very generous in everything always giving more than she receives. Being of good Yorkshire blood of course she was always careful with money, like when she ran off down the road after the milkman because she was short changed by 1d. (For those who are not familiar with the old pennies - 1d was equivalent to 0.41p)

She has been an active member of the local Women's Institute for many years and also on the committee of the local Memorial Hall. It was earlier this year in September that a new hall was opened and she was honoured by the village by being asked to cut the tape at the opening ceremony and was presented with a ceremonial key.

All these recipes on these pages have been given for your pleasure and enjoyment

The new Comberbach Village hall which was officially opened on the 7th of September 2002 was built as a replacement of the old Memorial Hall which was opened in 1949.

The old village hall which used to be an old POW hut from the 2nd World War. The nearby Marbury Estate and Marbury hall was used as a German prisoner of War camp during and shortly after the war. After the war the prisoners were re-patriated, the old POW huts and the Hall became homes for Polish refugees and low cost housing for workers at the nearby giant ICI chemical plants.

One of the huts however was donated by the estate to Comberbach for a Memorial Hall in memory of 4 Comberbach residents who were lost during the War.

It was rebuilt over the next 2 years and opened in 1949. It has been in daily use ever since. By 1993 it was considered that this pre-fab. building was now past its useful life and was getting to expensive to repair. So it was decided by the hall management committee to set up a new committee under the direction of George Robinson to raise funds to build a new hall. The proceeds of the Annual fetes would now be directed for this purpose, together with other fund raising events, such as the annual Plant sale in May, bring & buy sales and a village lottery draw. Funds however were slow in coming, the estimated costs escalating all led to some difficult times for the Management Committee. On top of this there was a certain amount of controversy surrounding the location of the new hall as it involved taking up a substantial area of the Children’s playground and recreational area. However after receiving loans from Vale Royal District Council and a National Lottery grant the hall was eventually completed and then opened on the 7th of September 2002. The hall was opened by Mrs M.Iosson, one of Comberbach’s oldest residents having been on the old hall committee for at least 25 years and also with the Comberbach branch of the Women’s Institute, whose meetings were all held at the old hall.

Apricot Buns	Marmalade Fruit Loaf
Pineapple Layer Cake	Grassmere Shortcake
Orange Chocolate Fingers	Gloucester Ale Cheese Toasts
Bannocks	Apple and Ginger Buns
Ginger Beer	Date loaf
Banana nut bread	Orange and Chocolate Cheesecake
Malt Bread	Apricot loaf
Apple Ginger Bread