A reader asked if anyone recalled a drowning tragedy in Abbots Langley in 1955.

Mrs Doreen Epton of Estcourt Road, Watford, contacted the nostalgia section to relate: I am so glad to have the opportunity to recall this tragedy publicly.

The children involved were Nancy, 3, and Tony, 5, Rudaitis. They were my nephew and niece. My sister was Jean who married Alec, who was a Scot and they lived in Abbots Langley in Summerhouse Way.

The tragedy took place on March 12 1955, so we are coming up to the 50th anniversary and frankly I am so glad to have this opportunity to mark the anniversary of a day I will never forget. I think it affected quite a number of people in the village.

There were quite a few children skating on the ice of what was then a pond at St Saviour's College. I think, after the tragedy they filled it in and there are houses and flats on it now. I could be wrong but that is my impression. I did not live in the village but in Woodside.

A number of children fell in when the ice cracked and they were pulling each other out. My sister, Jean, was out shopping but the children were being looked after by their elder sister, Valerie. As it happened, Valerie fell in too but Tony and Nancy helped and pulled her out. With that, they were running back to safety when the ice gave way again and the two of them fell in and were pinned under the ice. There was a Mr Clough who tried to get the children out but it was so cold and freezing.

There were just those two: they were discovered dead when they got them out.

The police contacted her and after she had been to the mortuary to identify the bodies, she came and told me they had both died.

A lot of people were upset about it. They had a wonderful funeral for them and a cardinal came down from London to conduct the service.

But the tragedy did not end there.

It broke my sister's marriage up eventually. Alec really loved my sister and those children and he became so upset he turned to drink. He loved them so much and they found him dead in the town, in Watford, probably from cold and the drink.

Jean remarried to a Mr Liberty and eventually Valerie, who had been looking after the children, had two children of her own. Jean was a traffic warden and in 1973 she was driving home to Abbots Langley with her two grandchildren, Tommy and Tony in the car.

It was Tony's birthday and he was looking forward to getting home to his party.

It was wet and my sister Jean lost control of the car and it skidded and hit a tree. She was killed, aged 47. Thankfully, the children survived: they were both bruised and shaken up.

So my little nephew and niece drowned and their mother, my sister, was killed in a car crash but still it did not end there.

Six years later, Valerie, my surviving niece was murdered in Luton.

I did not know the details. All the police would tell me was that it was a wino from Watford.

I come from an old Watford family and I was one of ten brothers and sisters.

I had four sisters who have all died and six brothers, two of whom died within a couple of months of each other. I am 76 and I think it is amazing that I have lived as long as I have so much longer than any of my siblings. The eldest of them lasted until he was 65 but I am still here.

People ask me what our family did to deserve it all.