THE son of a former Brecon woman is researching a tragic event that occurred in the town more than 75 years ago.

Andrew Neather has written to the Brecon and Radnor Express seeking information about the death of his mother Elisabeth’s elder sister, Anne Margaret Lawrence, who slipped into the River Tarrell and drowned while picking flowers on May 4 1940 aged just seven years old.

The inquest into the little girl’s death was covered by the Brecon and Radnor Express and a report appeared in the paper five days later.

The following week a sad item also appeared in the paper covering the funeral which had taken place at St David’s Church, Llanfaes, on May 7.

Mr Neather says, at the time, his mother and her sister were living with their family at 16 St David’s Crescent, Brecon.

The Lawrence family continued living in Brecon into the 1950s before moving away and losing touch with many of their friends in the area.

Mr Neather says the incident was rarely talked about in the family and his mother, who was four years younger than her sister, has only a sketchy knowledge of what actually occurred.

Mr Neather, who lives in south east London, said: "My mother was not quite three at the time, and doesn’t know much about the tragedy because it was never discussed while her mother, Lilian Lawrence, was alive (her father died in 1959, her mother in 1990). Indeed it’s my impression that the death hung over the family for years afterwards, and while the parents stayed together, their marriage never recovered.

"Even as a child I knew not to ask my grandmother about it, or about the many photos of Anne in a drawer in her living room.

"I am working a bit in the dark as the family has no connection to Brecon now. They were English, came to Brecon from North Devon in 1937 or 1938 and then moved to Cheltenham in 1954. My mother and her younger sister Susan, born two years after Anne’s death, attended St DavidÕs Convent School, as Anne had.

"I’m keen to try to find anyone who might have known the family, especially Anne. The inquest featured testimony from the two children out with her when she died: Margaret Evans, of Castle Farm, aged 11, and Brian ’Buster’ Joinson, aged 7, son of the Lawrences' neighbours in St David’s Crescent.

"I have been unable to trace either, though I’ve been told that Margaret is dead now."

Mr Neather, a former journalist on the Evening Standard newspaper in London, has asked for any readers from the Brecon area with information about the tragedy or who knew Brian or Margaret or any of the Lawrence family to contact the Brecon and Radnor Express. The paper has agreed to forward any information readers send in to Mr Neather.