Ida 'Kathleen' Cooper

"17 September 1897 Kathleen was born at "Heathfield", Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, while her mother Ida was at home in England - her father Fred had decided to take some leave and return (from India) by s.s."India' on 25 June, but his leave was thwarted by being appointed DAAG (Deputy Assistant Adjutant General) of the Kurram-Kohat Force in the Kurram Valley" ** (Source: Pat McSwiney in "A Family History")

Kathleen's birth was announced in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 23 September 1897, and registered in the District of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, December 1897 (BMD Index 1837-1983 Vol 6a, p.390))

1907 January her father died in India - Kathleen was nine years old - and her mother, aged 46, suffered a mental breakdown.

"The death of her husband hit Ida so hard that she never fully recovered her mental stability. Lydia Coates (wife of Henry Charles Coates), who had been nanny to all three children, was given the responsibility of being both a mother to Kathleen and Ida, for the latter reverted to being an adolescent on and off for the rest of her life (about another 27 years)." [quote by her nephew John Murray "Pat"McSwiney]

"Kathleen married in her thirties - a Merchant Navy Captain, Charles Cooper, who was considerably older than herself."

1928 19 September, Wednesday, The Tatler, London, England: Weddings & Engagements: Marrying Abroad

... R.N.R. (Royal Navy Reserve), of 36, Upperton Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex, England and Miss Ida Kathleen McSwiney, only daughter of the late Colonel E. F. H. McSwiney, C.B., D.S.O., Indian Cavalry, and of Mrs. McSwiney of Lybrooke, Broadway...

"Aunty K was godmother to Pat McSwiney. She "was an extremely kind, sweet and generous woman, and always full of fun - a gaiety of spirit, which she kept alive through a deep and abiding faith and practice as a Christian."

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Pat's sister, Joan McSwiney's childhood address book has Kathleen's address as

3 North Hall Mews, Pittville Circus road, Cheltenham (Gloucestershire, England),

and her married address as 8 Low Road, Worlaby, near Brigg, north Lincolnshire.

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• * [Extract from Wikipedia reference Kurrum in 1897 below:]

In the early 19th century the Kurram Valley was under the government of Kabul, and every five or six years a military expedition was sent to collect the revenue, the soldiers living meanwhile at free quarters on the people. It was not until about 1848 that the Turis were brought directly under the control of Kabul, when a governor was appointed, who established himself in Kurram. The Turis, being Shiah Muslims, never liked the Afghan rule.

During the second Afghan War, when Sir Frederick Roberts advanced by way of the Kurram Valley and the Peiwar Kotal to Kabul, the Turis lent him every assistance in their power, and in consequence their independence was granted them in 1880.

"The administration of the Kurram Valley was finally rendered to British authorities, at the request of the Turis themselves, in 1890. Technically it ranked, not as a British district, but as an agency or administered area.

The Kohat-Kurram expedition of 1897 under Colonel W. Hill. During the frontier risings of 1897 the inhabitants of the Kurram valley, chiefly the Massozai section of the Orakzais, were infected by the general excitement, and attacked the British camp at Sadda and other posts. A force of 14,230 British troops traversed the country, and the tribesmen were severely punished. In Lord Curzon's reorganization of the frontier in 1900-1901, British troops were withdrawn from the forts in the Kurram Valley, and were replaced by the Kurram militia, reorganized in two battalions, and chiefly drawn from the Turi tribe.

In recent years the Kurram Valley has once again assumed a strategic position and has been the site of intense Taliban activities. The armed forces of Pakistan extended their major offensive against Al-Qaeda and Taliban elements in FATA dubbed Operation Rah-e-Nijat to Kurram in December 2009."