Mr. Edward Allingham (Ted) Beggs and Mrs. Catherine Elizabeth Doreen Lachman

Editorial Department • Published 12 Aug 2010 16:00 0 Comments

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A brother and sister from a well known Fermanagh family have died within 15 days of other.

Edward Allingham Beggs, affectionately known as Ted died in June aged 91 near his home in Wiltshire. One of his sisters, Catherine Elizabeth Doreen Lachman, who had been in a care home in Enniskillen, died on June 23 aged 93. The Beggs family were well known in the Kesh area where the family home was at Tullynaguigy.

Ted, who was born in March 1919, a son of John and Nancy Beggs of Tullynaguigy, was the second son and had four sisters.

In his youth, he helped with farming activities, including driving cattle to markets in Irvinestown and Enniskillen and following his education, left Ireland in 1942, a day after his older brother, Harry, a Battle of Britain pilot, was lost at sea on the aircraft carrier, HMS Avenger near Gibraltar.

Ted worked for Vickers Armstrong of Manchester, a company involved in building Spitfires during the War.

He married Sybil in 1947 and worked for a company of civil engineers and they enjoyed living in a tithe barn at Rushden Farm where they kept Hereford cattle and horses.

Ted was a keen member of the Ulster Society in Reading and became its Chairman in 1965 when he hosted the annual dinner attended by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Captain Terence O’Neill.

Later in working life, Ted joined Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, Civil Engineers, to help manage the building of the M4 spur road near his home at Newbury. In 1973, he moved to Botswana to help with the construction of a new roadways throughout South Africa and Rhodesia. Following the completion of this project, in 1979, he was posted to Muscat and Oman and worked for Colonel Gadaffi in Libya.

He retired in 1983 to Breach Cottage, Easton Royal and a few years later moved to Pewsey in Wiltshire.

Throughout his life, Ted was passionate horses in particular and supported the Tedworth Hunt.

His sister, Doreen born in March 1917, attended the Collegiate School and then left for England to begin a career in nursing. Following the death of her husband, Gustav, she returned to Kesh to be closer to her sisters, Joan(Mrs. Crawford Breen) and Miriam(Mrs. Law). She enjoyed gardening at her home at Crevenish Road, Kesh. She had been a resident of Ashbrooke Care Home, Tempo Road, Enniskillen for a period of time before her death.

Following Doreen’s funeral service, her ashes were buried in the family plot at Ardess Graveyard.

The Beggs family are distant relatives of the Ballyshannon poet, William Allingham.

Both Ted and Doreen are survived by two sisters, Joan(Mrs. Crawford Breen, Enniskillen) and Miriam(Mrs.Law), in a nursing home in Enniskillen. They were predeceased by a brother, Harry and sister, Margaret.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 12 Aug 10

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