Nearly 70 years after Miss Jessie Mollett closed her tearooms in Appledore for the last time, two of her relatives are breathing new life into a family tradition.

Alexandra Cowell moved to Appledore in 1987 and her sister Frances McDonald joined suit 20 years later. The sisters, whose maiden name is Massey, did not realise it at the time but they already had a family connection with the village.

When Alexandra researched the family tree, she discovered that they had a third cousin, Jessie Mollett, who ran a tea shop in the village in the 1920s and 30s.

Miss Mollett’s Tea Rooms, as the establishment was called, closed with the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, but last Sunday, Frances and Alexandra found themselves opening it to the public once again.

For full story see this week's Tenterden Express.