The lady more in the centre with the polka dot blouse is my nan, Gertrude Davidson nee Hutchins.

And the ladies she are with, are the ladies that prepared the VDay party in Fulham, London in 1944.

Nan did not have an easy life. Nan was born in 1893 in Leicestershire, England to a nurse, Maria Hutchins, who had had an affair with an eminent Jewish Doctor. In 1893 this was a disgrace - not accepted - and totally socially unacceptable. The couple never got married, and Maria left my Nan with her own mother and took off to South Africa for 12 years, leaving Ada Hutchins to raise her granddaughter. When Ada died in 1908, Maria had to return to a child she didn't know, and who didn't know her.

When my nan met George Albert Wilmore, she knew she was going to marry him, and did. She proceeded to have my Aunt Joan, and then fell pregnant a second time with her son Francis. During her second pregnancy, Albert (as he was known) skipped town on a boat to Canada (somewhat ironic). He was a renowned concert pianist that apparently left town with a new woman - he didnt want the job of being a father. We believe he settled in Burlington, but all of my internet research has not shown him landing in Canada.

In the early 1920's nan met Leonard Victor Davidson, a man willing to take on her two children and who loved her. She remarried. I have never found proof of her divorce, so i am not sure how she managed to do this. Nan and Granddad had 5 more children, Eric, Margaret, Peter, Barbara and Linda; today only the girls still live.

Linda is my mum. She was born on July 24, 1940 in London - when my nan was 48 YEARS OLD!. The family was living in a set of flats on one side of London - the type of flats where the hallways are on the outside and you walk up cement stairs to get to your flat. Family of 7 in a 2 bedroom flat, and on one income. The flats were a part of a 'court' where there were many sets of flats all on one area of land, with a common play area. During a night of bombing, the flats were damaged beyond repair and the family had to be relocated partway across London.

So off they trooped to Kinnoul Road - they didn't own a car and had to move their lives with 5 kids under the age of 12. The London Council offered my nan house number 27, but my nan thought it was dirty and told the Council there was no way she was moving her family into that mess, and demanded another house, so they moved her to number 9. Sometime later Kinnoul road was bombed, and the gas lines were broken. The family that had moved into #27 had huddled in their cellar to survive the bomb blasts, only to be felled by the gas. They died that day.

My mum cannot go past a building with a corrugated tin roof - you know the wavy kind - without feeling sick to her stomach. We think we have finally figured out why - the family had an Anderson shelter in the backyard; a bomb shelter that was dug partway into the ground, that had food in it, and had a corrugated roof! The family had to run into the shelter when the air raid siren went off. No wonder she hates corrugated roofs.

The one story that my mum tells all the time is that one day a small incindary (sp) bomb came through the roof of the house, into the room where my 2 year old mum was sleeping. The bomb was a dud and did not explode, so my nan picked the damn thing up and took it out to the curb! Yes, my then 50 yr old nan was having 'none of that in her house'. The night warden caught her doing this, and yelled "Mrs. Davidson, can't 'ave you putting that there! It might blow", to which my nan responded "Well it ain't staying in my 'ouse, you can keep it!" Wonder if i get my moxy from my nan!!

Tomorrow, stories my stepdad told me . . . . thank you for reading.