My Family History

I still have memories of the dull car rides we used to take across London in the 1970s to visit my Mum’s sister, Auntie Gwen Snelgrove, and their mother Eleanor, my grandma, in Ealing. I can remember we’d sometimes pass the spectacular old factories on the Great West Road and stop somewhere to buy some sweets and a packet of cigarettes for grandma – ‘Guards’ if I remember rightly.  I remember the house in Woodfield Road, W5, as being dark and old-fashioned. It had a garden that had a back gate out onto the road behind but not a lot to keep me and my sister entertained while the ‘grown-ups’ talked. One of the things we’d be given to play with would be a jar of old buttons – but that was apparently entertaining enough for a small child! Grandma would be in a wheelchair and her skin could look uncomfortable. I later found out she suffered badly from psoriasis. We sometimes bought her coal tar soap for Christmas. In turn, we’d be given a Xmas gift of a box of Harrods chocolates – incl...

Eileen’s brother, my Uncle Bert, joined the RAF, leaving Auntie Gwen to run the flower shop in West London. After initial training, Bert was told he wasn’t fit to fly but became a radio operator and was posted to North Africa. A chirpy Londoner, Bert sent a series of letters and cards as his units travelled across North Africa and then through Italy. His first letter of 1945 followed news of his fat her's - my grandfather's - death from a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1944. 21/1/45 RAF Signals, “G” Air Section, 15 Army Group (B.S), C.M.F . Dear Eileen  "Mum and Dad" - Ealing, 1944 Thank you for your two letters explaining things so nicely. I received those two and Gwen’s together on the 20 th – three weeks after they were written…  You refer to two letters written by Gwen saying that Dad was seriously ill. I am afraid they have not arrived. The fault was in using an American address, they go to America fi...