ABSTRACT

Charles was born in 1913, the first of his mother's children. His father migrated to Panama before he was born and although his mother subsequently married, he was brought up by his maternal grandparents. His grandfather was a 'boss mason, carpenter, both' and his grandmother who 'was of the descendance half European', a schoolteacher and secretary. Charles migrated at the start of the Second World War and worked abroad as a clerk for most of his life. It was difficult, childminders and that sort of thing. Dashing about, buses and trains. What used to keep the author going was that he/she could take her/his children and go home and get out of this awful marriage and England. Elizabeth is the second of Irene's five children. She was born in 1962, and gave birth to her daughter, her only child, when she was eighteen.