All Souls

Remembering my nan & grandad. Nan, born Maud Gladys Robertson was the youngest child of William & Adelaide Robertson. William was a costermonger with a fruit and veg stall in Hoxton market. They had 13 children. My nan married my grandad George Albert Withey at the beginning of world war 2 . Their first child George was 5 years old before he met his dad.

My grandad fought in Burma during the war. He never talked about it and if asked simply said we were not men we were animals. He survived his convoy of ships being torpedoed dispute never learning to swim.

During the war my nan worked for an Italian man who had left London to escape internment to make ballet shoes for the royal ballet.

As a child I have fond memories of my nan cooking with us and letting us pick her rose petals to make perfume in old medicine bottles. My grandad I remember as a family man, with a tattoo on his arm who would speak gobbldy gook and tell us it was Burmese. He made fantastic things like a dolls cradle and a dolls house from wood.

Today I remember them.