March 31, 2024 • 17 mins
91-year-old Jean was evacuated in World War II. She never saw her mother again and was told that she died before the war ended. She appeared on series three of DNA Family Secrets to try and find out if the stories about her mother's death were true. In this podcast Turi catches up with Jean a year after her episode was broadcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, I'm Turi King, and today I'm talking to the rather wonderful Jean from series
three of DNA Family Secrets. Jean, I don't know if you are aware of this,
but your story on the programme has gone a bit viral on social media. I think because you
were just so kind and empathetic about what had happened to your mum and what we had found out.
(00:21):
So, for those who haven't seen it, take us right back to the very beginning. Why did
you come to see us at DNA Family Secrets?I was evacuated when I was seven, with my
sister. And so, we were taken to school, we had to wait in the playground. We all had a number,
(00:45):
we had to stand behind that particular number.Parents were not allowed to go to the station
with us. They had to leave us on the coach, and then we went on the train. But because I was so
upset about going, I didn't want to go and my mum told me that I was only going for one day,
(01:08):
and that she would come and get me at bedtime.When she didn't come at bedtime, and Mrs. Slater,
the lady we went to live with said we had to go to bed, I think I was very unhappy and kicked off,
and I don't think that started very well, because eventually I was taken to live with
(01:33):
another lady. And it was while I was living with Mrs. Benson that obviously it was my father who’d
been to see me, and apparently, we were going to be moved the next day. And Mrs. Benson was
left to tell me that my mother died.And I didn't understand what death was
(01:58):
because nobody had ever died before. I didn't know anything about it. And then somewhere I had it in
my mind that my mother being bombed in the house, because everything was being bombed in those days,
and I just accepted that. An adult had told me, nobody mentioned my mother's name ever again,
(02:23):
and that was it, she was out of our lives.So, your dad shows up, and then pretty
quickly afterwards, I mean he doesn't even do it himself, but he has somebody
tell you that your mum has been killed.He asked Mrs. Benson to tell me. She sat
me on her lap, and she said, your daddy has asked me to tell you something. He's asked me
(02:47):
to tell you that your mummy has died.But you're obviously questioning this
because you come to us to find out if that's true. So, what's prompted you to do that?
That was when I asked Kevin, when he was going to Manchester to visit family, and I asked him,
(03:09):
just out of curiosity, could he have a look and see what had been built where my house used to
be? And of course, he came back and said, well, your house is still there. It wasn't bombed.
All my life I had believed that the house had been bombed and my mother was in it, and she
(03:34):
died. And that was what I'd always believed because nobody told me any different. And her
name was never mentioned anywhere to me again.So, life moves on, and I know you get married,
and you have a baby, and the marriage doesn't work out. And what happens next?
(03:56):
Well, I had to write to my father and ask if we could go and live with him until we got ourselves
settled. I was fortunate he said yes. Went to live with dad and my stepmother and I got a job,
I suppose we were quite happy. And then I got the chance to come to Gloucester to open up
(04:23):
a new office for the same company, and I thought that was an ideal chance to start
again with everything. And I obviously met somebody else, got married, had my own home,
and then my two boys. I was happy.So fast forward to a couple of years
(04:45):
ago and you see this advert and you come to us. I was thinking, gosh, this is going to be a really
interesting one and possibly relatively easy because I thought, well, surely,
we'll just find a death certificate for your mum.But it was actually a really interesting one
because couldn't find anything. Knew your mum's name and was looking and couldn't find
(05:11):
anything. And we thought, well, it's very rare that someone's death wasn't registered
even during the war. So, then we start to think, okay, did she actually die? Did she remarry? Did
she survive? Did she move and started looking for marriages for people with your mum's name.
(05:32):
So, both the maiden name and also the married name. Alice is obviously a really incredibly
common name, particularly at that period. And even Alice Maud is quite common. So, it's a case
of kind of going through each of these, there’s so many of them. And then one of the people who
does research for us spotted something.They spotted somebody with the name,
(05:56):
so the birth date, the day was right, but the year was completely wrong. But
we thought, let's just order the marriage certificate. Let's just see if this is her.
So, she obviously, kind of, disguised herself with the date, she'd made herself much younger,
as we often find sometimes happens in records. But once the marriage certificate arrived,
(06:22):
her sister was on it as a witness. So, we could see that really, really quickly. Oh,
okay, it is her. So, she's married this individual, and then it's a case of right,
did she have any children? So, we’re searching through all of the birth records,
and I could see that she had had a child. And then is this woman still alive? So,
her name was Valerie. And then we could see that she'd passed away. And I'm madly looking to see if
(06:45):
she's had any children. And then I could see that she had had Dawn and Cheryl, and Cheryl
was back home. And so, I'm from Canada, and she's back home in Canada, and I'm madly trying to get
a hold of her. And also trace Dawn. I can see they're getting married and things like this.
And it was one of these things of calling this lady up and telling her this story of what we're
(07:07):
doing. And would she take a DNA test because we think that you may actually have an auntie,
and she was so great and so touched and willing to take a DNA test immediately. And then with that,
I could look against your DNA to see whether or not this was right. And it was.
So, when I was telling you that we found your mum, how was that?
(07:30):
Because it must be a lot to take in all at once.Well, when I was coming home from Leicester, I sat
in the car and I thought 83 years it's taken me to find out that she didn't die, and I sat there,
and I felt deprived. If she hadn't left me, we could have done this, we could have done that.
(07:57):
She could have seen me get married, she could have seen this, that and the other. And I did feel as
though somebody had stolen something from me.And then I started to think over the story
you told me. And all of a sudden, I felt quite selfish. I was deprived,
(08:19):
who was I? I’d gone through school, I worked, I got married, gone through a broken marriage, still
had my daughter with me, moved to Gloucester, had two little boys, seen my daughter get married,
seen my boys get married, held their babies.And I thought what do you mean,
(08:43):
you've been deprived? Don't you think she was deprived? I felt ashamed of myself in a way,
you're feeling sorry for yourself. And I was going through what you told me, and she died in 1958.
She did.Now, she had three daughters,
(09:06):
and we were all born in April, we’ve all got April birthdays. What did she see of their
lives? Nothing. Valerie was only 15 when her mum died. So, she not seen Valerie grow up really.
She not seeing Valerie get married. Not seeing Valerie's children. And yeah, so many emotions,
(09:34):
but ashamed of myself, sort of thinking, well you were deprived, what was her life like?
And that's what I'd sort of thought of since.Analysing it all and thinking about it, I thought,
well, it couldn't have been a happy marriage. And for her to of got married again and had a baby,
(09:59):
and for us to have been wafted away back to Manchester, to the family that we didn't know,
and obviously they chosen people that my mother didn't know. If she'd have known the family,
she would have come looking for us at some point. I thought no, dad had come along,
(10:21):
and he told her that, you know, yeah okay, you go, but you’re not having those two.
There's a lot of funny thoughts goes through my mind, a lot of emotion, but also, you know,
well dad only used to come over from Harrogate about once every three months,
you know, he came saw us for a couple of hours and then wafted back to Harrogate.
(10:45):
So, after you see me and I tell you that we've managed to find out what's
happened to your mum and that you've got nieces, and you then go in to see Stacey,
who shows you a picture of your mum. And you'd not seen a photo before. What was that like?
It was absolutely amazing. And I looked at it and I thought, when I was younger,
(11:12):
I looked a bit like that, and I just wanted to keep looking at it. And as soon as I came home,
I put it in the frame, put it on the top of that cabinet and I look at it all the time. Yeah,
but 83 years to see what your mother looked like, gosh. But I wasn't disappointed or
(11:34):
anything, I was just happy to see her.One of the big things for me was when I
was talking to Dawn, and she told me this story, that everything, sort of, clicked into place,
because she remembered her mum telling her about how her mum, your mum, had a photo of
(11:59):
two little girls on the bedside table and would never say who they were. And I know Stacey told
you that story when you went to go and see her and those two little girls in the photo, it must
have been you and your sister. How was that?Well, to know that we'd been remembered, very
(12:23):
emotional, and I began wishing that I could put time back. I really would love to have been even a
small part of her life. I would love to have been a part of my life. I mean, I loved my mum. I think
(12:44):
all through my life I've wanted a mum, and to know that, yeah, we were still a part of her life,
even though she couldn't see us, didn't know where we were, what we were doing, but it was lovely to
know that, yeah, she remembered two little girls.You have quite a lot of family now. So obviously
(13:11):
Valerie, your half-sister, she has two daughters, Dawn, and Cheryl. So, they're your nieces?
That's right, yes.But you've also got
wider family now, because as I'm doing the research, I'm contacting these people. So,
you have people like Damian and John. Tell me about that, you now have this huge new family.
Well, it was lovely to talk to Dawn, it really was. And then not long afterwards, she rang me
(13:39):
again and I spoke to Cheryl. And also, to Cheryl’s son, who was just about to get married. And from
then we found out about John, one of my slightly removed cousins, and Damian, and
from then their families, people who remembered my mother. And all of a sudden, this new world
(14:08):
opens with all these nice new people in it.Yeah, so now the programmes out and you've
had some time now, are you still in touch with Dawn and Cheryl?
Oh, yes. Oh, Kevin's got an app going, you see, and everybody puts their bits on it. So, everybody
(14:30):
knows what everybody else is doing. There's no privacy anymore. No, everybody knows who's
going and when they're going, and they all add their little bits, Susan puts her bit on there.
And of course, Susan has spoken to Dawn as well. They are going to meet up,
but Susan's got a girl cousin and she'd never had a girl cousin before. It's just
(14:56):
like a family get together, which is lovely.And all of us, for some reason, we can always
end on a laugh, no matter how miserable you might feel before they ring, you know, they're lovely.
It's like you're this little epicentre, that through taking that little step and coming on
(15:17):
DNA Family Secrets, you've brought all these families together, around you.
And of course, family history, I don't think it's talked about enough these days, I don't think,
majority people I don't think know their family history. It's a new interest for all of them. And
(15:38):
I'm glad it's happened now, if you hadn't have done all that work, they would never have known,
because well once I’ve gone, they're not going to be able to ask, who and why and what.
Do you feel settled?I do feel settled,
yes. It was one thing knowing that she hadn't died, but it was another big thing knowing that
(16:05):
she hadn't forgotten us. And yes, that was a lovely settled feeling, she didn't forget us.
I would have loved to have held my daughter and said, here you are mum. I thought that when I was
in the hospital when I had Pat actually. There were couple of girls either side,
(16:28):
and they pulled the curtains round at visiting time, and I could hear both
the mums talking to the new babies, and I was in the middle, and I didn't have a mum to say,
here you are mum, here’s your granddaughter.So, one of the things that we did was we went
(16:51):
and located where your mum's grave is. Got a little map…
Ah, Dawn was telling me last night, near Manchester United's football ground.
Is it? I didn't spot that. But have you been? Are you going to go?
It was more or less arranged. And then of course I wasn't well and then we decided at the moment
(17:13):
it would be a little bit too much. But yes, I want to go. I want to go and take flowers. Apparently,
Dawn has got friends who are buried in the same cemetery. But yes, I want to go,
and I want to put flowers, just to go and do that. Just this one last thing.
(17:34):
Jean, you are completely adorable, thank you so much for talking to me.
Hello, I'm Turi King, and today I'm talking to the rather wonderful Jean from series
three of DNA Family Secrets. Jean, I don't know if you are aware of this,
but your story on the programme has gone a bit viral on social media. I think because you
were just so kind and empathetic about what had happened to your mum and what we had found out.
(00:21):
So, for those who haven't seen it, take us right back to the very beginning. Why did
you come to see us at DNA Family Secrets?I was evacuated when I was seven, with my
sister. And so, we were taken to school, we had to wait in the playground. We all had a number,
(00:45):
we had to stand behind that particular number.Parents were not allowed to go to the station
with us. They had to leave us on the coach, and then we went on the train. But because I was so
upset about going, I didn't want to go and my mum told me that I was only going for one day,
(01:08):
and that she would come and get me at bedtime.When she didn't come at bedtime, and Mrs. Slater,
the lady we went to live with said we had to go to bed, I think I was very unhappy and kicked off,
and I don't think that started very well, because eventually I was taken to live with
(01:33):
another lady. And it was while I was living with Mrs. Benson that obviously it was my father who’d
been to see me, and apparently, we were going to be moved the next day. And Mrs. Benson was
left to tell me that my mother died.And I didn't understand what death was
(01:58):
because nobody had ever died before. I didn't know anything about it. And then somewhere I had it in
my mind that my mother being bombed in the house, because everything was being bombed in those days,
and I just accepted that. An adult had told me, nobody mentioned my mother's name ever again,
(02:23):
and that was it, she was out of our lives.So, your dad shows up, and then pretty
quickly afterwards, I mean he doesn't even do it himself, but he has somebody
tell you that your mum has been killed.He asked Mrs. Benson to tell me. She sat
me on her lap, and she said, your daddy has asked me to tell you something. He's asked me
(02:47):
to tell you that your mummy has died.But you're obviously questioning this
because you come to us to find out if that's true. So, what's prompted you to do that?
That was when I asked Kevin, when he was going to Manchester to visit family, and I asked him,
(03:09):
just out of curiosity, could he have a look and see what had been built where my house used to
be? And of course, he came back and said, well, your house is still there. It wasn't bombed.
All my life I had believed that the house had been bombed and my mother was in it, and she
(03:34):
died. And that was what I'd always believed because nobody told me any different. And her
name was never mentioned anywhere to me again.So, life moves on, and I know you get married,
and you have a baby, and the marriage doesn't work out. And what happens next?
(03:56):
Well, I had to write to my father and ask if we could go and live with him until we got ourselves
settled. I was fortunate he said yes. Went to live with dad and my stepmother and I got a job,
I suppose we were quite happy. And then I got the chance to come to Gloucester to open up
(04:23):
a new office for the same company, and I thought that was an ideal chance to start
again with everything. And I obviously met somebody else, got married, had my own home,
and then my two boys. I was happy.So fast forward to a couple of years
(04:45):
ago and you see this advert and you come to us. I was thinking, gosh, this is going to be a really
interesting one and possibly relatively easy because I thought, well, surely,
we'll just find a death certificate for your mum.But it was actually a really interesting one
because couldn't find anything. Knew your mum's name and was looking and couldn't find
(05:11):
anything. And we thought, well, it's very rare that someone's death wasn't registered
even during the war. So, then we start to think, okay, did she actually die? Did she remarry? Did
she survive? Did she move and started looking for marriages for people with your mum's name.
(05:32):
So, both the maiden name and also the married name. Alice is obviously a really incredibly
common name, particularly at that period. And even Alice Maud is quite common. So, it's a case
of kind of going through each of these, there’s so many of them. And then one of the people who
does research for us spotted something.They spotted somebody with the name,
(05:56):
so the birth date, the day was right, but the year was completely wrong. But
we thought, let's just order the marriage certificate. Let's just see if this is her.
So, she obviously, kind of, disguised herself with the date, she'd made herself much younger,
as we often find sometimes happens in records. But once the marriage certificate arrived,
(06:22):
her sister was on it as a witness. So, we could see that really, really quickly. Oh,
okay, it is her. So, she's married this individual, and then it's a case of right,
did she have any children? So, we’re searching through all of the birth records,
and I could see that she had had a child. And then is this woman still alive? So,
her name was Valerie. And then we could see that she'd passed away. And I'm madly looking to see if
(06:45):
she's had any children. And then I could see that she had had Dawn and Cheryl, and Cheryl
was back home. And so, I'm from Canada, and she's back home in Canada, and I'm madly trying to get
a hold of her. And also trace Dawn. I can see they're getting married and things like this.
And it was one of these things of calling this lady up and telling her this story of what we're
(07:07):
doing. And would she take a DNA test because we think that you may actually have an auntie,
and she was so great and so touched and willing to take a DNA test immediately. And then with that,
I could look against your DNA to see whether or not this was right. And it was.
So, when I was telling you that we found your mum, how was that?
(07:30):
Because it must be a lot to take in all at once.Well, when I was coming home from Leicester, I sat
in the car and I thought 83 years it's taken me to find out that she didn't die, and I sat there,
and I felt deprived. If she hadn't left me, we could have done this, we could have done that.
(07:57):
She could have seen me get married, she could have seen this, that and the other. And I did feel as
though somebody had stolen something from me.And then I started to think over the story
you told me. And all of a sudden, I felt quite selfish. I was deprived,
(08:19):
who was I? I’d gone through school, I worked, I got married, gone through a broken marriage, still
had my daughter with me, moved to Gloucester, had two little boys, seen my daughter get married,
seen my boys get married, held their babies.And I thought what do you mean,
(08:43):
you've been deprived? Don't you think she was deprived? I felt ashamed of myself in a way,
you're feeling sorry for yourself. And I was going through what you told me, and she died in 1958.
She did.Now, she had three daughters,
(09:06):
and we were all born in April, we’ve all got April birthdays. What did she see of their
lives? Nothing. Valerie was only 15 when her mum died. So, she not seen Valerie grow up really.
She not seeing Valerie get married. Not seeing Valerie's children. And yeah, so many emotions,
(09:34):
but ashamed of myself, sort of thinking, well you were deprived, what was her life like?
And that's what I'd sort of thought of since.Analysing it all and thinking about it, I thought,
well, it couldn't have been a happy marriage. And for her to of got married again and had a baby,
(09:59):
and for us to have been wafted away back to Manchester, to the family that we didn't know,
and obviously they chosen people that my mother didn't know. If she'd have known the family,
she would have come looking for us at some point. I thought no, dad had come along,
(10:21):
and he told her that, you know, yeah okay, you go, but you’re not having those two.
There's a lot of funny thoughts goes through my mind, a lot of emotion, but also, you know,
well dad only used to come over from Harrogate about once every three months,
you know, he came saw us for a couple of hours and then wafted back to Harrogate.
(10:45):
So, after you see me and I tell you that we've managed to find out what's
happened to your mum and that you've got nieces, and you then go in to see Stacey,
who shows you a picture of your mum. And you'd not seen a photo before. What was that like?
It was absolutely amazing. And I looked at it and I thought, when I was younger,
(11:12):
I looked a bit like that, and I just wanted to keep looking at it. And as soon as I came home,
I put it in the frame, put it on the top of that cabinet and I look at it all the time. Yeah,
but 83 years to see what your mother looked like, gosh. But I wasn't disappointed or
(11:34):
anything, I was just happy to see her.One of the big things for me was when I
was talking to Dawn, and she told me this story, that everything, sort of, clicked into place,
because she remembered her mum telling her about how her mum, your mum, had a photo of
(11:59):
two little girls on the bedside table and would never say who they were. And I know Stacey told
you that story when you went to go and see her and those two little girls in the photo, it must
have been you and your sister. How was that?Well, to know that we'd been remembered, very
(12:23):
emotional, and I began wishing that I could put time back. I really would love to have been even a
small part of her life. I would love to have been a part of my life. I mean, I loved my mum. I think
(12:44):
all through my life I've wanted a mum, and to know that, yeah, we were still a part of her life,
even though she couldn't see us, didn't know where we were, what we were doing, but it was lovely to
know that, yeah, she remembered two little girls.You have quite a lot of family now. So obviously
(13:11):
Valerie, your half-sister, she has two daughters, Dawn, and Cheryl. So, they're your nieces?
That's right, yes.But you've also got
wider family now, because as I'm doing the research, I'm contacting these people. So,
you have people like Damian and John. Tell me about that, you now have this huge new family.
Well, it was lovely to talk to Dawn, it really was. And then not long afterwards, she rang me
(13:39):
again and I spoke to Cheryl. And also, to Cheryl’s son, who was just about to get married. And from
then we found out about John, one of my slightly removed cousins, and Damian, and
from then their families, people who remembered my mother. And all of a sudden, this new world
(14:08):
opens with all these nice new people in it.Yeah, so now the programmes out and you've
had some time now, are you still in touch with Dawn and Cheryl?
Oh, yes. Oh, Kevin's got an app going, you see, and everybody puts their bits on it. So, everybody
(14:30):
knows what everybody else is doing. There's no privacy anymore. No, everybody knows who's
going and when they're going, and they all add their little bits, Susan puts her bit on there.
And of course, Susan has spoken to Dawn as well. They are going to meet up,
but Susan's got a girl cousin and she'd never had a girl cousin before. It's just
(14:56):
like a family get together, which is lovely.And all of us, for some reason, we can always
end on a laugh, no matter how miserable you might feel before they ring, you know, they're lovely.
It's like you're this little epicentre, that through taking that little step and coming on
(15:17):
DNA Family Secrets, you've brought all these families together, around you.
And of course, family history, I don't think it's talked about enough these days, I don't think,
majority people I don't think know their family history. It's a new interest for all of them. And
(15:38):
I'm glad it's happened now, if you hadn't have done all that work, they would never have known,
because well once I’ve gone, they're not going to be able to ask, who and why and what.
Do you feel settled?I do feel settled,
yes. It was one thing knowing that she hadn't died, but it was another big thing knowing that
(16:05):
she hadn't forgotten us. And yes, that was a lovely settled feeling, she didn't forget us.
I would have loved to have held my daughter and said, here you are mum. I thought that when I was
in the hospital when I had Pat actually. There were couple of girls either side,
(16:28):
and they pulled the curtains round at visiting time, and I could hear both
the mums talking to the new babies, and I was in the middle, and I didn't have a mum to say,
here you are mum, here’s your granddaughter.So, one of the things that we did was we went
(16:51):
and located where your mum's grave is. Got a little map…
Ah, Dawn was telling me last night, near Manchester United's football ground.
Is it? I didn't spot that. But have you been? Are you going to go?
It was more or less arranged. And then of course I wasn't well and then we decided at the moment
(17:13):
it would be a little bit too much. But yes, I want to go. I want to go and take flowers. Apparently,
Dawn has got friends who are buried in the same cemetery. But yes, I want to go,
and I want to put flowers, just to go and do that. Just this one last thing.
(17:34):
Jean, you are completely adorable, thank you so much for talking to me.
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