wotsisname?

On Monday, February 14, 2011, Hamilton wrote to Pam

Hi Pam

My favourite uncle Dennis, who his older sister always called ‘Denny’ was born, according to his birth certificate, as “Denis Greame” , not “Dennis Graeme”, as we had supposed. [maybe someone couldn’t spell].

Then, on your birth certificate, he is ‘Dennis Greame.’

But on your wedding certificate, there is ‘Dennis Graeme’. [ and there is ‘Georgina Ada Cutts’, as she is on your birth certificate and your wedding certificate, not ‘Ada Georgina Cutts’, as she on her wedding certificate with Dennis Graeme]

On the basis of the birth certificate , I changed his name to ‘Denis’, on the Family Tree, but now I am inclined to put back the extra ‘n’, since he, as a grown person, appears to have thought of himself as ‘Dennis’. As your mother was Georgina.

What do you think?

love

h

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On Tuesday, February 15, 2011, Pam wrote to Hamilton

I’ve always known him as Denis Graeme but I know my mother’s real name was Ada Georgina ( her mother’s name was Ada also) but she always went by her second name.

I think Denis was a bit of a ladies man – I have a photo album that he kept filled with photos circa 1940’s of dozen’s of women that had sent him their photos during the war. Lilian was his first love and his first wife and they had a little boy Graeme who sadly died as a baby. He broke up from Lilian his first love at the beginning of the war after finding her out one night with a friend and some sailors while he was on guard duty. The story goes he literally threw her out and sent her back to her mother. I don’t think anything happened between Lilian and the sailor but he was so jealous that was it! Later when she found out she was pregnant he thought the baby must be the sailors and refused to recognize the child as his. My mother said she ran into Lilian and the baby (Joan) while out shopping years later and the little girl had a strong resemblance to me. Denis and Lilian divorced by the time the war finished and then he married my mother. We had no idea dad had been married before until one day out of spite mum told us. Bev and I were 12 at the time. Dad told us the story and we thought it was very interesting.

Mum and dad’s marriage was always rocky and I put it down to the fact that Georgina was always compared to Lilian who was the love of his life. I don’t think they would have ever have gotten married if Georgie hadn’t been pregnant with Janet and Paul. They put up with each other I think for the sake of the kids and mum moved out when we were 15. Mum was never maternal so dad was always mum and dad to us long before mum left home so the breakup wasn’t much of an issue to us at the time. Now I am in my 50’s and have been married for 38 years I can look back and understand what they all went through – in their generation you couldn’t just live together or be a single parent so people ended up marrying for the wrong reasons and pregnancy was usually the culprit.

I had great respect for my parents and miss them very much. My favourite pastime is watching 1940’s black and white English war propaganda movies. I play them over and over again and they make me feel closer to my parents and my ancestry. My favorite movie is Brief Encounter with Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard directed by David Lean followed by This Happy Breed with Celia Howard and John Mills, Stanley Holloway also directed by David Lean and also Millions Like us with Patricia Roc and Gordon Jackson and Eric Portman. They are all about families and 1940’s Britain. I remember fondly sitting around the black and white telly in my teens with my sister Bev and dad on a Friday night watching these types of movies together eating a cake dad had made and of course the cup of sweet tea. I never drink tea these days I think I had too much as a child!

It seems strange we lived here in Tassie since we were 4 and until the age of 12 had never met any relatives. The next door neighbours became our aunties and uncles and one lovely old lady became my substitute grandma. I wonder what life would have been like if we had stayed in England with our family.

Anyway will talk later

cheers

Pam x x x