My great-grandmother Marion was born in one of the poorest wards in Glasgow in 1872. She was a milliner who was left widowed at a young age with two small children, after her first husband died in the Glasgow Royal Lunatic Asylum at Gartnavel. Five years later she quietly married a retired engineer, 20 years her senior, and together they moved from Scotland to Leeds. It was there my grandmother Violet was born.
After a staid childhood, and much to her strict Presbyterian parents’ horror, Violet ran away to London and became a chorus girl dancer. A leggy 5ft tall, she had the heart of an adventurer and a laugh like church bells. She was a talented painter and piano player, and she wore coral