In the mid 1980s, my father found out that the lady he thought of as his big sister, May, 20 years older, was actually his mother, and that he had been raised by May's parents, Kate and James. By this time, May and her parents were all dead.
My father must have been, and I don't usually use the word, gobsmacked, to find out that his dear sister and mother and father, and possibly his other sister/aunt(!?) had effectively lied to him every day for 40 years. Did they ever plan to, or think of telling him the truth, 'one day'?
I try to tell myself that his mother was only in her early twenties, possibly troubled by an unplanned pregnancy, possibly troubled by being pressured into marriage, possibly troubled by a difficult split from my grandfather, after just 2-4 years of marriage. Perhaps she was pressured by her parents into letting them take the baby.
Perhaps she was totally over-wrought and unable to care for the baby, and that it was all for the best, but wouldn't it have been best to be open and honest, even in those tight-lipped days? I have known about 'The Great Deception' for three and a half years, and it still hasn't sunk in.
I know that the experiences of childhood always seem 'normal', but I remember Auntie May as a wonderful, kind, generous, typical aunt. We had many holidays and weekends together. Was she weighed down with her guilty secret? Did she feel guilty? Was she proud of how her son had become successful professionally and domestically, with a wife and children? Did she wonder, at every family occasion, whether to spill the beans? Should she have? It must have been an incredible burden. Can you ever make yourself forget what the actual truth was?
I can clearly remember in my mid to late teens, sometime after May died, my mother Joyce telling me, obviously surprised, that May and Peter weren't married. It seems odd that my dad Harry didn't know this. It seems odd that he and my mother wouldn't have gone to a wedding if there had been one, which we know there wasn't. I know that we will never know when May and Harry got back in touch with each other, but if she already had Uncle Peter with her it seems odd that Harry didn't ask about the wedding. Or perhaps he did and she made something up.
Then I started thinking about it deeper. Who else in the family had known about the conspiracy? My father was born in April 1928. The 1929 and 1930 electoral rolls show Kate and James Sedcole Watson (in 1930 it was spelled 'Setcole') at 48 Tristram Avenue, Hartlepool, along with May and Thomas Leggett, as well as a probable lodger, John Norman Britton. My aunt, Connie, was under 21 and didn't appear.
In 1939, the Register, below, shows Kate, and James, now a borough treasurer's clerk, Harry, at school and Constance Palmer, working as a cashier for a furniture and wireless dealer.
Connie had married Victor Hector Palmer in 1936, apparently while pregnant with their son, Derek, who is probably the redacted entry. Another well-kept family secret... It is almost definite that Connie was living with her parents at the time of Harry's birth, so she must have known, ALL HER LIFE, that May was Harry's father. Whether Uncle Vic was ever told the truth, who knows? I didn't even know his middle name was Hector. I believe he was missing from the 1939 Register due to his military service. Connie's hand-written date of birth on the Register is given as 18 Nov 1914, at odds with the General Register Office data of 1910:
Was that another family lie, or an error? 4 years is a big error, but what was there to lie about? Another mystery.
Kate's date of birth is shown as 6 Nov 1883, at odds with the General Register Office data of:
Was that another family lie, or an error? Kate's parents were married in January 1882, so there doesn't seem to be anything suspicious there.
Finding electoral roll entries in the 1930s has proved difficult, so I can not tell when May and Thomas William Leggett split up. I cannot find if they were ever legally divorced.
I can clearly remember in my mid to late teens, sometime after May died, my mother Joyce telling me, obviously surprised, that May and Peter weren't married. It seems odd that my dad Harry didn't know this. It seems odd that he and my mother wouldn't have gone to a wedding if there had been one, which we know there wasn't. I know that we will never know when May and Harry got back in touch with each other, but if she already had Uncle Peter with her it seems odd that Harry didn't ask about the wedding. Or perhaps he did and she made something up.
Then I started thinking about it deeper. Who else in the family had known about the conspiracy? My father was born in April 1928. The 1929 and 1930 electoral rolls show Kate and James Sedcole Watson (in 1930 it was spelled 'Setcole') at 48 Tristram Avenue, Hartlepool, along with May and Thomas Leggett, as well as a probable lodger, John Norman Britton. My aunt, Connie, was under 21 and didn't appear.
In 1939, the Register, below, shows Kate, and James, now a borough treasurer's clerk, Harry, at school and Constance Palmer, working as a cashier for a furniture and wireless dealer.
Connie had married Victor Hector Palmer in 1936, apparently while pregnant with their son, Derek, who is probably the redacted entry. Another well-kept family secret... It is almost definite that Connie was living with her parents at the time of Harry's birth, so she must have known, ALL HER LIFE, that May was Harry's father. Whether Uncle Vic was ever told the truth, who knows? I didn't even know his middle name was Hector. I believe he was missing from the 1939 Register due to his military service. Connie's hand-written date of birth on the Register is given as 18 Nov 1914, at odds with the General Register Office data of 1910:
| WATSON, CONSTANCE ANNIE | LOUGHBOROUGH |
| GRO Reference: 1910 D Quarter in HARTLEPOOL Volume 10A Page 148 | |
Was that another family lie, or an error? 4 years is a big error, but what was there to lie about? Another mystery.
Kate's date of birth is shown as 6 Nov 1883, at odds with the General Register Office data of:
| LOUGHBOROUGH, KATE | BALLARD |
| GRO Reference: 1882 D Quarter in HARTLEPOOL Volume 10A Page 156 | |
Was that another family lie, or an error? Kate's parents were married in January 1882, so there doesn't seem to be anything suspicious there.
Finding electoral roll entries in the 1930s has proved difficult, so I can not tell when May and Thomas William Leggett split up. I cannot find if they were ever legally divorced.