This remarkable woman was my mother. She was born in St Petersburg in 1912, her father, a major in the Russian Imperialst Army, was killed in 1914, she spent three years in Irkutsk, after the revolution, before fleeing to Germany with her brother and sister in, I think, 1921, where she lived with her uncle and cousin. she left Germany because she could not bear to see what Hitler was doing and married an Irishman by whom she had two sons, my lovely brothers, she subsequently met, and eventually married, my father by whom she had two daughters, me and my lovely sister. In her travels she became fluent in Russian, German, French and English and was the best teacher of grammar I could ever want. She thought she had no skills. And yet Inpossess her recipe book,mstarted when she was at a catering college in Bavaria, with exiles in perfect Russian, perfect German, perfect French and Perfect English. No skills eh? She lived in fear of the authorities as a stateless person until the 60s and had to report to the police on a weekly basis until it was finally discovered, by the lawyers who were supposedly working on her behalf, that she actually had the right to British nationality since she had married an Irishman who was born before Eire became a republic. All those years of fear.... However she was a very happy person, and loved her family and we still miss he after more than twenty years. I was lucky enough to acquire the portrait shown here last year, and so everyday I am reminded what a lovely mother she was. Thanks mum xxxx
Posted on: Sun, 30 Mar 2014 08:48:43 +0000
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