Aunt Daisy – An Inspiring Role Model
There are so many unsung female role models out there. So many stories about women we need to hear. One such is my Aunt Daisy; her story is inspiring.
My Aunt Daisy was just like all my aunts and I didn’t take much notice of her as a young child. She was just there. Her home was in South London, not far from us. She would arrive for the holidays in a cloud of lavender and cigarette smoke, and stay in my bedroom. (It’s fair to say I wasn’t thrilled about that as it meant I had to share with my brothers.) Daisy was a somewhat eccentric character, with a very strong Christian faith and a line in quite fanciful hats. She worked as a seamstress for most of her life but began her working career in a London hospital kitchen.
I think I must have been a particularly late developer because I remember being quite old before I thought to myself:
“Why is my Aunt Daisy is black, and all of my other aunts are white?”
I asked my Mum why, who said something vague about her not being actual family but that she was just like family.
It was some years later that I found out more about Daisy’s story and it is one worth sharing.
Daisy and Dr Barnado’s
Daisy was a bit older than my Mum so probably born in mid 1920’s. Her Mum was white and her Dad was black. An American. Her Mother and he had an affair (Daisy always believed they had married) and Daisy was the result. The story about him was hazy but for whatever reason he went back to the States. In the 1920s there was no question of a young woman going it alone with a child, let alone a black child, and so Daisy’s maternal grandparents forced her mother to put Daisy in an orphanage. Such is the history of women. My aunt ended up in a Dr Barnado’s home for children, now simply called Barnardo’s. Daisy never saw her mother again.
Fast forward to Daisy in her teens. Children had to leave Barnado’s as soon as they were able to make their own living. The usual route out, as they had no family, was either joining the armed services or going into service, i.e. working as a maid in other people’s homes. Daisy did not want to do either, so got herself a job in the kitchens of a big hospital. It suited perfectly because accommodation was provided.
The Meeting
Also working in these kitchens as a cook (and therefore of higher status than a cleaner/washer-upper which Daisy was) was my Mum’s aunt, Marjorie. Marjorie was half sister to my grandfather. When her stepfather had died (my granddad’s Dad, are you managing to keep up?) her mother had had to put her and her sister, Gladys, into the workhouse as she had no means of keeping them. Such is the history of women.
The two boys, teenagers, were sent off to make their living. My Granddad always vowed that when he had a home he would get his sisters out of the workhouse. He was true to his word. The two women lived with my Nan and Granddad, and their three daughters, in a tiny tied cottage in Kent that came with my grandfather’s job as a farm stockman.
Aunt Gladys
The other aunt, Gladys, had lost all her fingers in a factory accident and so lost her job, no compensation of course. Gladys had no alternative but to stay home dependent on the charity of my Nan and Granddad. She ‘earned her keep’ by knitting, using her knuckles. As a young child she absolutely terrified me but now, when I think about her life, I could weep. Such is the history of women.
A Friendship
Daisy and Marjorie became firm friends. They had one afternoon/evening off a week when they sometimes went dancing together. After a while, Marjorie invited Daisy to go to Kent with her and meet her family. Daisy refused time and time and time again. Many years later I asked Daisy why she refused. Her reply is heartbreaking.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of rejection. All my life I’d been rejected. I’d been touched by strangers, and by other children in the home to see if my colour came off, spat at in the street, told to go home. But this is my home, I have never lived anywhere else, I’d reply. I never really felt I belonged anywhere. I didn’t want to spoil the friendship because I was sure Marjorie’s family would not want a black person in their home.”
Marjory however, persisted and eventually, reluctantly, on one of their precious afternoons off, Daisy went to Kent to meet the family.
As you will have guessed, she was not greeted with derision or disrespect. My Nan had a child ‘out of wedlock’, not the child of my granddad whom she met a few years later. That was considered shameful in those days. My Mum didn’t actually find out until she was herself 21, and then by accident. I think my Nan had had her own share of being ostracised and treated badly by ‘respectable’ folk. She must have been a very strong character because she kept her child with her, my lovely Aunt Beat. Daisy told me that my Nan asked her about her story, which she shared, ending with “And so you see, I have no family“.
“Yes you do” said my Nan, “You have us now.”
A Genuine Inspiration
Daisy lived in a very small apartment belonging to the Peabody Trust. She never married and never made contact with her family. God was her strength and her church was probably the most important thing in her life. She always lived alone, apart from a period of renting a room with another family, with whom she stayed in touch all her life.
One day, not long before she died, she had a fall and wasn’t found for three days. When she didn’t turn up at church someone went to investigate. They found Daisy on the floor, weak, but still very much alive. When we went to see Daisy shortly afterwards I began to commiserate with her about her awful experience.
Well, I was lucky really. The radio was on so I had company. I wasn’t too cold because the heating was on. I was also able to reach out and grab my stick eventually, so I could then use it to pull open the fridge and I could reach the milk bottle so I had something to drink. Wasn’t that lucky?
Reunited
Some years ago, when my Aunt Daisy died, we took Mum to her funeral. A friend from the church had found out where Daisy’s Mum was buried and she was buried close by. Finally she was with her. She never spoke badly of her Mother but always with love and compassion for her plight.
My Aunt Daisy was a genuine inspiration. She had such positivity; I never knew her to feel sorry for herself. Her positivity lives on and inspires me. We are losing most of that generation of women who lived through so much and kept carrying on, regardless. I am so glad that I finally got to hear her story.
Share The Stories of Women
There are so many untold stories out there about women’s social history. We are only now beginning to uncover many of them and they are so important. If you have one, please share it. Ask the older women in your family for their stories while you still can. They deserve to be heard.
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Posted on April 8th, 2021 by Jane
