VERA LEWIS

Introduction

I'd always been aware of it, of course. In a dusty corner of a little used wardrobe, and prior to that in the loft, lurked an ancient plastic carrier bag. Contained within were many closely typed pages of yellowing paper, their size I now know to be foolscap folio (thirteen inches by eight). It was my Grandmother's book! Granny had spent a considerable amount of time writing by hand an account of her life in the early part of the twentieth century. At least two people had tried to edit the document and someone else had labouriously typed it up. Ninety years or so later it was my turn to try to bring order out of chaos and (hopefully) create a document that would stand the test of time and do Granny justice.

A dusty document sitting on the dining table.

Granny was born in Russia, but through political and geographic quirks her birthplace is now in Poland, east of Warsaw and close to the border with Belarus. I can't pin the exact location down as I don't have her birth certificate and she never mentions the name of the town (or village) in her manuscript.

In which year Vera Alexema Mayluk was born is also, like so many things about her, not entirely certain. I have so few documents to go on. Her death certificate says she was born in 1895, but her marriage certificate states she was nineteen when she married my grandfather in January 1920. The younger version of Granny is the one that makes most sense to me, going by half-remembered conversations with my mum. No matter, the story is still the same.

My grandfather (Newton Mansel Lewis) was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1895. This I am more certain about. He and his large family lived in Sussex. I knew him quite well; Tina and I often visited him in the New Forest and later when he lived near my mother (Helen) in Ditchingham, Norfolk. Fun fact: Grandad survived being torpedoed in the Atlantic during WW2. I presume he was en route to Nigeria or England. He liked to remark how annoying it was; he had left his best pair of glasses in his cabin in the rush to get off the ship.

Granny and Grandad's marriage ended sometime in the 1940s. Granny never remarried, and she lived in various places in southern England during the following years. She died in Southsea in 1975. Grandad married a second time to Barbara, and I think they continued to work in Nigeria. After Barbara's death, Grandad met Winifred, who lived with him in the New Forest. Grandad survived Winifred and died in Norfolk in 1984.

I discovered many photos attached to Granny's pages with rusty paper clips. I have reproduced most and included them in this document. I've tried to keep this document's format as simple as possible to ensure its longevity (html documents, minimal css, no javascript). The one downside of simplicity is that if you click or tap on an image it will enlarge, but you will have to use your browser's "Back" button to return to the text.

One more thing: Granny's book was written a long time ago, and although there's nothing too shocking in the text, in places it does reflect the attitudes of her day.

Thanks for reading this. Feedback will be most welcome.