Grace Enid Baglin (1933-2006)





Biography by Arthur Russ
Grace Enid Baglin, born in Bristol at about 7.30pm on Thursday 27th April 1933 didn’t like her middle name ‘Enid’ and never used it.

She was influenced during childhood and teenage life by her grandmother, Gertrude Rosa Burgess (1874-1958), aka ‘Grand Pratt’. Grand Pratt lived with the family until her death in 1958, being cared for by her daughter-in-law, Florence Eveline Jenner (1901-1994) aka ‘Eva’, Grace’s mother.

Eva frequently said "I never had Grace until Grand Pratt died" by which time Grace was married anyway. Grace said that she has always been independent by nature, and found home life stifling. So, when Ernie (Ernest Raymond Russ) came on the scene she saw an opportunity to escape!! She was 18 at the time and although it didn't work out in the end, it was a happy marriage while it lasted.

They planned to have two children, but unfortunately the second died shortly after birth so they had a third, me. We were a poor family, Ernie was always chopping and changing jobs, a couple of times trying self-employment which never worked-out because of his bad business sense! When first married, they lived in a caravan, shortly afterwards moving to 77 Streamside, Mangotsfield, Bristol and became the 1000th Council tenant on the new Council Housing Estate. I can remember my mother ‘Grace’ telling me about Alan (her first born) when as a baby he stuck a knitting needle in an electric socket and was thrown across the room. And, as a toddler, to young to go to school, he sometimes ‘escape’ from the house and make his way to his Nan's (Eva's) house, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away!

My first memories are in 1960 - When the whole family, my mother and father, Alan, my brother, and I were walking down a country lane with hedges on either side. The next thing I knew, we had came to a green wooden gate to our left; and looking through the gate down the garden path with flowers overgrown on both sides was a small cottage like house, with a large green door and four windows. This, 2 Victoria Road, North Common, Warmley, Bristol, was to be our new home for the next six years.

It was a four roomed house, two up, two down, each room about 8ft Square, and loose flag stones, with earth underneath, on the kitchen floor. The only modern amenities were electricity and a cold water tap in the Out-house. The house was bought on the understanding that Ernie’s parents would put up the money for modernising the place. However, planning permission was not granted because the Council had redevelopment plans under consideration (it was over a decade before the council demolished the building and redeveloped the site). So, Ernie made a feeble attempt to make a cesspool in the garden; a dangerous and deep hole, 6ft square and 6ft deep; and it was never used as we had moved on before its completion. For toilet facilities we used a plastic bucket; and for baths, a large tin bath, which was placed in front of the coal fire and topped up with hot water, boiled on the kitchen stove. At one point we were so poor that we survived on nettle soup for a few weeks.

However, in 1966, in the dead of night, we moved on, leaving creditors behind us. Ernie had leased Angeston Nurseries in Uley, Gloustershire, and set himself up as a self-employed Nurseryman. My mother and my brother, after he left school, helped to run the place; but after a while, in spite of Ernie’s principles, Grace got an independent job, and had a taste of freedom.

Three years after moving to Uley, due to bad management, my father was declared bankrupt, so once again we moved on; this time to Mortimer, near Reading, where he was employed as a Gardener; then moving on again, nine months later to Angus Convalescent Home, Orpington, Kent, where Ernie became `Head Gardener'.

Three years later the family broke up. I moved back to Bristol, and lived with my grandmother, Florence Eveline Baglin (1901-1994) aka ‘Eva’. Also living Eva at that time, as a lodger, was Iva. The following year Grace and Alan got a council house in Orpington, Kent. That same year Alan and Iva married, and in 1976, after the birth of their first-born, got their own council house.

In 1977, Grace returned to Bristol to look after ‘Eva’ her mother, and took a job as the `Personal Secretary to the Personal Secretary of the Lord Mayer of Bristol'. But she found life in Bristol ‘quiet’ and ‘boring’, and the job humdrum; and she was missing her ‘independence’ and ‘London life’. So when, a year later, Gillespies Brothers wrote asking if she would go back to work for them, offering a £500 pay rise, she jumped at the opportunity and went trotting off to London.

Back in London she felt happy and at home and lead a `happy go lucky' life with adventures and scrapes around every corner.