Touching moment WW2 evacuee, 91, meets long-lost family after discovering dad's awful secret
23.09.2023 - 21:05
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
This is the touching moment a 91-year-old wartime evacuee met her long-lost nieces after learning her dad had lied about her mother’s death.
Jean George’s last memory of mum Alice is of being told aged seven to look after little sister Joan as they were moved from Salford at the start of the Second World War.
She was heartbroken when dad George, who served as RAF ground crew, sent a message through her hosts saying Alice had died and she believed for eight decades it had been in a bombing raid on their home. But Jean now knows her dad lied after her mum got pregnant with another man’s child.
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And after a TV show tracked down her nieces – Dawn Draisey, 54, from Manchester, and Cheryl Bardsley, 56, who lives in Canada – The Mirror got the trio together for the first time at Jean’s Gloucester home on Friday. Jean said: "It’s been very emotional. We have had cups of tea and pizza and we are going to have crumpets later. We just can’t stop talking."
Cheryl said: “It’s been magical. We were both crying. Everyone deserves an Auntie Jean.” It was not until she turned 90 that Jean discovered her old house in Salford was never bombed.
She said: “I asked my son to have a look at the house to see what they had built there. He rang later and said the house was never bombed. That’s when I started wondering what happened to my mum.”
Jean asked the BBC for help and DNA Family Secrets found that Alice had survived the war. Jean nearly sobbed when host Stacey Dooley showed her a black and white picture of her