Inspired by her lady’s maid gran

IT is believed that Mrs May was referring in her speech to her paternal grandmother – a humble parlour maid who she reportedly called ‘Granny Amy’.

Amy Brasier, born Patterson, who died in 1967 aged 88, was one of four servants in the household of a rich widow.

She worked for a family in Notting Hill, after returning from New Zealand where she worked in another home for two years.

It was on her journey back from New Zealand that she met a soldier, Tom Brasier, who became her husband. With stints in India before returning to Britain again, the pair had five children, including Hubert, an Anglican vicar who later had daughter Theresa, the future Prime Minister.

In her speech yesterday, Mrs May, 61, said that among Mrs Brasier’s grandchildren ‘boasts three professors and a prime minister’.

Alongside Mrs May’s rise to the top of politics, several members of her family have also had stellar careers. Her cousin Clive Brasier is an expert on tree diseases who is a visiting professor at Imperial College, and her cousin Andy Parrott is a professor of psychology at Swansea University.

Her other cousin, Professor Martin Brasier, who died in 2014, was one of the world’s leading experts in microfossils as well as a graduate of Oxford University.