Greer Garson an EastEnder
Where was Greer Garson born? Some reports say she was born in County Down in 1903, others that it was in London in 1904?
EILEEN evelyn ‘ Greer’ Garson was an Oscar-winning actress who epitomised a noble, wise and self- sacrificing wife, popular in the sentimental hollywood movies of the Forties. She shot to fame as the captivating wife of Robert Donat in her debut film Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and quickly became one of hollywood’s most bankable stars.
She received five more Oscar nominations in five years for Blossoms In The Dust (1941), Mrs Miniver (1942), Madame Curie (1943), Mrs Parkington (1944) and The Valley Of Decision (1945). She won a best actress Oscar for Mrs Miniver, in which she symbolised the spirit and virtue of a British housewife in wartime.
Though Garson claimed all her life to have been born in County Down, now in Northern Ireland, on September 29, 1908, her birth certificate (discovered just before her death) revealed she had been fooling the world for decades. her birth took place four years earlier, in 1904, at 88 First Avenue, Manor Park, east ham — a home she later described as ‘small, dark and narrow in a dreary part of London’.
On the certificate, her father 39-year-old George Garson listed his profession as commercial clerk in a London importing business. his ancestors were members of Clan Gunn who settled in the Orkney isles. his father, Peter Garson, was a cabinet maker from Kirkwall who moved to London in the 1860s with his wife Jane.
Greer Garson’s mother was born Nancy Sophia Greer ( 1885- 1958), but she preferred ‘ Nina’. her descendants were also from Scotland, part of Clan MacGregor of Glen Orchy who owned land in Perthshire and Argyll. When the clan split, following a devastating defeat to the Colquhoun clan in 1602, Nina’s relations settled in Ireland, hiding their past behind a new name, Greer — utilising the Irish contraction of Gregor.
Nina was raised on a farm in Castlewallan in County Down. A headstrong young girl, she refused to follow the family pattern to attend Queen’s University in Belfast. Instead, she took the civil service examination for women, passed with honours, and moved to London despite family disapproval, where she met and married George Garson.
Sadly, George died of a burst appendix when Greer was two. having been brought up by her strong-willed mother, it is perhaps easy to understand why she adopted her Irish family name and considered herself Irish.
Anne Llewellyn, Liverpool.
Has there ever been a plan to link Ireland to mainland UK by tunnel?
SEVERAL Irish tunnel schemes were suggested at the tail end of the 19th century but none was ever acted upon.
Irish engineer Luke Livingston Macassey (1843–1908), remembered for his contributions to public health by improving the water supply in the north of Ireland, was the first to advocate an underwater rail link, from Cushendun in Antrim to the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland — though it’s hard to see any economic benefits.
An alternative was proposed by James Barton, a railway and marine engineer from Dublin, who suggested Islandmagee in Antrim to Stranraer in Scotland.
In 1897 the Belfast Chamber of Commerce promoted the Irish tunnel scheme. Barton claimed it would ‘do more to bring english capital into this country than any other feasible project brought forward during the last century’.
he envisioned a tunnel connecting Dublin and Wales. Some politicians saw it as a potential solution to the ‘Irish Question’, suggesting a physical connection between the islands would bring them closer in ways that laws had failed.
When nothing came of the scheme, it was reduced to the status of a joke, symbolic of the lengths some politicians would go to keep Ireland in the Union.
There are technical reasons why such a tunnel would be impractical. The Irish Sea routes are crossed by very deep submarine channels that are partially infilled with soft water-saturated sediments.
The Antrim and Stranraer route would have to negotiate the Beaufort Dyke, which at its deepest is more than 1,000 ft below sea level. An Anglesey-Dublin route would need to pass beneath similar partially infilled channels between 700 and 1,000ft deep.
Traversing these channels would be impractical and prohibitively expensive.
Dr Ken Bristow, Glasgow.
What is the story of Richard Green, whose statue is outside the public baths next to All Saints DLR station in East London?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, this took me back to the bitter winter of 1962. I was a new Police Constable, on my first posting to Poplar Police Station, a Victorian building in east India Dock Road almost opposite Poplar Baths.
On parading for duty on the early shift, I was told by my Sergeant to go outside Poplar Baths where an informant would be waiting to pass on information. The informant was a man with a dog.
It was very cold and dark as I got to the baths and waited. I waited and waited, but of him there was no sign.
Of course, no radios in those days to call the station. As it began to get light and I began to freeze to death I looked around me. I looked up to see I was standing under the statue of Richard Green and his dog — my ‘informant’. Robb Keevill (retired Chief Inspector
Metropolitan Police), London SE9. AS A new Detective Constable to Limehouse Police Station in the Seventies, I was told by a colleague that I should go to meet a Mr Green outside Poplar Baths. I would recognise him as he would be sitting with his dog. Mr Green would have important information. I didn’t take the bait as I was brought up just up the road — but I suspect many did.
Ken Middleton, Basildon, Essex.