The first photo shows my grandmother Edna Smith with her parents Harry and Mary and her two brothers Cyril and Ellis outside the family home on Frog Lane, soon after they arrived in Bermuda in 1910. Harry was the Quartermaster Sergeant for the Royal Engineers on Bermuda from 1910-1919, so my Gran grew up here, attending the garrison school and singing in the church choir. The second photo shows her as a teaching assiatant at the garrison school next to Mr Mitchell, who ran the school, taken in about 1917.
When Gran’s mother died of Multiple Sclerosis in 1918 she was buried in the garrison cemetery. The family were posted in many different places, with my Gran born in Gibraltar and living in Singapore and Dublin before arriving in Bermuda, but for my Gran Bermuda was always home. After the war the family returned to England and her father retired from the army. There was no work to be had in England, so the family emigrated to Australia and my Gran spent the rest of her life there. In 1973, she was able to visit Bermuda again for the first time. It took her several days to reach Bermuda in short hops by plane from Melbourne. I remember how happy she was to be able to return, and to see many of her friends again for the first time in over fifty years.
A photo of the staff and pupils of the Garrison School sitting and standing on grass under trees. Mr Mitchell who ran the school sitting in the middle of the second row from the back, with my Gran Edna Smith on his right