Grandmother Lived In Battersea

A Memory of Battersea.

Hello - year approx. 1945 or earlier. I used to visit my grandmother Maria Reading in the Battersea flats. They would be unlivable now by today's standards. No indoor plumbing, no heat, but they did have gas lights (which one day while visiting I "tweaked" the little pockets, not a good idea). I was pretty much in awe of my Granny. She had long grey hair which she wound around and around, and wore long grey skirts. She drank her tea out of a saucer, but she was a great cook. She had a huge stove, and her pastry would win prizes today. I seem to remember being told that she sold violets in the street and that someone painted her doing this. I would like to find out where it is today. She died alone (I was told alone), probably by influenza, at approx age of 95. She had two children, John and my mother Helen. John live in the flats as well and was married to (I can't remember her name) and had two children, Young John (who entered the war too young and was never the same) and Ellen who worked for a tea company in London. My mother Helen married Percy Flint, probably from the same flats, and moved to Bexleyheath probably around 1938/9. Does anyone remember?

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