Elsie Gleave-Starkey-Graves: Elsie Gleave Met her first husband Richard Starkey at the bakery where they worked together. Their seven year marriage began at his Starkey Grandparents' house at 59 Madryn Street but sadly ended in divorce in 1943 when Elsie was just 29. She couldn't afford to keep up their house at 9 Madryn Street, so she and her son moved a few yards to 10 Admiral Grove in 1944. "She tried to bring me up decently. We were poor but never in rags. I was lucky. I was her only child. She could spend more time with me." She took many varied jobs to keep herself and her son, one of which was a barmaids job at the Empress Pub at the end of their road. Her second husband Harry Graves was a painter and decorator from Romford who she met via her friends and neighbours, the Maguires. The couple married with Elsie's son's blessing, and now she was again a married woman she could stop working and stay at home to tend the house and her small family. A man's wage in the house also meant they could afford small holidays with his parents in Romford (where Richard refused to wear a raincoat in a thunderstrom and subsequently ended up in hospital with chronic pleurisy) and a drumkit for Richard who was now drumming-obsessed and drove his mum insane banging on things.
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