FRANCES GRAY-TÖMÖRDY

16TH MARCH, 1950

Frances was born to a loving mother and father, Catherine Gray (born Ellis) and Henry Gray. 

She was joined by her brother Will on 26th December 1952. Their father tragically died aged just 35, when Frances was five years old. He had been on the "Japanese hellship", the Lisbon Maru, and then endured unspeakable horrors as prisoner of war. Thankfully, Frances' mum Catherine - a devout Catholic - lived a long and healthy life.

Frances loved her mum dearly, and always talked about how well she had coped as a single mum in the 1950s.

Frances enjoyed a simple yet happy childhood in Linlithgow. As Frances and her brother have often said, they never thought of themselves as "not having much".

To earn pocket money to go to what were then called the pictures or to buy a nice dress, Frances would pick strawberries. More than a half a century later, she would still refuse to eat them. Frances also worked as a "Saturday girl" at Woolworths and Robertson Rainwear in Edinburgh. 

Frances was always bright as a button. She was the first in her family to get a higher education... despite not always seeing eye to eye with the teacher nuns of Craiglockhart College of Education. 

Frances would go on to become the favourite primary school teacher to countless children.

Frances' zest for adventure and her larger than life personality led her to spread her wings beyond post-war Britain. She moved to Abu Dhabi in 1976 to teach at the Al Khubairat British School. 

And it is in Abu Dhabi, on a beach, on a hot and sunny day in October 1979, that she met Peter. A dashing Austrian with a catamaran...