User talk:Horsellharpy

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Father of Robert Sydney Piper, born to Florence Prior in June 1917 [29 March 2013]

I am trying to find out who my real grandfather is - my father was Robert Sydney Piper, born in Lydd, Kent on 20.06.1917.

His mother was Florence Prior, born in 1897 in Lydd, Kent. Her parents were Tom and Emma Prior (nee Beaney) who lived at Caldicott Farm, Caldicott Lane, Lydd, Kent. She was the youngest of eight children. My father must have been conceived in Sept/Oct 1916, there were many soldiers around Folkestone at that time, embarking to France for the final part of WW1.

Florence married Stepehen Piper on 2 Feb 1920 in Elham, Kent. He adopted my father and they went on to have a daughter, named Clive. In 1926 he took his family to live in India as he had left his Kent regiment (the Buffs) and joined the Indian Army. The four of them stayed there until Stephen and Florence divorced on 21 Oct 1939, Stephen went off to fight in WW2 (he was captured by the Japanese in Burma) and Florence came home with Clive. Robert by then was old enough to fight, he had signed up for the Indian Army when he was fourteen as Stephen had refused to pay for any more education for him.

There is no family knowledge of who my real grandfather is, it may be that Florence was too ashamed to tell anyone. Her parents allowed her to stay on with them until she married when my father was aged three.

She married again, a man called Samuel Draper, who came from Nottingham I think. Florence died on Christmas Day in the 1970s, I can't find an exact death date at the moment.

If anyone out there has the tiniest clue it would be soooooo helpful! My cousin tells me that her mother (Clive) told her that she was told he was a 'tall, handsome, blonde Army officer'.--Horsellharpy 07:59, 29 March 2013 (EDT)