Remembrance Day Challenge - Billy & Peggy Danson

REMEMBRANCE DAY CHALLENGE is the prompt from Julie at Anglers Rest who invites us to first present a photo collage  and write about  our ancestors and family  who served in war.

My last post paid tribute to my uncle Harry Danson, a Dunkirk survivor.  Here are his younger brother and sister Billy and Peggy Danson who also served in wartime.  I know little about their service, but they are, nevertheless, important  in playing their part in the war effort.  

BILLY (William Leslie), born in 1915 and  named after his father, was the youngest son of William Danson and Alice English of Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.

Apart from seeing photographs of him in naval uniform, I know very little about Billy, apart from the fact we shared the same September date for our birthday.

He married in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire in 1941   Louisa (known as Louie)  Cerrone  of Italian descent and they made their home in the English Midlands.  They never had a family and I cannot recollect ever actually meeting Billy  though I did speak to him on the phone occasionally.  My parents kept in touch with him throughout their lives. 

 Baby Billy with his mother, sisters Edith and Kathleen and brother Harry, c.1916  

Billy as smart young man - taken at the While-U-Wait Studios in Blackpool .

Wedding photograph of Billy and  Louie, 1941.

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PEGGY,   christened Margaret Olwen, was the youngest daughter of William and Alice Danson, born after the First World War, so very much the baby of the family to her much older brothers and sisters.

In World War Two she served in the WAAF (Women's Auxiliary Air Force), with a note In the family photograph album that she was  in a Barrage Balloon Squadron in Hull, Yorkshire.  

She met her husband there - Harry Constable,. known as Con and after their marriage in 1949, they emigrated to Australia - settling near Melbourne.  Two sons were born Ian and Philip.

In 1980 she made her only visit back to Britain.  Sadly following her death, contact with the Australian branch of the family was lost. 

The Danson family , c.1941 - Edith, Peggy, William & Alice, Harry and Kathleen

with son Billy absent.

Peggy and friend in uniform

 Peggy with her mother Alice

 Peggy with her sons Philip and Ian - my Australian cousins, c.1954.

Peggy in the Scottish Borders, c.1980 - when we last met.

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