BERNADETTE CYNTHIA HEALY
EPISODE 18
• Albert Healy married Eugenie Barnet on 20th May 1961 at 2pm in St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey
• A Mr Sebastian Barnet married an Elizabeth Swanne on 20th May at 2:14pm 1961 in St Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey
• Albert Healy was born somewhere between 1939-41
• Albert Healy went to Thames End Primary School (Thames End Academy) and was in Year 6 in 1949 (Monday 5th September)
I do have the bank statement Bernadette Cynthia Healy was given on that fateful day she discovered she had a brother. I have to admit that whatever my feelings are towards this woman, she is certainly resourceful and clever enough to hold on to important documents. I would have destroyed the offending bank statement in a fit of rage.
• A sum of £23,469.32 was withdrawn in cash by an Albert Healy at 9:17 on the 12th September 1957.
It shocks me to think of this large amount of money being hauled around by an eighteen year old. I do a quick calculation. If Albert Healy was eighteen on the 12th September 1957 that would make his birthday somewhere around 1939, the same year Bernadette Cynthia Healy was evacuated.
Thankfully I wasn't subjected to the same type of evacuation as most London children because my parents had a house in the countryside, but even so, I know well enough that Operation Pied Piper only started on September 1st 1939. I have to write down notes as I think out loud to myself. Albert Healy must have been born in the first 12 days of September, just before his sister left for Scotland.
I rewrite the previous statement about his date of birth. I cannot fathom how a seven year old girl didn't notice her mother was pregnant. Or why her pregnant mother wasn't sent away to the countryside as well? I'm positive her father must have been in the army, surely he couldn't have escaped service like my father.
I'm flummoxed by the history of a woman I spent twenty years of my life hating, but now I can't quite get all the facts to fit and I'm wondering if there is something simple that I am missing. I look over what I've typed so far and I know if Keith had ever handed in anything that shoddy I would have fired him many years ago, so I have no excuse. I open the notebook I took with me to the church and read through the names I wrote down while I was with Father Thomas.
• Priest – Father Donald (deceased)
• Witnesses to Albert and Eugenie Healy's wedding: Charles Healy and George Barnet. Their names were printed below their signatures.
• Witnesses to Sebastian and Elizabeth Barnet's wedding: Charles Healy and George Barnet.
It seems they did not allow for the women to sign their names and witness their children's marriages. I didn't really expect any less, it was more common for men to sign legal documents, but I only wish for the sake of my investigation that I had roof of Albert and Bernadette Cynthia Healy's mother's signature.