Stephen Melton -

Albert Yarwood's daughter, Mabel (left) worked as an assistant in a baker's shop. Sometime in 1922, she met Cyril Desmonde. On 6th. May, 1923, Mabel Yarwood's daughter Phyllis Mabel Desmonde was born at 214 Whitegate Drive, Blackpool. It is not known whose house this was. The father was Cyril Desmonde, a general labourer of 108 Buchanan Street, Blackpool according to her birth certificate. There is some doubt as to whether or not they were married, but Cyril registered the birth and named the mother as Mabel Desmonde, formerly Yarwood, which would suggest they were married, but searches for a marriage certificate at Blackpool Register Office proved fruitless. Mabel would have been 2 weeks short of her 20th. birthday at the time of Phyllis' birth.

That birth certificate was later stamped 'Adopted', but there is no indication of when or where this happened. Enquiries made with the relevant department at Southport have proved fruitless, a certificate of adoption could not be obtained without the full names of the adoptive parents. All that is known is that their surname was probably Parker.

Mabel had another child, a boy named Francis (after her grandfather Francis Yarwood?) who died young. Phyllis recalled the day of her little brother's funeral, apparently she carried his coffin in the church, but she could not remember any more than that. She always said that Cyril Desmonde, her natural father, was an American from Springfield, Massachusetts.

Mabel Yarwood ( or Desmonde?) died sometime in the 1930's, where, when and how has yet to be established.

After her mother's death, Phyllis lived at Thornton with her grandfather Albert Yarwood and also spent time living with her Auntie Bessie at Carleton. In later life, Phyllis always called her grandfather Billy Yarwood the Ironmonger, which led to the initial difficulties in tracing her background after her death. Billy must have been her pet name for him.

Phyllis also remembered Cyril and a girlfriend taking her with them to Liverpool for a while, after which they returned to Oldham. She remembered that she had a bicycle at the time and Cyril would not let her take it on the train with them, so she cycled back to Oldham from Liverpool on her own. The girlfriend then decided that she did not want Phyllis living with them.

By 1937 at the latest, Phyllis, aged 14, was living in Oldham where she met her future husband, Ernest Melton. She later told her children that her father, Cyril Desmonde, had run away with the daughter of Albert Pierrepoint, the former public hangman, who ran a pub in Oldham called the 'Help the Poor Struggler'. This would suggest that Cyril was in Oldham during the 1940's, as Albert Pierrepoint used the money he had earned as public hangman, particularly after the War Crimes Tribunal to buy the pub in Oldham, so Cyril probably met his daughter after the war.

Phyllis and Ernest were engaged in Oldham on June 14th. 1941, she was 18.

A visiting card found in Ernest's belongings after his death showed that Phyllis was calling herself Miss Phyllis Desmonde up to the age of 18 in 1941, when she was living at 35 Windsor Road with Ernest's parents. She had been employed to take care of Ernest's mother who was terminally ill.

Between 1941 and 1943, Phyllis changed her name from Phyllis Desmonde to Phyllis Parker and after Mrs. Melton's death in June 1943, she moved to 322 Manchester Street, Oldham.

In September 1943, Phyllis aged 20, married Ernest Melton by special license at St. Thomas's Church in Oldham. On the marriage certificate, Phyllis did not identify her father, even though at the time she was under 21 and would have needed permission from a parent or guardian to get married. The witnesses were Norman and Ida Leah Wrigley.

World War II was still raging and Ernest was in the armed forces, Phyllis took on war work as a 'clippie' on the Oldham to Saddleworth bus route. Ernest was demobbed in 1946 and Phyllis gave up work and started a family. Phyllis' son Stephen William Melton was born in January 1947 in Oldham, while the family was still living at 322 Manchester Street, followed by her daughter Elizabeth Melton in July 1953.

Phyllis Mabel Melton died of pancreatic cancer in Oldham in January 1998, aged 74 and was cremated at Hollinwood in Oldham.