The Bristow Family

 Stan's parents were George and Mabel (nee Spink).  They lived in South Elmsall after their marriage and this is where Stan was born, in 1919.  In 1930, twins were born: a boy and a girl - John and Janet.  The family moved to Grimethorpe in the early 1930's and lived in a Colliery house at 19 Burntwood Road.

George worked at Grimethorpe Colliery, in charge of the screening operation, where the coal was washed and sorted for size.  George was also very active in the community, including with the Grimethorpe & Ferrymoor Colliery Institute and Grimethorpe Nursing Association.  Mabel looked after the home and her two younger children.

Stanley passed his 'scholarship' and went to Hemsworth Grammar School, but with a younger brother and sister at home his parents insisted that he left school before taking his School Certificate (the forerunner to 'O' levels) and went to work, aged 15.  He was taken on as a Junior Reporter on the South Yorkshire Times in South Elmsall and, once he became a qualified journalist, he moved to the Doncaster Gazette.

Being born in 1919, Stanley was in one of the first cohorts to be conscripted into the Army in 1939 (see 'About Stanley'), so he had already been in the Army for over two years when he met Grace.

Mabel had been born in Cottingham, in the East Riding, and her mother still lived there with Mabel's sister, Margaret (Mags).  George's parents, George and Sarah Bristow, lived in Cranwell in Lincolnshire (home of the RAF base) and ran the Post Office and General Store in the village.

Mabel and George, pictured in 1948

Stan's twin brother and sister, John and Janet, around 1938.