Early years
In 1911, the census of that year shows that Richard and Elizabeth Martha were living at 37 Low Road, Balby, which is a western suburb of the town of Doncaster.
(The house in Low Road where they lived is long gone, the site now lies under a lighting retail business. The site is at Grid Ref. SE563013).
Richard was a brick worker, (Balby Brickworks was just down the road in those days. The site is now a small industrial estate, at Grid Ref. SE563007).
Their first three children were;
Arthur Lesley, b.c.1909, Norah, b.1910 and then Aston came along in 1913.
Their fourth child, Ernest was born, on the 30th of December, 1916. He was christened at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, Balby, on 24th of January, 1917.
The Church was on the other side of the main Balby Road to where they lived and is pictured, right, (image c/o Google Earth).
An hiatus caused Elizabeth Martha, with Ernest as a babe in arms, to leave the family and live with Lewis Kent in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
This must have been in 1917 or 1918. She was to live with Lewis Kent for the rest of her life.
Lewis and Elizabeth had two children together; Irene (1920-2013) and Albert Lewis (1922-1997).
Richard Scott died in 1942, so Elizabeth and Lewis were able to get married, which they did in the following year.
Ernest was educated at St. Peter's School, Mansfield and later at St. John's College, York. He must have been clever enough to have got a scholarship to go to that college.
He was then employed as a fitter in an engineering works, until in 1935, he joined the Royal Air Force.
