This is the story of Joan Slack, born Mayrick.
I remember there being six people living in our family home, my mum, dad, grandma and two sisters.
My grandma, Ellen Daley (born Moffat), was born in 1869 into a fairly well-to-do family.
Her father was an engineer on the railway and she and her sister Margaret had a governess for the first few years of their lives.
They could read and write at a time when some people were still signing their names with a cross.
One Winter, when she was still young, her father was ill in bed with flu.
There was a problem on the railway which the foreman couldn't deal with so her father was sent for.
He was taken, bundled up in blankets, in a pony and trap.
He ended up with pneumonia from which he later died.
As there was no such thing as pensions in those days his wife, my great-grandmother was left with nothing.
She had a relative in America who sent for her and offered her a home, but when she arrived at Liverpool she lost her nerve and went back to Stacksteads to another relative, taking her two little daughters with her.
As soon as they were old enough (which I think was eleven or twelve) they had to go to work.
The only work available was in the cotton mill, so that was where they both worked.
When Ellen reached her teens she got friendly with Thomas Daley, who worked in a stone quarry.
She eventually married him.
As a young boy at the quarry Thomas had been pressed by the older men into carrying their bets to a local agent.
It was illegal at that time and there were no betting shops, so he had to go secretly to the agent.
It probably seemed exciting to him and he started placing small bets himself.
After they got married he bet more money, thinking he could make a better life for them if he won enough money.
Instead, he constantly lost.
One week, on pay-day he just disappeared and it turned out he'd put all his wages on a 'sure' thing, which had lost.
By this time my grandmother had two little boys, John and Thomas, so she had to go back to work.
Her sister, Margaret had a child and lived nearby, so looked after the boys while Ellen was at work.
After a while Thomas came home and begged Ellen to let him try again.
I've been told that they were very much in love and she took him back.
The same thing happened; he heard of a 'sure' bet, a horse that never lost and he felt sure he could make up to Ellen for how he'd hurt her.
Needless to say, the horse lost.
He vanished again, as he hadn't the courage to tell her that he'd lost all his wages once more.
By this time Ellen was pregnant.
One icy day on her way to work she had a nasty fall and lost her baby.
She was very ill for a while but had to get back to work as soon as possible.
Before long Thomas was back and once again she forgave him.
She was soon pregnant again and this time had a girl, Ellen, my mother.
Thomas promised never to gamble ever again but the addiction is probably as strong as drugs and he did, and vanished once more.
The next time he returned begging forgiveness the whole family, relatives and friends ganged up on him and persuaded my grandmother that she would be foolish to have him back.
That was the only occasion that my mother remembered seeing him, as he was banished.
He didn't return.
When I was twelve the Salvation Army got in touch with my grandmother to say that Thomas had died in one of their hostels.
They asked what she wished them to do.
As they had been parted for a number of years they didn't expect her to pay for his funeral but they wanted to give her the option.
My grandmother immediately said that she would and had him brought to a local undertaker.
She took me with her to see other and I honestly think that even in death he was one of the handsomest men I've ever seen.
My grandmother obviously still loved him.
She stroked his face to say goodbye and must have been so sorry that their lives had turned out as they had.
She never said one word of censure about him and no doubt knew that he had always dreamt of giving her a better life.
The only way he could see that happening was by winning lots of money, as working in a quarry would never achieve it.
The daughter conceived during his last visit home, Ellen, went on to marry John Mayrick, my father, who had a childhood almost as chaotic.
John Mayrick's father, Martin, was a master gun maker, which was an extremely good trade in the nineteenth century.
He was born around 1870 and was allowed to learn his trade in Birmingham, which at that time provided the best training.
He needed to remain in Birmingham to become successful but he also wanted to marry his girlfriend.
She refused to move away from her family in Bacup and so he gave up gun making as a career and trained in stage carpentry.
This was also a good career as it was the height of show business.
He became so successful that a visiting American show troop asked him to go back to America with them.
He went for one season and returned to Bacup with a possible contract for a career in America.
There was a promise of accommodation and schools for the children, but again his wife refused.
I never met her or I don't remember her but my oldest sister Winifred did, so she may have died fairly young.
I think her maiden name was Spencer but I don't remember her Christian name.
By this time my grandfather, Martin had started drinking too much.
This had such an effect on my father that he never touched alcohol at all.
He had seen his father hit his mother, which I don't condone but I understand as she had almost ruined his life.
He ended up taking any job he could get as show business was on the down turn, particularly in small towns.
Cinema had taken over, at first silent films and by the 1920's talkies.
My father, John was an excellent photographer, taking and developing his own photos.
He got a job as cinema manager at our local cinema in his early married life.
He then developed stomach problems which turned out to be ulcers.
While he was in hospital another man offered to do the job for less money.
This was during the Depression and so my father had no job when he recovered.
He ended up working at anything as had his father before, but he had a strong marriage so he got by.
And of course, three lovely daughters!