The day I discovered my family's devastating secret past

As Britain's best-known female historian, Lucy Worsley has illuminated the lives of countless incredible women through the centuries. But until recently she had no idea of the tragedy and scandal in her own grandmother's life. She tells ADITI RANE about the discovery that's helped her understand her place in the world

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TO LUCY Worsley, her grandmother was simply “Granny”. She remembers a warm house filled with small comforts including the irresistible luxury of a sheepskin rug where a young Lucy could curl up and watch the world go by. Like many children, she never thought to ask much about the woman behind the familiar role. “She was just my granny,” says Lucy, 52, today. “I didn’t think about her life before.”

It is only now, decades later, that the historian who is best known for bringing Britain’s past vividly to life on television, has uncovered secrets within her own grandmother's life worthy of a historical drama. Accessing newly digitised archive records, she stumbled upon hidden chapters in her family story: a lost child, unexpected relatives and a wartime marriage surrounded by secrets.

The discoveries have been, admits Lucy - speaking about them for the first time today - “upsetting”.

Her grandmother, Edna Bourne, was born in Birmingham in 1911, growing up in one of Britain’s great industrial cities at a time when the world was rapidly changing.

To Lucy, though, those details were invisible when she was a child. Instead, she remembers a grandmother who felt reassuringly ordinary. “She was just someone who would let me watch daytime television and give me snacks,” she remembers.

Yet Edna had lived through some of the most turbulent decades in modern history.

Birmingham, Lucy points out, was effectively on the front line of the home front during both world wars. The city’s factories produced huge quantities of weapons and industrial goods, making it a key target during the Blitz. Her great-grandfather worked in one of those factories.

Despite growing up surrounded by history, Lucy never asked her grandmother about those experiences. Edna died in 1986 aged 75, when Lucy was just 11 years old.