Rita Yvonne Potter

  Research Notes:

Linda Rumble notes:
My Mother, Rita Yvonne Leighton nee.POTTER, became a Missing Person when I was three months old and her parents Mr & Mrs POTTER nee.WALKER never wanted any contact with me or my Father - known as Anthony LEIGHTON, born Anthony SARGENT. There was a great deal of Name confusion and falsification which has made tracing my paternal blood line extremely difficult.
My paternal grandmother, Dorothy May Leighton, formerly Sargent nee.HOSKINS, had died soon after I was conceived and My Father, a long distance lorry driver, could not look after me, so I was brought up in the family house at 46 Wellington Gardens where 7 adults lived who were all working, some were on Night Work, so I could be looked after during the day and during school holidays:
My paternal Grandfather known as Tom LEIGHTON, but born as Thomas Ptolemy Frederick HUTCHINS.
His Lodger - Bill Wynn - William Albert Wynn - no relation, but often looked after me after school.
Uncle Jack - John Arthur Joseph SARGENT.
Uncle Tom - known as Thomas Sargent LEIGHTON, but GRO Registered at Birth as Thomas SARGENT.
My Dad - known as 'Tony' - Anthony LEIGHTON, but GRO Registered at Birth as Anthony SARGENT.
'Mum' - Dad's half-sister Valerie Elsie CHURCHILL nee.SARGENT who I grew up to call 'Mum'.
'Unc' - William Samuel CHURCHILL married to Valerie and always like a Father to me.
I was never legally adopted and did not meet my mother until I was 25 and after my father had died.
Rita, my mother, had also ran away from her parents, so my maternal grandparents reacted badly on her return and told her that if she wanted to forge a relationship with me, then they never wanted to see her again, so this led to another 25 year separation from my mother, who could not see me until after they had both died by which time I was in my 50s... in fact Rita & I only met 6 times before she died unexpectedly. Consequently, no contact at all with my mother's side of the family resulted in me knowing nothing about them. As a child, Rita was estranged from her parents and sent to Boarding School as a child, so had very little knowledge to pass on about my maternal line; furthermore my father & I both had the fictitious LEIGHTON surname which was obviously completely untraceable.

Rita married Anthony (Tony) Leighton, son of Thomas Ptolemy Frederick Hutchins and Dorothy May (Dolly) Hoskins. (Anthony (Tony) Leighton was born on 25 Jan 1933 in Greenwich, London, Kent England and died on 6 Jun 1975 in Blackheath, Middlesex England ⁷⁹.)