Doreen was born on 17th November 1929 in Woolwich.
 
She lived in Canning Town and Plaistow. She started in a local school in Denmark Street. On 7th September 1940 the family shop and grocery stock were destroyed by a direct hit, their Anderson air raid shelter in the garden saved them, she her father, Dick, her mother, Lil, and adopted baby brother, Alan, were then evacuated to Harston, Cambridge. During the evacuation she finished her schooling at the local school in Harston. While in Harston she met Joan Star who was to become a life-long friend and to this day they would chat by phone reminiscing over those wonderful teenage years. In the later years of the war she worked in a fashion shop in Cambridge.
 
She returned to Plaistow and Canning Town after the war, and worked in a bakery for a while, and for a few weeks helped out in her dad’s corner shop.
 
She met her husband, Tom, in April 1947 just a few weeks before he started his national service in Germany. Shortly after his release in 1947 they were engaged and later married on 10th March 1951. After the marriage she left work and became a housewife.
 
On 11th March 1952 they were blessed with a son Steven.
 
We lived in Plaistow until August 1977 when we moved to Orsett and she spent the rest of her life there.