Baby Naomi

These are all the babies who were born on Christmas Day in 1935. Naomi is in the 2nd row, 3rd baby from the right. She is held by the second nurse.The nurse is holding 2 babies. Naomi has black hair and is on the nurse's left arm.

When reading any text, but more specifically Lyon’s diary, it's important to know more about the text's origins. In this case that means, the transcriber herself.

Naomi was born in the Salvation Army Hospital in the East End of London, where her mother had been an obstetric houseman. Her parents met when they were both working at the Maudsley Hospital as psychiatrists in South London. They got married in 1934 in the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, even though her mother was not Jewish but her father had been raised in a conventional Jewish family in South Australia. Naomi's father’s parents were immigrants from Prussia and her mother’s family was from a traditional modest, English background. Naomi later found out that her mother’s great grandfather, who was an immigrant, was in business with some of her father’s ancestors for a while. Naomi’s brother, Gilbert, was born in England.

When World War II started, Naomi’s mother took her and her brother to Canada in an effort to avoid the Blitz, the campaign of bombings in London that killed many thousands of Londoners. At the time she had no idea of where they would live or where she would find work. Ultimately they found a home in London, Ontario, Canada. Naomi's father stayed behind in London, England to continue working. While in Ontario during the year of 1940, Naomi’s sister Ruth, was born. Once the war had ended and it was safe to return home, Naomi, her two siblings, and her mother traveled back to England to live in Oxford.

In 1946 the whole family moved to South West London, where her parents purchased a house, and where Naomi’s second brother Julian, was born. Later on in her life Naomi got a degree in medicine and worked in Newmarket, London and Manchester. She met her husband in Manchester and they got married in 1963. They moved to Cardiff, Wales and later had their first daughter in 1964. In time they returned to the house in which Naomi grew up, after her mother passed away, to live with her father.

Naomi and her husband had two more daughters, and ended up purchasing a house nearby after her father passed away in 1976. Sadly, Naomi’s husband passed away from acute leukaemia in 2008. Naomi now resides quite near her daughters.

Naomi first heard about the Lyon diaries in 1995, but didn’t receive the photocopied pages until 1997. The diary had been preserved by archives in Jamaica and were later sent to Naomi, at which point she began her transcription work.