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Series 21: 7. Gemma Collins

Businesswoman, social media phenomenon, reality TV star and self-declared diva Gemma Collins goes in search of her family history. She knows quite a lot about her dad’s side of the family, but nothing about her mum’s - beyond the fact her mum Joan was fostered as a baby. It’s a subject they’ve always found difficult to talk about, but now for the first time, Joan has agreed to share with Gemma what she knows.\n\nAt her mum’s house, Gemma learns about Joan’s childhood, sees a document showing Joan was fostered at two weeks old and hears the few memories she has of visits with her birth mum. Joan also tells her she remembers a cousin called Christine, but that she lost touch with her. Gemma learns that her grandmother, like her mum, was also called Joan Williams and spent time in some hospitals in Epsom. \n\nGemma wants to find out more about her grandmother Joan Williams. She heads to the site of the hospitals in Epsom to see if there are any clues there as to why her grandmother gave up her mum to be fostered. Gemma discovers that her grandmother was in two psychiatric hospitals – once when she 13 when she was diagnosed as having schizophrenia and then again when she was 17, just after her mum was born. This time the diagnosis was chronic schizophrenia. It’s a shocking discovery, and Gemma wants to know what this meant. \n\nTo find out, she heads to the Royal College of Psychiatry, where she meets Dr Claire Hilton. Dr Hilton explains that schizophrenia was diagnosed very differently in the 1950s. Today, young people are rarely diagnosed with schizophrenia, but back then conditions like autism and developmental disorders may have come under a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Claire thinks that the diagnosis may have been a red herring and that societal pressures at the time meant that there would have been little choice for Gemma’s grandmother - an unmarried teenage mother - to keep her child. Gemma’s mum’s foster records reveal that her grandmother did try and maintain some contact with her mother. \n\nGemma’s upset at the news that perhaps her grandmother did want to see - or even keep her mum - but wasn’t able to. This has led to her mum having spent her life believing she was rejected by her mother. Meanwhile, the production team have managed to track down Gemma’s mother’s cousin, Christine. Gemma now has a chance to meet her and reconnect with a family she never knew she had. She’s hoping Christine might be able to help her trace the family line even further back. \n\nIn a moving scene, Gemma visits her mum’s cousin, Christine, at her home in Dagenham. Christine tells Gemma she has fond memories of Gemma’s mum, Joan, as a young girl and also remembers meeting Auntie Joanie - Joan’s mum, Gemma’s grandmother. Gemma sees a photograph of her grandmother for the first time and then sees a photograph of her great-grandfather. She learns from Christine he was called William Williams and lived in Tower Hamlets. \n\nGemma’s next stop is Tower Hamlets to see if she can find out any more about her great-grandfather William Williams and his family. Historian Fiona Rule shows Gemma census returns which reveal that as a child William Williams was living with his dad, also called William Williams, and his mum Thirza in Dorset Street in the East End. Gemma learns that when her great-great-grandparents were living there, The Daily Mail dubbed it the worst street in London. It had first gained notoriety more than a decade before as the street where one of Jack the Ripper’s victims was murdered. Gemma learns that her great-great-grandmother Thirza continued to live in the area after her husband died and went to great lengths to ensure her children received an education.

Source: BBC 1