VAUGHAN MELZER Collagist & Painter

THE CHILD IMAGINES 

Serious trauma surrounded VM’s birth in 1945, the child of Communists and active trade unionists. Her father, forced to flee the Nazis from Czechoslovakia for his politics in1938, had come to England and completely lost touch throughout the War, with his much loved family. Seven years into the War, Arthur fell in love with a fellow trade unionist and having lost all hope for the survival of his family, came to live with Margaret in Penarth. In 1945, he received a letter from his wife telling him they had all survived and were longing to see him. She reported also, that all German-speaking Czechs were being forced to leave and travel on-foot to live in Germany. Arthur, once more, had to make another deeply traumatic break. and left VM's mother just days before VM was born.