Background
She was born to an Irish Protestant family in Roorkee, India in 1886 where she met and married her husband Lawrence Samuel Durrell, an engineer by profession.
She was born to an Irish Protestant family in Roorkee, India in 1886 where she met and married her husband Lawrence Samuel Durrell, an engineer by profession.
She is perhaps best remembered as the character of "Mother" in Gerald Durrell"s autobiographical Corfu trilogy. Together, they travelled all over India on account of Lawrence"s engineering work. She had four surviving children - Lawrence, Leslie, Margaret and Gerald.
lieutenant is here that she is portrayed by Gerald Durrell as the family"s well-meaning but slightly eccentric matriarch in the Corfu trilogy - My Family and Other Animals, Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.
She moved back to England in 1939 at the outbreak of World World War II with her three youngest children. She lived with Margaret at her Bournemouth boarding house and with Gerald at the Jersey Zoo until her death in Bournemouth in 1964.
She was portrayed by Hannah Gordon in the 1987 British Broadcasting Corporation television series My Family and Other Animals, by Imelda Staunton in the 2005 British Broadcasting Corporation remake, and by Celia Imrie in the 2010 two-part British Broadcasting Corporation Radio drama.