Dave's Family Tree

Bruce David (now known as Dave) Johnson was born in East Africa during the Second World War in 1943, the third child of Frank Johnson and Marion Chalmers (who were both born in England). Dave's parents met while they were both at Oxford University before they headed off to work in various parts of Africa - where nearly all of the children were born. 

Dave has two surviving siblings - brother Donald and sister Jennifer (Jenny). Michael died of malaria at the age of 2 and Sarah died after only a few hours. Anthony (Tony) died in 2014 after a long period of ill health. 

Dave's mother, Marion, was the youngest child of Stephen Drummond Chalmers (born in Australia) and Clara Rosenhain (born in Germany). Marion became interested in economics, history and geography, particularly of the several African countries that she and Frank had worked in. Her particular interest was in the society and economics of these countries as they evolved in the 18th and 19th centuries under and after colonial rule. 

Just before WW2 Frank and Marion went to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) where Frank taught at the prestigious Achimoto College in Accra. Marion became very well known in Ghana particularly for a car accident when her son Donald was well on the way. The family returned to England at the start of the war. 

Soon after arriving in England, Frank was called up and was on his way to the War Office when two gentlemen made it clear that he would be going back to Africa. He was to become their "man in Africa" although quite what that entailed was never discussed. Of course their total knowledge of Africa was in the west and so the War Office sent them to East Africa - totally different in many ways. 

The family spent the war years in East Africa with Frank employed as a teacher and Marion became very widely known as the sole reporter for the renowned East African Times. They had three more children all boys but sadly the eldest of which died of malaria in 1943. One very eventful holiday lives on in family folklore when the family travelled to South Africa on "a train and a boat and a train and a boat and a train and a train and a train" as eldest son Donald was heard to repeat many times in later life. 

After the war ended first Frank and then Marion plus 3 children returned to England. Once the children had all reached school age Marion embarked on a Masters Degree in Economic History at the University of Manchester. Marion returned to Africa with Frank first to the Sudan and then later to Ghana. Towards the end of her life she was employed by the Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham, writing several papers and co- authoring two books on Africa - she finally achieved her dream of being an academic. 

Stephen (Marion's father) was a brilliant student studying at both Sydney and Cambridge universities, specialising in the optics of telescopes. Stephen and Clara Rosenhain were married in England in 1903 and they had 3 children. Marion's two elder brothers were also very gifted academically and both became university professors - Alan in physics at Durham (UK) and Bruce in metallurgy at Harvard (USA). Stephen died at the early age of 41 in 1919, having contributed greatly to the war effort with his optics expertise - Marion was only 6 when he died. 

The Chalmers family came from Fife, Scotland, and arrived in Australia in 1864, along with many other Scottish coal miners and their families. Stephen's parents, John Chalmers and Eliza Jane Drummond, were married in Australia in 1876 after both families had emigrated as they had not been permitted to marry in Scotland. Stephen was the second of 11 children, several of whom served in WW1 and WW2. 

The Rosenhains were a Jewish family from Germany and Poland with at least one ancestor who was a Rabbi. The family left Germany for England and then emigrated to Australia in 1883. Most of the family returned back to England, prior to 1901, and remained there until the end of their days. 

Dave's father, Frank, was the only child of Doris Edith Johnson and an unknown father, growing up in Mansfield, England, where the Johnson's had lived for several generations. 

Frank was very gifted musically, teaching himself to play the piano by the age of 5 and later in life excelling at the organ and producing choral works (as composer and conductor). He also had a near perfect memory for any music that he had ever read or heard - to the extent that late in life he was able to write all the words and music for Christmas Carols he had not heard for at least 60 years. He studied botany and zoology at Oxford and was a secondary school teacher of these subjects in Lancashire. This experience led to the development of scientific teaching aids using the, then new, audio-visual technologies and applying these aids both in England and back in Africa. He was responsible for rebuilding the science teaching curriculum for the whole of the Sudan. Later he returned to Ghana as a UNESCO consultant in science teaching and was able to revisit Achimota College, the site of his first teaching experience in Africa. 

Frank and Marion were divorced and subsequently Frank married his second wife Irene Lucy Norton in 1981. Both Frank and Irene were working at Aston University at the time but Frank and then Irene tired of the work and the ever increasing demands of the academic world. They emigrated to Australia in 1984, together with Irene's 5 cats, settling in Port Macquarie on the mid north coast of New South Wales. 

Irene was a bright student who managed to overcome many of the barriers to females pursuing their own careers. One of her early memories was walking the bombed out streets of Coventry during WW2. In happier times she was constantly beside her father who ran an ironmonger's shop full of fascinating tools and equipment. Whenever she could she roamed the countryside far and wide on her bicycle feeding her inquisitive mind. She became a water scientist working on the quality of water in river and sewerage systems. After arriving in Australia she was fascinated by various environmental issues and carried out very important work on the behaviour of her beloved koalas. 

Frank and Irene became involved in many cultural activities in the region but Frank's main contribution was the formation of a choral group. Both Irene and Anne were members of Frank's choir, continuing to sing together after Frank had retired as conductor and the Hastings Choristers were formed under the guidance of Robyn Ryan. Indeed Anne and Dave met as a result of these choral activities! 

Frank died in 2001 leaving his second wife Irene to fend for herself. The house was too much for her to manage and she did not look after herself sufficiently. As a result, Anne, who was a long-time friend of Irene, spent many hours on the phone to Dave trying to sort out Irene’s many and increasingly difficult problems. This also led to more contact, a trekking trip to New Zealand in 2008, Dave moving much closer, ... - the catalyst for the start of what Anne calls her “sixth life”!