MAISIE Fraser grew up in a loving Oxfordshire home after her parents died when she was young.

The teenager lived in a ‘grand house’ and was always treated as one of the family. But can anyone identify from these pictures where the house was and name any of the people who were so kind to her?

Those are the questions that her daughter, Shireen Macniven, would like Memory Lane readers to answer.

Georgina May Fraser, known as Maisie, was born in Edinburgh in 1911, the eldest of three girls, who were orphaned when their parents died, their father in 1920 and their mother in 1923.

Their paternal grandmother, uncles and aunts had emigrated to the United States and no-one on the maternal side could take on three young girls.

One, Catherine, known as Rena, went to live in Edinburgh, another, Elizabeth, known as Betty, went to Sussex, and Maisie, then just 15, to a family in the Oxford area.

Daughter Shireen writes: “I do not have their names, but I have found these old photographs with first names and notes written by my mother.

“It was quite a grand house, I think, and mum told me that she was treated as one of the family. However, in those days, there was a shame in being an orphan and mum rarely spoke of it.

“She did tell me, with some pride, that the grandfather of the family sometimes took her to the cinema in Oxford in his pony and trap.

“One of the daughters of the family gave her a necklace for her birthday one year, saying: ‘It’s your duty to be beautiful’.

“The words, ‘Taffy and my family’, are written under the picture with the duck and the three dogs. It would appear that the family gave mum these animals as her own to look after.

“I am hoping someone may recognise the house in the picture. The word underneath is ‘Oxford’.

“It is possible that they had another house in the country because mother spoke sometimes of Highclere and the Huntley & Palmer biscuit family, whom the family visited, I believe.

“The other names of the people are Taffy, Mariette and Rachel, the little girl, I think. I hope someone may have known them. The pictures would have been taken between 1926 and 1929.

“The family were expecting my mother to stay with them indefinitely and were surprised and dismayed, she told me, when she decided to leave at the age of 17 or 18 to go to Glasgow to train to be a nurse.

“Mum had a beautiful reading voice, influenced no doubt by the Oxford family.

“It was while reading a lesson at a church near Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow in 1933 that my father, Hugh Macniven, first saw her and fell in love with her.

“By that time, mum was a fully-trained nursing sister, in charge of a ward. My father was a professional engineer and in 1935, they married in Baghdad, where he worked for an oil company. It is sad that mum didn’t keep in touch with this lovely family who were so kind to her, but I think she was unable to cope with the shame (as she saw it in those days) of being an orphan and ending up in a ‘home’.”

Shireen, who lives in Derbyshire, tells me: “It would be wonderful if we found out where and with whom my mother lived in Oxfordshire, for it had a huge influence on her, I am sure.

“She had a great appreciation of fine textiles, china and furniture, learned I would think from this kind family.”

n Can anyone solve the mystery? Write to Memory Lane, Oxford Mail, Osney Mead, Oxford OX2 0EJ