Fascinating Gibraltarian heritage of Michelle Keegan, star of BBC’s Our Girl

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 Thursday, April 23, 2020 - 09:57

Michelle Keegan, who first made her name in ITV’s Coronation Street, appeared on the BBC show ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ back in 2018, hoping to find out more about her family. She said: “Whenever I meet new people they always ask ‘What have you got in you?’ “Obviously I’ve got darker skin, I’ve got olive skin, so when I turn around and say ‘Manchester’, they’re like ‘no, there’s something else there.’

It has now transpired that on her mother’s side, her grandfather Brian Turner was from Manchester and her grandmother Mary Wiltshire was from Gibraltar.

Her grandmother’s parents were also of mixed heritage - her mother Leonor Orfila was from The Rock, while her father Charles Wilshire was from England, but served as an electrician in the Royal Engineers stationed in Gibraltar.

Historian Jennifer Ballantyne told Michelle: “Leonor would certainly have expected to marry in the Sacred Heart Church [her local Catholic church], but she didn’t.”

Instead, the pair married on August 29, 1932, in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in line with Charles’ religion.

Writing about it in the Express, Abbie Llewelyn adds that the couple had three children - Michelle’s grandmother Mary and her younger brothers Alfred and Stuart - but the family was torn apart when war broke out.

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