Louisa Dixie Durrell

Louisa Dixie Durrell, born Louisa Florence Dixie (16 January 1886 – 24 January 1964) was the mother of novelist Lawrence Durrell and naturalist Gerald Durrell. She is perhaps best remembered as the character of "Mother" in Gerald Durrell's autobiographical Corfu trilogy.

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. Together, they travelled all over India on account of Lawrence's engineering work.

She had four surviving children - Lawrence, Leslie, Margaret and Gerald.

Louisa was actively interested in spiritualism and cookery, and would mingle with Indians to learn of local spirits and cuisine, not conforming to the views of segregation of her time.

On the death of her husband in 1928 she decided to move her family to England, and in 1935 she moved again with her children and Lawrence's then wife Nancy to Corfu. It 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 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 BBC TV series My Family and Other Animals, by Imelda Staunton in the 2005 BBC remake, and by Celia Imrie in the 2010 two-part BBC Radio drama.

References

Gerald Durrell – The Authorized Biography, Douglas Botting (1999)

Gerald Durrell

Institutions associated with	Durrell Wildlife Park Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust EcoHealth Alliance Wildlife Preservation Canada Mauritian Wildlife Foundation Madagascar Fauna Group Programme for Belize World Land Trust World Conference on Breeding Endangered Species in Captivity as an Aid to their Survival

Species associations	Aye-aye Gorilla Mauritius kestrel Pink pigeon Pygmy hog Rockfowl St. Lucia parrot Volcano rabbit

Books authored	The Overloaded Ark Three Singles to Adventure The Bafut Beagles The New Noah The Drunken Forest My Family and Other Animals Encounters with Animals A Zoo in My Luggage The Whispering Land Island Zoo A Look at Zoos Menagerie Manor Two in the Bush The Donkey Rustlers Rosy is My Relative Birds, Beasts, and Relatives Fillets of Plaice Catch Me a Colobus Beasts in My Belfry The Talking Parcel The Stationary Ark Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons The Garden of the Gods The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium The Mockery Bird Ark on the Move The Amateur Naturalist How to Shoot an Amateur Naturalist Durrell in Russia The Fantastic Flying Journey The Fantastic Dinosaur Adventure The Ark's Anniversary Keeper Toby the Tortoise Marrying Off Mother and Other Stories The Aye-Aye and I Puppy Tales The Best of Gerald Durrell

Illustrators	Ralph Thompson Edward Mortelmans Peter Barrett Graham Percy Keith West Cliff Wright

Famous TV series	Two in the Bush Catch Me a Colobus The Garden of the Gods The Stationary Ark Ark on the Move The Amateur Naturalist Ourselves and Other Animals Durrell in Russia

Durrell family	Lawrence Samuel Durrell (father) Louisa Dixie Durrell (mother) Lawrence Durrell Margaret Durrell Jacquie Durrell Lee McGeorge Durrell

Notable others	Theodore Stephanides Douglas Botting Achirimbi II

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