When finding the right location evokes discontent and puzzlement

The address we have for Maude Alice Ritchie in 1918 comes off a statutory declaration she made at the Marylebone Police Station. In it, she states that her son, David Scott Ritchie, was born in Paddington on 31 March 1902 and that her present address is 40 Brown Street. This, then, was where my husband, daughter and I headed after leaving Paddington Green.

Brown Street is near the Marble Arch tube station but not that far from the Marylebone tube station and Huntsworth Mews. It felt like a long way, although it wasn't really. I think the distance felt great because we had already covered several kilometres on foot and I'm unaccustomed to so much walking. A timely reminder that my great-grandparents' lifestyle was substantially more strenuous than ours.

Leaving the busy thoroughfare and passing a quaint-looking pub, we reached an intersection with brick terrace houses to the left and right. Everything was quiet, it being the middle of the afternoon with no-one around. I had the feeling that this was a neighbourhood of reserved, hardworking people who prized their little corner of tranquility in a sprawling, fast-paced city.

The house we were looking for was close to the intersection with an unassuming front door. I was sorry I hadn't done more research about the impact of the Second World War on Brown Street, since it would have been useful in ascertaining whether what we were seeing was the original facade of the house or something that had been added later. Then again, this could not have been Maude's own house since she wasn't a property owner. This was just another place of work for my great-grandmother. Grandad himself had probably never lived here.

All I could glean from my visit was a sense of how close Maude had lived to her childhood home and her siblings, if indeed they had all remained in the area. What I really wanted to know was why her own little family was so split up. Walking the streets she walked and seeing the house where she worked didn't really satisfy my curiosity. If anything, it raised more questions than it answered.