Audrey Kathleen Ruston was born on this day at 3 am the only child to Englishman Joseph Victor Anthony Hepburn-Ruston and the former Baroness Ella van Heemstra in the Dutch town of Arnhem, within Brussels.
Audrey called her mother extraordinary, a good person if somewhat distant, emotionally.
Audrey had two brothers, Alexander and Ian from her mother's first marriage to Hendrik Gustaaf Adolf Quarles van Ufford, a former Queen's equerry.
Although her father Joseph claimed to be an international banker, he was in reality a loan officer, who squandered a large portion of the family wealth through a combination of mismanagement¹, and alleged embezzlement². This would lead to quarrels, growing in intensity until her fathers departure years later.
He would eventually perpend his maternal grandmother Katharine's surname to his own, and the family became known as Hepburn-Ruston.
