The Women of 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' Quiz

Alice Barker is Ruby's great-grandmother and has six children: Ada (whose twin brother William died in infancy), Lawrence, Tom, Albert, Lillian and Eleanor (Nell). She is the point-of-view character in Footnotes I, 'Country Idyll', and XI, 'The Wrong Life'. A former teacher, she is married to Fred Barker, an alcoholic, and is deeply unhappy, to the point of attempting suicide. In 'Country Idyll', Jean-Paul Armand, a travelling photographer, takes pictures of Alice and her family while she is pregnant with Nell, and when he comes to collect payment, she ends up running away with him at his suggestion. Her family believe that she is dead, although it is later revealed that Lawrence saw her going out to meet Armand. She takes the photographs of her children with her.

'The Wrong Life' explains what happened to Alice after she ran away. She and Armand travel to Glasgow, where he tries to make a living, and then Marseilles, his home town. Armand is bankrupt and spends time in debtors' prison, and Alice has to take in washing to make ends meet. The pair argue increasingly and grow apart. While in France, Alice has a vision of Albert dying in the First World War and converts to Catholicism. Eventually, they move back to England at Alice's insistence, and Alice searches for her children; nobody in the village knows where they went, although a few older people remember them and Rachel, their stepmother, who was from Whitby and moved back there after Fred's death from hypothermia.

Alice and Armand move to Whitby and Alice walks the streets calling her children's names. She kills Armand by accident after throwing a vase at his head, and after travelling all over Yorkshire (and passing Nell and her family, although she doesn't see them), she moves to Sheffield, where she looks after other people's children. She is killed in an air raid and when the police find her body, she is clutching a photograph of her children.

Ada is the oldest of Alice and Fred Barker's children and the point-of-view character in Footnote IV, 'Bonny Birds', along with Rachel, her violent and abusive stepmother, who is Alice's cousin and does housework for Fred, before marrying him and taking over the household. Ada has curly blonde hair, a feature shared by other descendants of Alice (including Edmund, Bunty and Albert) and sulks a lot. She is protective of her younger siblings, ordering Tom to throw water over Rachel when she beats Lawrence. She misses Alice and wears a lock of Alice's hair in a locket round her neck, which Rachel later discovers and throws on the fire.

Rachel is far more houseproud than Alice and the garden flourishes with her in charge, and the children are clean, but she and the children dislike each other, and Ada in particular hates her. Ada is angry with Rachel for tying Albert up with a leash and Rachel throws a clog at her, hitting her on the head. She also insists on having Ada's hair cut short and plans to send her into service. Rachel gives birth to a son, Samuel, who is small and sickly, and when Lawrence and Ada get chickenpox, Ada rubs the pus from a spot on Samuel. Rachel sees her standing by the crib and attacks her, only to be interrupted by a drunken Fred, who punches her in the face. Samuel dies of a seizure and Ada feels guilty, as she wished him dead. Ada later becomes ill with diphtheria and dies dreaming of her mother.

Of Alice's other surviving children, Lawrence leaves home at fourteen and goes to Hull, where he is found wandering the streets and picked up by an old sailor with a tramp steamer. He is the point-of-view character in Footnote XII, 'Home'. He gets a job as a stoker and spends several years in Brazil, before eventually deciding to return to England, but his ship is torpedoed on the way there during the First World War. Tom becomes a solicitor's clerk, marries Mabel and settles down on a farm. He is the point-of-view character in Footnote VII, 'Zeppelin!', when his hand is blown off in an air raid and he is exempted from conscription.

Lillian is the point-of-view character in Footnote X, 'Lillian', and she also appears in Footnotes II, 'Still Lives', VII, 'Zeppelin!' (where Tom loses his hand in a Zeppelin attack), and VIII, 'New Boots'. Both she and Nell are very close to Albert. She is headstrong and often clashes with Rachel because of it; when Rachel makes her go into service, she quickly decides she's had enough and when Rachel refuses to buy her and Nell new boots until Lillian gets a job, Lillian goes out in bare feet. In 'New Boots', Rachel locks the girls in their room after Lillian throws a spoon at her, and Lillian climbs through the window and goes to the fair while Nell stays home.

Lillian becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Edmund. Rachel tries to throw her out, but she refuses to leave. After living with Nell, Frank and their baby son Clifford, she moves to Montreal and travels around Canada before getting a job in a post office in Vancouver, where she meets Pete Donner, a farmer. Lillian and Pete are married and Pete becomes a father figure to Edmund; they also have a son together, Nat. Edmund later joins the Air Force and dies in the Second World War when his plane is shot down; he is the point-of-view character in Footnote IX, 'In the Realm of Aire and Angells'. He visits Nell and her family in Footnote III, 'Business as Usual', before going on a date with Doreen O'Doherty, an Irish nurse who later has an affair with George and takes Ruby, Gillian, Patricia and their cousin Lucy-Vida on holiday (and is also the mother of the nurse who takes care of Bunty in her old age).

Lillian spends the rest of her life in Canada. She plans to write home multiple times, but ends up only sending one telegram. She becomes close to Tina, the wife of her grandson Andy, and gives her the framed photograph of herself and her siblings. Tina names her baby son after Edmund's father, who is revealed to be Jack Keech, a friend of Albert's who died in the First World War.

Nell is the baby of Alice Barker's children and the point-of-view character in Footnote II, 'Still Lives' and V, 'Rain'. She is more conservative and cautious than Lillian, and works for a milliner. She is originally engaged to Percy Sievewright, a policeman, but he dies of peritonitis and she regularly visits his mother after his death. Although she is initially interested in Jack Keech, she marries Frank Cook, another of Albert's friends, and has five children: Clifford, Barbara (Babs), Berenice (Bunty), Betty and Ted. Her stepmother Rachel dies just after Nell and Frank get the train to the Lake District for their honeymoon, although she doesn't find out until later. She has a flashback to her honeymoon while she and Ted are on holiday in the Lake District.

Nell develops dementia over the course of the story; when Bunty comes home after missing the train to Scarborough, she finds Nell in the kitchen pouring milk into a bowl even after it overflows, and muttering names of cakes. She is widowed in the Second World War when Frank is killed in an air raid. She regularly visits the family's neighbours, Minnie Havis and Ena Tetley, after Minnie loses her son and Ena her husband. Nell originally looks after Ena's baby son Spencer, but then has enough and makes Bunty do it instead. When Ena and Spencer are killed in an air raid, Nell finds a souvenir teaspoon from George VI's coronation and keeps it; Bunty later inherits the teaspoon.

In the present day, Nell spends Christmas with Patricia and Ruby after Gillian's death, though Patricia is the one running things in Bunty and George's absence. She sometimes minds the pet shop in George's absence, and moves in with the Lennoxes when her dementia becomes more severe. Her last words to Ruby before she dies are, "Mind your boots, Lily!" and her last words to Patricia are, "Shall I help put Percy's tea on now, Mrs Sievewright?"

Babs is Nell's oldest daughter and Bunty's older sister. She appears as a child in Footnote IV, 'The Sunday School Outing', where she, Bunty and Clifford are going to a Sunday School picnic in Scarborough (Betty is ill with whooping cough and Ted is too young to go). The children are late and Babs and Clifford only just manage to catch the train, but Bunty is left behind and wets herself, and has to be taken home.

In the present day, Babs is married to Sidney and they have twin daughters, Rose and Daisy. Ruby is scared of them and thinks they are aliens. After Pearl's death, Ruby is sent to stay with Babs and her family in Dewsbury. The family are Spiritualists and take Ruby to their church, and the medium tells her that her sister says not to worry about her, confusing Ruby. Babs later gets breast cancer and has a mastectomy; Ruby sees her showing her mastectomy scar to Nell, Bunty and Gladys (her aunt on her father's side). She dies of cancer in 1963 and the twins spend Christmas with the Lennox family.

In the final chapter, Rose and Daisy are revealed to be living together in a tower block in Leeds and have little contact with the rest of the family, and are implied to be severely mentally ill; according to Lucy-Vida's son Wayne, they think aliens talk to them through the television.

Bunty, real name Berenice, is the middle of Nell and Frank's children and the mother of Patricia, Gillian, Pearl and Ruby. She is the point-of-view character in Footnotes III, 'Business as Usual', and VI, 'The Sunday School Outing'. She is married to George Lennox, who owns a pet shop (which is later destroyed in a fire and is reopened as a medical supplies shop). She works in Modelia, a clothes shop that is destroyed during the Second World War, and then an instruments factory; she meets George in 1944 while he is in the Army and stationed at Catterick, while Clifford marries Gladys, a girl from the Auxiliary Territorial Service, and Betty moves to Canada. Bunty is a reluctant mother and not very loving towards her children; she also suffers from depression, exacerbated by Pearl's death, and briefly walks out on the family.

George has regular affairs and he and Bunty constantly argue. While Bunty is giving birth to her twins, he is in a pub telling a woman he is unmarried, and when Bunty walks out, George sends the girls and their cousin Lucy-Vida on holiday with Doreen O'Doherty, another of his affairs, and bans the girls from telling Bunty about her. Bunty later has an affair with Clive Roper, the Lennoxes' neighbour; Ruby walks in on them having sex in a garage, and when the Ropers and Lennoxes go on holiday to Scotland together, Bunty is caught having sex with Mr Roper on the kitchen table. She and George stay together, but George dies of a heart attack at Ted and Sandra's wedding, during the 1966 World Cup, while having sex with a waitress.

Bunty has a relationship with Bernard Belling, one of George's friends, after George's death, but he and Ruby do not get on, and he leaves Bunty after he accuses Ruby of murdering Pearl and Ruby takes an overdose. When Ruby marries Gian-Carlo Benedetti, Bunty refuses to speak to her for a year. In the final chapter, Bunty has dementia and Ruby puts her in a home, with the help of her gay cousin Adrian (Clifford and Gladys' son). Bunty later dies, with Ruby, Adrian and Patricia by her bedside, and several family members attend her funeral, including Ted and Sandra, Clifford and Gladys, and Lucy-Vida and her four children.

Patricia is the oldest of Bunty and George's children, and is five years older than Ruby. She is precocious and something of a depressive, even as a child, and has trouble making friends. When the pet shop is on fire, she smashes her and Ruby's bedroom window and escapes by climbing down a drainpipe, and lets the pets out. She also tries and fails to rescue Pearl when Pearl falls through the ice. She loves animals and has a dog, a terrier called Rags, who survives the fire and is given away to the RSPCA, although she buys him back. She gives him to Ruby before she runs away. In her teens, she becomes a communist, gets into rock music, and frequently argues with Bunty.

While the Lennoxes are on holiday in Scotland, Patricia is frequently sick and admits to being pregnant. Patricia is forced to give up her baby after being sent to a mother-and-baby home in Essex, and walks out on the family, leaving Ruby alone. She phones several times, but does not get through and Bunty and Ruby refer to her as 'Mr Nobody'; however, many years later, Ruby finally manages to speak to her and discovers that she is living in Australia. In 1982, Ruby takes her daughters to visit Patricia, who is now a Buddhist and a veterinarian, married to a dentist, and has two sons of her own. The next time Patricia and Ruby see each other is when Bunty is dying.

Gillian is the second of Bunty and George's children and is three when Ruby and Pearl are born. She is spoiled and temperamental, frequently throwing tantrums, and does not get on well with Ruby, frequently bossing her around; however, Lucy-Vida, the Lennoxes' cousin on George's side, is good at managing her. During the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Gillian irritates the adults by showing off her dancing moves in front of the television.

Gillian dies on Christmas Eve at the age of eleven, after the Lennoxes have gone to a pantomime. While George is hailing a taxi, Gillian sees some school friends and runs across the road, only to be hit by a car. When Bernard Belling accuses Ruby of killing her sister, she initially thinks he means Gillian. Bunty's depression becomes even worse after Gillian's death. It is later revealed that Gillian is partially responsible for Pearl's death; when the Lennoxes are staying at Bunty's uncle Tom's farm, Gillian walks across a frozen duck pond to an island in the middle, and goads Pearl into walking on the ice. When some men row out to rescue Gillian, she points at Ruby and repeatedly screams that Ruby pushed Pearl into the pond.

Pearl is Ruby's twin sister and the older of the twins. Her existence is a huge spoiler; we do not learn the truth about her until Ruby is sixteen and having hypnotherapy sessions, following an overdose and learning from Bunty that she had a twin sister and the two were known as the 'jewel twins'. Ruby and Pearl adore each other and Pearl is the more outgoing of the two. While on holiday, Pearl walks on a frozen duck pond, but the ice breaks and she falls in and drowns. Her body is fished out several hours later, and Ruby is sent to stay with relatives because she reminds Bunty too much of Pearl. Ruby asks why Bunty never talked about Pearl, but Bunty replies that everyone talked about her and kept photos of her, and it was Ruby who blotted her out. She shows Ruby a locket with pictures of her and Pearl; Pearl is in the photo on the left.

There are hints of Pearl's existence throughout the book. Ruby feels that someone is in the womb with her. When Ruby is born, the doctor looks surprised and the midwife says 'snap'. She sees that there are twice as many photographs of her as there are of Patricia and Gillian, not realising that half of these photographs are of Pearl. While staying with Babs, she spells out the word 'PEARL' with alphabet cards, and Babs is shocked and throws the cards into the fire. When Bunty is listing her children's names, she says 'Patricia, Gillian, P--, Ruby' ('P--' standing for Pearl), and when Gillian dies, Bunty repeatedly cries out, "My Gillian, my pearl," which confuses Ruby as she never called Gillian that when she was alive. Ruby sees a photo next to Bunty's bed that she assumes is her, but is actually Pearl. Rose and Daisy make reference to Ruby losing three sisters, not two.

Ruby is the narrator of 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and is the youngest of Bunty and George's children, as she was the second of the twins to be born. The story begins with her being conceived in 1951 and ends with her attending Bunty's funeral and working as a translator. After the deaths of Pearl and Gillian, and Patricia leaving home - as Alice and Lillian did before her - she is the only Lennox child left and is bridesmaid at her uncle Ted's wedding, the sole representative of Ted's family. Daisy and Rose claim she was picked because people felt sorry for her because she lost three sisters, which Ruby does not understand.

Ruby suffers from depression and frequently sleepwalks, and is also triggered by open water; she has a panic attack while on a boat in Scotland, but cannot understand why. During an argument with Bernard Belling, who she hates, he accuses her of killing her sister and she confronts Bunty about it, asking why nobody told her she had a sister. Bunty replies that they did, but Ruby blocked it out and the other Lennoxes thought it was best not to talk about it. Bunty also admits to initially blaming Ruby for Pearl's death. Ruby walks out of school, barricades herself in a cupboard and takes an overdose. After waking up in hospital, she has hypnotherapy sessions with Dr Herzmark, a German hypnotherapist, who helps her regain her memories of Pearl.

Ruby applies to Exeter University, but does not get in due to failing a history A-Level. She moves to Scotland with her friend Kathleen in 1970, after they get jobs in a hotel in Edinburgh as chambermaids. While in Scotland, Ruby meets Gian-Carlo Benedetti, an Italian whose family own multiple restaurants and cafes, in the ice-cream parlour where he works; he and Ruby inherit a chip shop in Forfar. Ruby has a gift for languages and learns Italian, and later works as a translator. She and Gian-Carlo have twin daughters, Alice and Pearl. After seven years of marriage, she walks out on Gian-Carlo, taking her daughters with her and moves to Shetland. She briefly returns to York when Bunty is dying. She and Patricia work on a family tree, and both Betty's daughter Hope and Tina Donner get in touch; Ruby also plans to write a cycle of poems about her family.