Linked here is the complete longhand text of Rachel Harding's "diary" - it is a mixture of diary and reminiscence and some of it has been typed and included in what is below. Rachel Harding 1913-2006 was the wife of John Grosvenor Laurance Harding
Below is all the more interesting memoirs etc left by Rachel Harding. There is a lot of duplication and it would benefit from more editing
1st Book
"For me, any mention of my parents is interesting. They divorced when I was too young to even remember them living together. One of many nannies taught us to pray 'God bless Mummy and Daddy' and I can remember adding sotto voce a firm demand that they should be made to live together. Later on I began to take divorce so for granted that I had to learn the hard way the fact that it was, in those days, a very rare event. Not only rare but severely censured by all and sundry. Even some of my mother's servants (as they were called in those days) tended to sneer behind my parents' back but often in front of us. I must add here that Janet the head housemaid who stayed with my mother for years was a wonderful friend to me. She loved my mother and had liked and understood my father. Years later when she took my son Guy out from school she told me that my mother's one time best friend was largely responsible for the divorce. [these words were lightly crossed out. "She made endless mischief between them and was known to try and sleep with every man she met."] The Hon. Mrs Dorothy Fellows mentioned by Lutyens. As a child I knew her all too well. I believe that particular friendship broke up either before or soon after my mother married again. I remember they were still friends when my mother lived at White Lodge. For some reason we called her Nini. She used to organize my mother's house parties. My mother hated bridge and was thankful to get Nini to fix up the bridge fours.
My mother was the daughter of Charles and Edith Perkins. CP was a coal baron, enormously rich and adored by my mother and her younger sister. His wife was a Hunter, one time Mayor of Newcastle. Also I think a so called coal baron. My mother's uncle mentioned by Lutyens [These words crossed out "bought and lived in Gilling Castle now Ampleforth Prep school. I can't remember him but I well remember his wife "Aunt Mary"]. (Mrs Charles Hunter). Her portrait was for many years in the Tate Gallery now I expect in the cellars of the Tate.
My mother was a high flyer who became enormously rich when her father was killed in one of the first motor cars. She was still very young and rich enough and self assured enough to not give a fig what anyone thought about her.
From my angle, ie the angle of a daughter, she was for many years a rather frightening figure. More of a distant and scarcely seen boss. From a very early age it became all too clear that she did not like small girls. In return for this great dislike, I admired, respected and sometimes hated her. I considered her grossly unfair and resented my brothers being treated so very differently from me. I was bewildered by the things she told us against Bertie - was he really so bad - she ought to know. I longed to believe that she was wrong. He was, when I was a child, such an attractive person and unlike my mother always affectionate. He would sit on my bed and do conjuring tricks with gorgeous silk handkerchiefs. But, lurking in the background, was Zellie the French governess listening in and reporting back.
In the morning at breakfast I daren't be civil to him and never dared to explain. He could never understand - if I'd told him there would have been rows. The point was that I had to live with my mother - my father's house was never a home.
In my experience he was a lovely but worrying interlude. We each had a pony and we each had a dog but they had to stay there just ours for 6 weeks a year.
I usually stayed without my brothers and I believe at the end they almost gave up going there. When he eventually married again we all stayed away. When we were grown up David and Jon certainly saw much more of him than I ever did. By that time he was ill, had at least one stroke and possibly Parkinsons. To me on the few occasions that I saw him he was a totally changed and very sad character.
He died in January 1937 just two months before I married by which time I was twenty three.
Two days before his death I went to see him in his house in Knightsbridge (26 Trevor Square). Unfortunately, my mother had told me and I think she genuinely thought it that he wasn't really ill at all. She reminded me of how much he liked to pretend and dramatise his illnesses. This I knew had sometimes been true but this time it wasn't. Looking back I'm amazed at my stupidity. He was having oxygen and obviously great difficulty in breathing but the fact that he could talk at all made me think my mother was right. Dying people I imagined would be groaning and speechless. Not surprisingly my stepmother (Connie) considered my attitude to be ??? and unsympathetic. She was male orientated and favoured my brothers and I suspect only tolerated me because I was Bertie's favourite child.
For now on I shall call my parents by their Christian names. I was never given the opportunity of going to Bertie's funeral. I still don't know but guess that he was cremated and ashes sent up to Bywell. The fact that he left his money to Connie for her life and then to me added greatly to my unpopularity. My offer to split it with my brothers was refused as they thought I might expect them to do the same when Vi died. In those days the sons always got more as they were expected to keep their wives.
In fact Bertie had spent most of his money and the solicitor encouraged me to ??? to Connie who would otherwise be very poor. This I gladly did as Larry and I wanted money to help educate our sons. This proved a big mistake as Connie died young and left her money naturally to her only sister".
2ND BOOK
Typed from photocopy of content of an exercise book
"The people who have influenced me most-
No one more than my mother and Zellie my governess which is why for so many years I found those two people so hard to forgive.
As far back as I can remember my mother had an extremely low opinion of me and Zellie wholeheartedly endorsed it. Between them, for no known reason, they set about for years removing any self assurance I might have had. I can only imagine that by nature I must have been very cocky and irritating but in my opinion they overdid it! The result being that I have always found it ? impossible to have any confidence in my ability to do anything. In any case my mother made no bones about disliking girls particularly very young ones. She did her best by persistently running me down to indoctrinate my friends and even Larry my husband! I am grateful to Nick who is in certain ways a good encourager.
Dorothea Beddoes influenced me a lot at one time.
Barbara Sidebottom? Who sadly died in her forties.
Stephen Taylor who for years said he'd never have another girl friend and then did! Not to be blamed as I could never make up my mind about him. My Burrell cousins - I admired their dash which was, in those far oft days, considerable!
My brother David until he married a woman I didn't like - from then on he lost interest in me. Before that, because he was 3 years older and much cleverer I admired and loved him.
Jon - We got on well when my mother wasn't around - I couldn't stand and nor could David her worship of the younger son. I don't think he influenced me.
Ivy Blagden, Slockocks, Ann Gunter, school friends. In general The Garden School influenced my whole life but I don't think I was affected by any individuals there. The Headmistress imposed her views on the school and so indirectly on all of us. Education in strict sense was almost a non event. No exams. No competition - most of the time we did more or less what we liked - often paired off and went for mile long walks by ourselves across fields and through woods - the country was safe in those days. If we came across a pony in a field we'd try and catch it and to gallop, bare back until we fell off. We worked a little in the mornings but if the subject on hand had no appeal it was permissible to opt out and find an alternative occupation. In my case I'd read in the library but most of the classes were pretty easy going affairs which nearly everyone attended. In the summer we sat outside on the grass or on walls. Alternatively desks and chairs were taken out. The accent was definitely geared to fresh air and fresh fruit, a lot of arts and crafts, Margaret Morris dancing, Eurhythmics, musical appreciation and so on. In fact a fairly typical so called "Progressive school of the 1930s". I think I must have been sacked from my first boarding school. I was sent at the age of 8 - two years younger than any girl in that school. It was a typical Eastbourne establishment girls school which I thoroughly hated but anything was preferable to home and a governess. In comparison TGS was paradise. I could scarcely believe my luck. On that front my luck lasted till I was 17 with two breaks. First one my mother suddenly decided to send me with a different governess to Lausanne - that lasted a few weeks. The governess, Miss Coward, was an improvement on Zellie but she was boring and I failed to match up to any of her previous pupils. Why my mother decided to send me back to TGS I can only guess was convenience as she never came out to Switzerland.
I settled down happily to the easy going life and enjoyed seeing my friends again. Two years later I was taken with her to South Africa. Jon had hated his public school, Oundle, and prevailed on my mother to take him away and let him farm. He stayed there with Sir Abe Bailey for some kind of training and then we came over and toured SA with him before bringing him home with us. I enjoyed the whole of our time there enormously. I was 15 and it was the first time I'd met men on their level. My brothers being older were pretty condescending. The surprise of finding that men on the boat found one attractive and wanted to dance with me and given a chance make love - My mother for some reason left me to my own devices. In those days it took about 3 weeks to get to Cape Town and boat love affairs were numerous - usually ending abruptly on landing.
I was thrilled by everything in SA. We stayed at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town for sometime - surf bathing in Muisenberg and meeting lots of people that my mother had introductions to. We went on to Durban, Salisbury, now Harari and visited the Victoria Falls.
I can't remember how long we stayed in J'Burg. I know we visited a diamond mine and met several friends of my mothers. We went to the Johannesburg National Gallery to see a large portrait of my mother done by Anna Swynerton. It was bought for the gallery by Sir Hugh Lane and is now I think in the cellars. Nick and Sarah asked to see it years after when they were there for a prolonged honeymoon. The gallery apologised for it not being any longer on display and brought it up from the basement for them to see.
We came home on a Union Castle Line boat which was where I met Stephen Taylor. He was then an officer in the Merchant Navy. His father was a doctor and concerned about the possibility of TB which Stephen had had. Sea air was considered to be the best treatment. Stephen was 17 and I was his first love by that time. I'd had 2 very mild affairs with rather older men. Not in the least serious. When we landed Stephen was determined to meet me again. We went on meeting and writing endless letters to each other for the next 5 years. Stephen went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. By that time his parents and their other 2 children were living out there near Vancouver. My mother never approved of him mostly because he was poor and not very grand. It was made quite clear that my allowance would be stopped and that any tie up between us was unthinkable. I didn't like the idea of living on my uppers although I kept the affair going and even introduced him to my father who proved even more disapproving.
Stephen was fair blue eyed attractive and in every way a very [word crossed out] man. Eventually, he found another girl in Canada and married her. I thought I was heartbroken but knew in my heart I'd never have been brave enough to marry him. He had though played a very big part in my life for a very long time and I missed him enormously. In the war I got a letter from him saying he was happily married and in the navy. Wanted to know how I was and if there was a chance we might meet again. I don't remember if I answered. I shall always think of him with great affection.
Of course there were other men but only Alberto (Alberto Wagner de Reynne(?), Legation du Perou(?)) that stands out and is unforgettable. I only knew him while we were both doing foreigners courses at Fribourg (in B .. ?) can't remember spelling! He was South American and came from Lima. His father was an ambassador somewhere. Tall dark good looking and charming. We fell for each other on sight and spent every spare minute together. We both knew it had to be temporary - he was like me 21. The only language we really had in common was French - his was perfect, mine certainly wasn't. I switched over from my German course to Spanish and French. In those days we were fairly chaste - we didn't dare not be. No pill - not yet invented. There were debs that took chances but I was never one of them. However, Frau Prof. Axenfeld was broad minded and I was one of the many students who stayed in her house. She gave me the key and never minded how late I came home. Alberto gave me a lovely party before I left and in the morning he saw me on to the train showering me with lilies of the valley and roses. We exchanged photographs and letters but there was no future for us. I didn't want to live in Lima and he would never have married an English non-catholic. Neither of us ever thought in terms of anything other than a temporary love affair.
I went out to Fribourg with Barbara Sidebottom the very nice friend who died tragically young of a brain tumour. We met originally doing a course (8 weeks) at Ashridge (Bonar Law College). In Fribourg we went our separate ways. She was a serious student not interested in romance and I was there purely to enjoy myself.
Soon after I got home my cousin Evie (Rich) invited me out to Launes? Puyes. The house belonged to our mutual Aunt Kitty (Cartwright). I didn't know her well as she was a Fenwick (my father's half sister) and as she stuck to my father her popularity with my mother was nil.
Evie and I drove out with Carol Swinfen. His father was Master of the Rolls and his then girl friend Mary Farmar (?). I think they married and later divorced. Not sure. They stayed a week left Sunday 7 June 1936. Both nice, Mary another friend of Evie's.
On Monday 8th Evie heard that Uncle Ralph, At K's 2nd husband was dying. Uncle R was 10 years younger than At K. They lived at Chantille outside Paris (racing world). At K's first husband Jock Trotter had been killed hunting soon after they married.
Tuesday 9. Buy Evie's clothes for funeral in Pau - drink Hotel La France
8th according to my diary, we spent morning in Navareux lunching with Mrs Whalley - friend of At K I assume. Can't remember her.
15th Uncle Ralph died. His horse Alcoli doesn't run.
Sunday 14th, see Whalleys and collect black clothes. Finished up both looking very odd as the locals expected us to be in deepest mourning, particularly Evie who was chief mourner. It was a sort of mock funeral held in Coucede? - the real one was in Chantille. Evie had to arrange it with the local cure.
16th Funeral. Evie and I giggled for hours trying on our unsuitable clothes none of them fitted. We both finished in black oilskin macs and black wellingtons very hot day and the service endless. We walked round in circles holding candles. Evie of course leading the way followed closely by me, 2nd chief mourner! Neither of us had a clue how to behave. The attenders consisted entirely of village peasants and At K's servants all of whom buried their faces in handkerchiefs. At K's maid had found us 2 of Aunt K's lace handkerchiefs. We managed to stifle our mirth and wipe away our tears with them. Of course, no one and of this we were well aware would have laughed more heartedly than Uncle Ralph.
After the funeral Evie who was by nature nothing if not conscientious became conscience stricken - especially as she'd been brought up a devout Anglican. She felt our hilarity had been misplaced. We should have managed that funeral better. I pointed out that after all it was only an R.c. one - in those days RCs were much looked down on by Anglicans. The thought greatly cheered Evie and we decided that our best course was to enjoy our remaining time out there, especially as At K might now decide to sell it.
We were alone for another week when At Laura and her sons Roger and Bobby were due. Evie had known them most of her life and had always been very keen on Roger who at that time looked upon her as an amusing younger sister. He being about 4 years older. Evie was about 20 then. She thought of him quite differently and made it clear that it was hands off Roger! I liked all Barnetts. It was the first time I'd met them. Aunt Laura lived at Lincoln Hill [or Hall] in Northumberland and had known my parents in far off days. My mother thought her boring and tedious. I never heard Aunt Laura say much about? her other than their good looks and Bertie she liked but couldn't approve of his behaviour.
A few years later Roger and Evie married and lived happily together till E. died of cancer in about 1985. Two children Charlie and Philippa.
When I got home I took Molly Crofts place in Dorothea Beddoes flat 4 Bourne St. near Sloane Square. Dorothea's brother Roscoe had been at Oxford with David. They introduced us thinking we might be a good influence on each other, or so they said! Dorothea and I became tremendous friends and have been ever since. We originally shared a great desire and, in my case determination, to get away from our mothers. We plotted endlessly on means of doing it as we were both dependent on our mothers for money.
We first met when I was living with my mother at Poulton Grange Nr Cirencester. I had to hunt which I hated. She was living with her widowed mother in Wallingford. There house Winterbrook was later sold to Agatha Christie. Dorothea led an even more restricted life. Her family, unlike mine, were typical respectable upper class and not well off. At that time I thought of them as very poor which they were compared with Fenwicks. However it was Dorothea who managed to lay her hands on enough money to rent the tiny flat in Bourne St. That flat she kept for years and all her friends had keys and in and outed when they liked. But for that flat I doubt if Larry or I would ever have married. I met Larry through his cousin Peggy Phelps who I met on a typing course at the Triangle while I was a deb. When she married I was one of her bridesmaids and Larry an usher. Because by that time, I'd escaped home and was living in London in D's flat we kept in touch. I was rather half heartedly going about with a man called Denis M. introduced to me by Barbara Sidebottom. He was later killed in the war.
Larry and I were officially engaged without much encouragement from our parents in November 1936 and married at Higham in Suffolk in March 1937. L's parents were thoroughly respectable upper middle class people living in what my family called Suburbia ie Chalfont St Giles. My father-in-law fell out with my mother on sight as he refused to make a marriage settlement on me. At that time it was the normal procedure - he had insisted on his daughter having one. Mr and Mrs Harding soon made it abundantly clear that they took a dim view of my background - divorce was still unacceptable and particularly in their circle. Added to that my brother David had been converted to Catholicism and they were followers of Mary Baker Eddy. Luckily Larry was different although financially totally dependent on his incredibly mean father. He was a ?barely paid partner in his father's firm of solicitors Harding & Munby. At that time it consisted only of Larry and his father with two very underpaid secretaries. Poor Larry virtually had no say and only £400pa and a fortnights holiday a year.
My mother fortunately rather liked him but made it clear that if his father was mean she certainly wasn't going to do much better. It was a case of all right I can't stop you. She was in fact pretty generous and gave us a splendid wedding and handed over cheques and paid hols from time to time. To me it seemed mean as David and Jon had so very much more.
My father died 2 months before we married and left me some money - I shared equally with an illegitimate half sister, I think it was four thousand and hunting lodge at Melton - most of it was my step-mother's for life. Later I sold the reversion as we needed money for educating our son etc. Soon after my stepmother died of cancer. Obviously if we'd known we'd have hung on somehow.
My father in law never offered a penny towards his grandsons education. My mother in law had very very little money of her own so there was nothing she could do. I don't know if she would have or not. Neither of my parents in law gave me the impression of liking me. After the war we used to be invited to a frugal supper one day a week. I resented their meanness to Larry but I don't remember particularly disliking them. Mrs Harding's sister Aunt Ethel I did like. She'd married and parted company with her nice but inadequate husband Fabian Evans. She was clever amusing and worked as clerk of the Works building sites for Edwin Forbes noted architect - much more sophisticated than Mrs Harding and not so shockable. She despised Christian Science as much as we did. She had one daughter Betty who would spend much of her childhood with the Hardings.
To go back to my illegitimate half sister, she was the daughter of the most talented of the Gaiety Girls who was also an actress in one or two famous Music Hall shows. Maisie(?) Ward. [crossed out - "my stepmother said it wasn't Bertie's daughter but really the Aga Khan's"]. I can't remember our half sister's name. According to Connie my stepmother also a Gaiety Girl she wasn't Bertie's child anyway - he'd simply been conned into thinking so and made to pay up. Needless to say I have no means of knowing and nor probably had Bertie - no knowledge of blood tests for years later.
Whoever she was she married a rich husband and her photograph appeared in the paper going off on an expensive honeymoon. I think married some quite well known man but at the time I lacked interest and now no-one alive that would know.
Obviously Bertie was not exactly faithful as she was a year or 2 older than me. Bertie -The Cad as Benedict would say! Well I think there were many cads about as wives were only too pleased to be let off the bed work.
Larry and I married in November [This is an error, they were engaged in November, married March 1937] and had our honeymoon in Murren first night at the Savoy. At the Savoy we dined and danced and met a girl I was at school with Pam Adamson. Our room was like a hot house and Larry couldn't get the radiators off. In the morning we were quite pleased to leave but unnerved by the number of pages etc whisking our luggage off and lining up for tips.
Honeymoon splendid but typical of all brides I developed a ghastly cold. Murren was quiet and hotels all round us shutting down - Larry's ski-ing was in a rather higher category then mine which started and finished on the nursery slopes.
A fortnight later we returned to England and found daffodils out. We started our married life in Jasons Cottage, Ley Hill, Chesham. God, how miserable I was. It was my first experience of being alone all day. Larry left for London and the office about 8 and returned sometime after 7.
Meanwhile, I was alone in a village knowing no-one. I tried playing golf by myself on a silly little joke golf course. I tried going to the cinema in Chesham. I was short of money so couldn't go to London often and when I did all my friends were working. Just one person called on me - an elderly friend of my in-laws. Larry would come home quite oblivious of my misery, asking me what I'd done all day. He was thrilled with the cottage and thought I ought to be the same. One day he was very over enthusiastic about an apple pie I'd made and I threw it at him. To add to my misery I started feeling sick having started a baby on our honeymoon. Whenever I got a chance I went home where I enjoyed breakfast in bed and all the home comforts I'd taken so for granted. More than anything, just not being alone, in what I felt was a most unfriendly village. After a few weeks of hell I told Larry nothing would induce me to stay. We'd borrowed a little money for the house from Mr Harding, it cost £450 and he was not wanting to? him further. Also Larry loved Ley Hill which was near his old stamping ground Harewood Downs Golf Club. He could never understand my misery and homesickness. I felt it was ok for Larry, he was only there at weekends and had no idea of what my life had been like before I married. He thought because his mother was happy I should be. It was the first and only time when I seriously thought of leaving him. In the end we took a flat in Battersea where we were when Nicholas was born.
The minute we got to London I was happy in spite of pregnancy sickness. I think Larry was although he has never understood my misery in Ley Hill! We had friends and those awful lonely days were over. At weekends we often drove down to Harewood Downs.
Nick was born in 3 Wilbraham Place a nursing home near Sloane Square. He was a twin but not an identical. His brother Anthony died before I left the nursing home. We went back to the flat with a nice Great Ormond St children's nurse paid for by my mother who like me was frightened of something similar happening to Nick. Actually, Nick was really much larger and stronger than his brother and the Doctor thought a hospital nurse unnecessary. Hardings being Christian Scientists took no interest. After about a month we got a very experienced Nanny who stayed with us till soon after the war by which time we'd moved out of London. [RH's memory was faulty on this. When the war ended, I was 8 and at a boarding school. I can recall the war but not Nanny Green who is being referred to. NJH]. One of the most enjoyable times of my life took place while we were in Overstrand Mansions. We went there in August 1937 first to a flat on the ground floor which was too small and too noisy and then into a slightly larger one facing away from the park. The bliss of being back in the land of the living I shall never forget it. Our greatest friends in Overstrand were the Stopfords - Christina and Montague. Christina had been at Westonbirt with a friend of mine, Antonia Wilkinson who introduced us. Christina's nice sister Elspeth Cranley lived on the top floor. She worked in Fortnam Masons and had 2 sons. There were lots of? young ?s there. On the Nannies days out we walked our children in the Park.
Battersea Park was delightful in those days before the Fun Fair took over. We saw lots of Larry's friends as well as mine. The Moirs also in Battersea and Robert and Betty Harter who lived in Hampstead. I think Larry enjoyed it almost as much as I did although he hated London at weekends. The Slockocks were in London, Ann Gunter, Dorothea and lots of friends and relations stayed for a day or a night. London before the war was a splendid place to live in and I used to drive everywhere and park anywhere. One day I parked outside Harrods and forgetting I had the car took a bus home. Next morning I remembered. No problem it was still there".
TRANSCRIPTS OF PAGES IN TWO EXERCISE BOOKS OF MEMOIRES WRITIEN BY RACHEL HARDING
"5.1.90. Notes mainly
Encouraged by Jessica telling me that grammar is no longer what it was I'm embarking on a diary. Also finding, on reading Lutyens letters to his wife, that he gets away with his lack of normal education so why shouldn't I! Nick has just given me Lutyens book as it mentions both my parents and other Fenwick relations.
P147. 'The Letter of Edwin Lutyens' to his wife, Lady Emily, Edited by Clayre Percy and Jane Ridley.
"After his failure in the LCC competition Lutyens' wish for a "nice big house" was soon granted in the shape of ... "Temple Dinsley for H.G. Fenwick."
P199 "Mrs H.G. Fenwick's mother was Mr Hunter's sister. Mr Hunter said he would like to see Temple Dinsley and off we motored to lunch there to-day, and just as I was starting for home up came Mrs Hunter with Tonks the painter and Oxendon the Collector Man, so I waited till a later train. [What follows may not be a continuation of the same extract]. Temple Dinsley is having a success fou and Mrs Fenwick is so nice to me about the house and everything. I came home with Tonks and allowed him to wash and brush up here as he was dining with the Protheros - Tonks is a nice man .... Loved Temple Dinsley .. "
Notes
1. Mrs Charles Hunter (1857-1933) was a sister of Dame Ethel Smyth, her husband was a wealthy coal owner. A typical Edwardian. "A fine woman" she was painted several times by Sargent. "Mrs Hunter is a ?" wrote Virginia Woolf in 1933. "Died standing eating drinking dressing penniless ruined discredited, having got through £40,000 a year not all of her own, but they say she was a great hostess and all is forgiven - rightly I think."
2. Henry Tonks (1862-1937) Slade Professor of Fine Art 1917-1930
P305. " ... Fenwick is away! And I am alone with Mrs Fenwick and Mrs Fellowes ... "
"Temple Dinsley Sep 27.15 (Mrs Fellowes) said last night she would like to marry me! I was she thought kind and unlike other men. I assured her I was not really kind and she would find very little difference in me from other men. They are intrigued as to what is the matter with me. They think I am in love ... "
Notes
1. Lutyens was building cottages at Hill end for H.G.Fenwick
2. Dorothy Jefferson married in 1900 the Hon. Coulson Fellowes, eldest son of Lord de Romsey, from whom he divorced in 1912. Though something of an adventuress, she was for a time a great friend of Mrs H.G.Fenwick who commissioned Lutyens to build Hill End now known as Langley End Hertfordshire for her in 1911."
Notes written at Guy’s request by Rachel Harding on where she had been educated (lightly edited INCL GUY’S CORRECTIONS)
"The first 3 years of my life were spent at Temple Dinsley
After that Vi moved to Newmarket to be near her race horses.
1st house Rutland House and then Bedford Cottage and then White Lodge, Cheveley.
She then married again and I stayed with my stepfather for 2 or 3 months – he and Vi kept the houses they were in and just stayed with each other from time to time. Then they more or less split up but didn’t divorce. After that I never went to Barrowby Grange, my step father’s house near Grantham again.
I stayed on and off with Bertie. I can’t remember all the different houses he had – one on the Isle of Wight, two in Wiltshire [should be Northamptonshire?] both near Aynhoe where his sister Kitty Cartwright lived. For one winter at least he lived in Biarritz and I went to a local day school for a term.
Aged ?8 I went to a school called ?Edmundsbury, boarding for convenience as both David and Jon were in different schools in Eastbourne and stayed one and a half terms there. Got very ill and was sent to a Progressive school, The Garden School near Missenden, enjoyed it and made several life long friends. Open air life and did what we liked, learnt nothing.
Granny took me away twice, once with a governess to Lausanne where I went to the local school ?L’ecole Vinier and stayed in a hotel – day school only. Then later she sent me back to The Garden School again for one or two terms and then took me to South Africa for about 3 ?months. Then back to the Garden School again. Removed again to stay in Switzerland very briefly. Then went to ?Evendown a Finishing School near Malvern for two terms. From there I went to London and did what I think was called the Season. Endless boring balls etc etc. Vi having been through the divorce court couldn’t organize it herself so paid someone else to have me and arrange everything including my Coming Out Ball in her club, the Guards Club. I hated the whole affair and didn’t know any of the right people who all knew each other.
The Hon Mrs Murray rented a house in Royal Avenue and I stayed there with her. Luckily she didn’t care what I did. I saw an advert asking for helpers in a restaurant in the Kings Road. I got a job there. It was run by a very racy middle aged person called the Hon Mrs ?Gilillan. She made me a member of the Gargoyle, a night club in Soho and was a very good friend to me. The Gargoyle was owned by the Tennants. After I got back from the boring events organized by Mrs Murray I slipped out of the Royal Avenue and went with various unsuitable young men. I made Peggy Phelps a member.
But unfortunately Vi heard that I’d been seen there and immediately summoned me home so I never got presented and she and Mrs Murray had a terrific row. I was thankful not to have to be presented but didn’t want to live wherever she was, Poulton Grange probably.
After that I think I went to the Bonar Law College (Ashridge) for an 8 weeks course for people under 25 on Citizenship, History, Economics etc. The diploma was invaluable as I could then get jobs as I’d never taken any exam before and General Hoskins who ran the place gave me a very good reference.
I then got a room in London and did another quick secretarial course, did several jobs and then Vi took a flat for the winter in the Fulham Road and paid my subscription to the Ladies Carlton Club. While with her I got a job in a little house agent near Worlds End, owned by a couple who only employed me. I did secretarial work there and showed people round studios etc in Chelsea – mainly artists and actors – got asked to a party or two, met Augustus John, Stephen Haggard etc.
In 1935 I went to Freiburg University and took a course in Spanish, stayed with Frau Prof. Axenfeld where Betty Hambly stayed a year later to learn German. The daughter was taken off in the night a famous musician – Jewish family – died in a concentration camp. We all knew nothing about concentration camps and everyone admired the Hitler Youth. Hitler spoke in Freiburg . Unlike Unity Mitford we weren’t impressed by him! I visited a Hitler Youth camp. Later we all realised a bit what was going on as the University closed down every now and then due to fights between the Nazis and the others. We still didn’t believe how awful the concentration camps were. Ivy Blagden and all her family were Nazis and she gave introductions to lots of her friends in Germany. They all seemed a bit odd. There were lots of English at the University including Michael Cadbury. I got a great send off at the end – a large party mainly English and some Spanish – speeches etc. The following day, I left and lots students saw us off with flowers galore. Great fun but in retrospect, very sad.
After I got back, I spent a month with Evie Rich in Aunt Kitty’s house which is where I met Mary Wesley who never ceased to be impressed by the fact that I’d visited a Hitler Youth Camp. Actually masses of English people did.
Later I did a Red Cross VAD course in Osborne. Very short, about a fortnight and then I got a job in Selfridges information bureau and met Larry. He and Vi insisted on my leaving it much against my will. End of my working life other than antique stalls and book selling.
VAD and working on the Bucks Mental Health Welfare Committee entitle me to a place in ?Howards House, St Thomas’s Nursing Care Home.
I forgot to say about Bertie. After he married Connie I never stayed with him again. She wasn’t considered respectable. When Bertie bought the house in London I frequently went in and saw them both and a lot of Bertie’s old Northumberland friends and relations. Until he got too ill he used to go most days to White’s. White’s unlike Boodles was a very friendly club, they all talked to each other. I used to go to the front door – no women allowed in but the porter used to ask me to stand outside while he went in and Bertie would come out and take one to the Ritz for lunch. When he got ill with Parkinsons I think he sat all day with a stray cat that had turned up with only half a tail. He used to sit on Bertie’s knee and they loved each other.
David was the one who frequently saw him and of course D got on very well with Connie!! As you know, Bertie died 2 months before I married – Larry never met him. Connie stayed on till the lease on 26 Trevor Square came to an end and I used to frequently meet her in Harrods and once introduced her to Vi which amused Vi and frightened Connie! I never went to Bertie’s funeral. David did and his ashes were scattered in Northumberland at his request".
RH diary – content typed as interpreted (writing is not always clear. Page numbers are those in the longhand version)
Pages 1 to 16
"Encouraged by my granddaughter, Jessica, who is currently working at Leeds University for a degree in English, telling me that grammar in no longer what it was, I’m embarking on a diary. Nick, my son, has just given me “The Letters of Edwin Lutyens my parents and other Fenwick and Hunter relations.
[Most of what followed up to page 16 is similar or identical to what she wrote in a notebook so what follows here is intended to be the best of both]
For me, any mention of my parents is interesting. They divorced when I was too young to even remember them living together. One of many nannies taught us to pray 'God bless Mummy and Daddy' and I can remember adding sotto voce a firm demand that they should be made to live together. Later on I began to take divorce so for granted that I had to learn the hard way the fact that it was, in those days, a very rare event. Not only rare but severely censured by all and sundry. Even some of my mother's servants (as they were called in those days) tended to sneer behind my parents' back but often in front of us. I must add here that Janet the head housemaid who stayed with my mother for years was a wonderful friend to me. She loved my mother and had liked and understood my father and maintained that he was the victim of circumstances.
Years after, Janet married she took my younger son, Guy, out from his Prep school. By that time she was married to a tenant farmer on the Bowes Lyon estate. Her husband’s sister had been the Queen Mum’s nanny and later became nanny to the two princesses.
On one occasion when I saw Janet up there she told me that my mother's one time best friend was largely responsible for the divorce. [these words were lightly crossed out. "She made endless mischief between them and was known to try and sleep with every man she met."] The Hon. Mrs Dorothy Fellowes mentioned by Lutyens. As a child I knew her all too well. I believe that particular friendship broke up either before or soon after my mother married again. I remember they were still friends when my mother lived at White Lodge. For some reason we called her Nini. She used to organize my mother's house parties. My mother hated bridge and was thankful to get Nini to fix up the bridge fours.
According to Zellie, my French governess, my mother was in love and would have married Sir William Cooke but for the mischief made by Nini. If this story is true, Nini and my mother must have fallen out finally before my mother decided to marry my stepfather. In Lutyens book, he describes meeting Nini when he was staying in my parents’ house “Temple Dinsley” [crossed out “at the same time as Lutyens”]. In the note on her it says “Dorothy Jefferson married in 1900 the Hon. Coulson Fellowes, eldest son of Lord de Ramsey from whom she was divorced in 1912. Though something of an adventuress, she was for a time a great friend of Mrs H G Fenwick who commissioned Lutyens to build Hill End (now Langley End), Hertfordshire in 1911 [in margin “Hill End my mother lent to Nini/Mrs Fellowes”]. Mr H G Fenwick was of course my father.
My stepfather, like my parents was born a Northumbrian – when he married my mother he was a widower with 4 young but grown up daughters. He had, I believe, wanted to marry my mother for years.
My mother, Violet Perkins, was the daughter of Charles Perkins. His father Edward Moseley Perkins took an active interest in public life. H was once Mayor of Newcastle and for many years a Councillor of the city. When he died a monument was built in Birtley on the village green. The monument is about 20 ft high, described later by Nicholas Pevsner “in the square the funniest monument of County Durham to Col. E Moseley Perkins. White marble as naïve as a Staffordshire figure”.
Larry and I visited Birtley twice. On one occasion two very old women were sitting knitting by MP’s statue. We asked them if they knew anything about the Perkins family. They said they were sitting by Charlie’s statue as he could have understood their troubles – they were being turned out of their old cottages and moved to a new council estate which they dreaded. I didn’t point out that it was Moseley, not Charlie’s statue! Obviously Moseley would have equally understood.
“Charles Perkins was born in 1851. Educated at Eton. After his father’s death be became principal owner of Birtley Iron Works and Ravensworth Collieries. He married the daughter of Alderman William Hunter, coal owner of Spital Tongues Newcastle. About 1880 Charles Perkins left Birtley and went to Kirkley, near Ponteland. From there he went to Gallowhill near Bolam. Later he went to Middleton Hall. Apart from Birtley his main interest was racing. In 1903 he paid £4,000 for a race horse. He won the Northumberland Plate three times.
CP died as a result of a motor accident in 1905 and was buried in Bolam Church yard. He left £489,480-2-6” (Extracts from Gleenings from the History of Birtley!). According to the same source “in 1865 Lt Col E.M.Perkins lived in Birtley Hall … this was the time of its greatest glory. He made many alterations and as Colonel of his regiment held many functions there. When he died his son Charles lived there and in 1906 H G Fenwick, manager of the Iron Works who had married a daughter of Charles Perkins.”
From this account, I gather my father must have been manager of the Iron Works after my grandfather died.
My mother and her younger sister adored their father and at no time could either of them ever find a good word to say for their mother. I never met her although I was nearly grown up when she died. She left my brother and me each £3,000 which was about all she had that was not tied up on her daughters.
When CP died my mother and her sister were in their twenties. In their own way and in modern terminology, they were both high flyers. Having inherited what in those days was a fortune, they were bent on enjoying their riches. Both of them married twice and that money certainly did contribute to the destruction of their marriages. Neither of them cared a fig for what people thought of them.
My parents had one son (Charles) early on in their marriage. My mother had a fairly tough time giving birth to him and was not keen to repeat the experience. Alas, he was sent with a tutor to Norway while on holiday from a prep school at Eastbourne, Kent House, the same school my husband went to some years later. As far as I was told, the tutor took him out in a rowing boat on a fjord. The boat capsized and Charles was drowned. I never knew the details. Although there were photographs and paintings of him we were not encouraged to ask questions. My mother seldom mentioned his name. All three of us were born soon after Charles died. My brother, David, was 3 years older than me and Jonathan 2.
From my angle, ie the angle of a daughter, my mother was for many years a rather frightening figure. More of a distant and scarcely seen boss. From a very early age it became all too clear that she did not like small girls. In return for this great dislike, I admired, respected and sometimes hated her. I considered her grossly unfair and resented my brothers being treated so very differently from me. I was bewildered by the things she told us against Bertie - was he really so bad - she ought to know. I longed to believe that she was wrong. He was, when I was a child, such an attractive person and unlike my mother always affectionate. He would sit on my bed and do conjuring tricks with gorgeous silk handkerchiefs. But, lurking in the background, was Zellie the French governess listening in and reporting back to my mother. Loyalty was expected from us as he was by way of being the villain having been unfaithful to my mother. To be heard to be more than civil to him was to risk disapproval when we got home. Home of course, was my mother as the court had decided that we should only spend 6 weeks a year with my father
[ This section was from a different note but is transferred here as it fits into the context “In the morning at breakfast I daren't be civil to him and never dared to explain. He could never understand - if I'd told him there would have been rows. The point was that I had to live with my mother - my father's house was never a home.
In my experience he was a lovely but worrying interlude. We each had a pony and we each had a dog but they had to stay there just ours for 6 weeks a year. I usually stayed without my brothers and I believe at the end they almost gave up going there. When he eventually married again we all stayed away. When we were grown up David and Jon certainly saw much more of him than I ever did. By that time he was ill, had at least one stroke and possibly Parkinsons. To me on the few occasions that I saw him he was a totally changed and very sad character.”]
Well the fact was that in childhood he was the one I loved and I think I was his favorite. Later, though he was always unfailingly nice to me, the picture changed. He became rather unbalanced I think as a result of a stroke and the drugs that he was put on this character changed. He died when I was 22, two months before I married.
[This section was also from a different note but is transferred here as it fits in “He died in January 1937 just two months before I married by which time I was twenty three.
Two days before his death I went to see him in his house in Knightsbridge (26 Trevor Square). Unfortunately, my mother had told me and I think she genuinely thought it that he wasn't really ill at all. She reminded me of how much he liked to pretend and dramatise his illnesses. This I knew had sometimes been true but this time it wasn't. Looking back I'm amazed at my stupidity. He was having oxygen and obviously had great difficulty in breathing but the fact that he could talk at all made me think my mother was right. Dying people I imagined would be groaning and speechless. Not surprisingly my stepmother (Connie) considered my attitude to be ??? and unsympathetic. She was male orientated and favoured my brothers and I suspect only tolerated me because I was Bertie's favorite child.
For now on I shall call my parents by their Christian names. I was never given the opportunity of going to Bertie's funeral. I still don't know but guess that he was cremated and ashes sent up to Bywell. The fact that he left his money to Connie for her life and then to me added greatly to my unpopularity. My offer to split it with my brothers was refused as they thought I might expect them to do the same when Vi died. In those days the sons always got more as they were expected to keep their wives.
In fact Bertie had spent most of his money and the solicitor encouraged me to ??? to Connie who would otherwise be very poor. This I gladly did as Larry and I wanted money to help educate our sons. This proved a big mistake as Connie died young and left her money naturally to her only sister.”]
My mother though always preferring her sons, in time accepted me and we often got on very well. I eventually became fond of her.
My mother’s second marriage took place when I was six and my father’s second marriage when I was about eleven. Connie my step mother was an ex Gaiety Girl. She had nothing to do with the divorce. When she died which was long after my father, David (my brother) said “she never did any harm to us” and that was a fair summing up.
My stepfather, one time Master of the Belvoir Hunt and later, I think, joint Master of the Quorn lived at Barrowby Grange near Grantham. My mother always said that, on her part, it was purely a marriage of convenience – he’d been in love with her for years – his wife became an alcoholic (only my mother’s word for this!). They both kept on their own houses mostly because my mother had no intention of giving hers up - a relief I imagine to the two stepdaughters who still lived at home and wanted none of it!
For some reason I was sent up to Barrowby for one winter. My dreaded but ever present governess went with me. Also my much loved pony, Black Bess. For once I was allowed a room of my own which wasn’t attached to Zellie’s. I was delighted with that room and can see it in my mind’s eye to this day. I hunted on Black Bess in a mild sort of way – there was always a groom about to see that no harm came.
I liked my step father but the marriage only lasted for a short time before they agreed to an amicable separation. I only saw him once after that when my mother took me to see him in Harrogate where he was supposed to be recovering from a heart attack. My mother who despised any form of illness that wasn’t her own said he was just neurotic. When I was at my boarding school, I received a post card “Colonel Swan died on Monday, love Mummy”.
For some reason it always amused her that we still called him Colonel which is what we’d called him before they married. I found this news embarrassing as well as sad. His death was in the paper, the headmistress read the card – obviously something was expected from me. Friends at school soon heard and thought if I wasn’t going to the funeral, at least I ought to wear a black band. I got out of it a bit, by declaring that I was heartbroken and in no condition to speak about it. I don’t know what my brothers thought about it – we seldom discussed our problem parents. Certainly they greatly resented my mother’s second marriage and I don’t think they ever stayed at Barrowby.
As children we were always squabbling and taking sides. It had to be two against one although sometimes the boys just went for each other. I used to think their fights terrifying but it was really just normal family drama.
Because I knew my mother had such a low opinion of me, whole heartedly endorsed by Zellie, I used to try and copy boys. Luckily that hasn’t proved disastrous!
One day I heard Sir William say to my mother “you must not treat your little girl so badly”. It was the first I realised I had friends, other than the servants. Governesses and tutors were always under my mother’s thumb. Sir William often stayed with us a White Lodge, Cheveley nr Newmarket and encouraged us to wake him up in the morning. Like my father I associate him with enormous coloured silk handkerchiefs which he used to play with. He was very good looking and popular and mad on cats. In his own house they almost took over. Similarly to my mother and most of her friends, he was always to be seen at Newmarket. Racing was their main interest.
My mother loved men (she had no brothers!) wherever we lived in her younger days she was always surrounded by them. The names that spring to my mind most readily are General Talbot, Major Bewick (who trained her horses and her father’s), Sir George Noble, Sam and Tuppy Bennett – Tuppy was married to one of my step sisters and early on in their marriage was killed steeple chasing. Sam his brother had been badly wounded in the 1914 was. For a time he acted as secretary looking after my mother’s affairs which included her stud and farm at Cheveley. He was always jumping on our ponies and galloping round the field at great risk to his leg. Years later, he lived at White Posts, Old Amersham as a friend of Squire Drake’s. I expect a drinking one as he was said to always be in pain.
Of course, there were many women too apart from her relations. In those days children very seldom used adults Christian names unless they were very young and relations. For women, apart from the dreaded Nini (the Hon Mrs Dorothy Fellowes) I think of Joyce Furneaux, Rosamond Lawrence (my godmother), Lady Kennard (wife of poet, Coleridge Kennard), Mrs Macgregor? And cousins – Jo and Cicely Hunter, Pagets, Lawsons, Cartwrights, Hendersons. My Godmother had been a Napier and wrote novels under that name. One based on my mother called “the heart of a Gypsy”. Unfortunately I never bothered to read it. Now long since out of print.
[The above ends in page 14. From 17 to top of p20, there is something on Vi’s stroke and its impact].
P20 about a local (Beaconsfield) discussion group. “Originally I was introduced to it by Janet Boggon a great friend of ours. Janet is the niece of another friend, Ann Horne. It was thanks to my cousin Evie that I met Ann. Ann (Farrer) is the 1st cousin of the Mitford sisters and she and Unity Mitford and her sister Joan had all been at school with Evie.”
P33/34 “We discussed keeping a diary – 3 of us did – the nun (can’t remember her name) and I said we would love ours to be published. In my case it’s not nearly interesting enough or well enough written. Evangeline horrified at the idea and Janet agreed with her. I can’t imagine writing anything and not being pleased to have it published. My excuse for writing this is that my great grandchildren might be interested to know how their past relations lived a hundred years ago! I’d like it to be a sort of amusing period piece but I’m up against my limitations. ….. Evangeline says hers is purely for herself. Janet disapproved of Decca Mitford and Ann Horne being willing to allow me to publish their condolence letters. My feeling is, anything worthwhile should be shared. I dislike privacy and the fewer taboos the better. … No subjects should ever be banned – one of the first things that attracted me to Ann H when we originally met”.
P35 “Ann Horne rings. We discuss the Euthanasia programme on telly. Both of us favour euthanasia – the advantages more than outweigh the possible evils. Ann is in a cheerless nursing home in Buckingham and has been for years. She’s in permanent paid with arthritis and a crumbling hip”.
“18.1.90. Sue Wade and Pam Hood arrive to take us out to lunch. Sue paying and insisting that she is very rich. I think she probably is! They are both widows and were at The Garden School with me and must be about my oldest friends. Sue and I were the same age. ?Harold Slocock their father was a cousin of Stafford Cripps and Freddy his brother was a friend of my father – both members of Whites Club. Stafford and Freddy were the sons of Lord Parmoor, a labour peer. Stafford was a prominent member of the Labour party. Freddy quite different – a Tory and a dandy. My father stayed with Freddy who lived in Lane End close to The Garden School. The Slococks and I had lunch with them. I often stayed with the Slococks in the holidays and Sue stayed with my family.”
P48 “Today I have written a long letter to Margaret Jones in reply to her short one agreeing that we should meet. I first met Margaret soon after I left school when I was living with my mother and brothers at Poulton Grange near Cirencester – one of my mother’s many houses. At that time I was expected to hunt and dance at hunt balls. I hated both. Margaret didn’t hunt and I can’t remember her at hunt balls. Quite by chance I met her doing a Red Cross course which her mother was running. All the Jones family were on to good works – high Anglicans and what my mother described as very worthy. No people could have been less worthy than my family. The nearest approach was having at one time, fetes in the garden. The fetes were run by my mother on fairly eccentric lines and certainly enjoyed by us.
Margaret was a godsent friend and I admired everything about the Jones family. They lived in Morgan Hall in Fairford. Margaret was bent on becoming a nurse and then a nun. I longed to do the same, partly to be one of them and also to get away from home. Unfortunately I couldn’t believe in any religion and my mother was dead against my being a nurse. Margaret trained at St Thomas’ Hospital and after becoming a Sister there went on to become a nun in India. Finally she was, for many years, Matron of a maternity hospital for coloured mothers in Cape Town.”
P53 “Letter from Sue Wade. I’d written to her for her recollections of The Garden School for the possible interest of grandchildren. She writes back “you ask about TGS. So many extraordinary things took place that that I doubt if our grandchildren would believe them, or else think we were potty. … I also remember going bare foot for the summer term, as a result have suffered from foot rot ever since – caught off the sheep. Also we climbed those huge cedar trees (with no supervision). One girl froze with fright when she got to the top and I had a job getting her back to earth. We also had endless animals – mice, birds, rabbits etc that escaped everywhere, a donkey that died and several dogs. One thing certain, we never learnt much academically. The headmistress didn’t believe in competition or exams! But we did learn to stay alive and how to speak, act and debate, write essays and poems and do handicrafts. I used to get a bit fed up with the vegetarian food – teachers who wouldn’t even wear leather shoes, they were fibre ones.” She goes on to say that she enjoyed staying with my mother and brothers in Suffolk “except for the smell and taste of goats”. My mother had innumerable crazes and a herd of goats was one of them. For a time we lived on goats’ butter, milk and cream. The billy goat was kept at a distance but his smell permeated everything.
I never really discovered why my mother sent me to The Garden School. She sent me at the age of 8 to a very establishment school in Eastbourne. Zellie took me to Victoria Station and dumped me on the school train. My relief at escaping Zellie was so great that although much younger that any of the other girls and with no experience of school I was glad to go. I was bullied and sneered at because my parents were divorced, added to which I was, except for French, far behind the others in lessons. The headmistress was the sister of the headmaster of my brothers’ school. Like all Eastbourne schools of that day, we went for walks in crocodile. Our uniform was a blue serge coat and skirt, white shirt and blue tie, black stockings and blue felt hat. In the summer we wore white cotton stockings and a boater. After 2 terms, the last one spent mainly in the sanatorium, I was removed – possibly on health grounds, I never knew. By this time I was nine and my mother had become wedded to the idea of a progressive school. She herself took me to Liberty in Regent St for the school uniform – everything green – no hats – in the summer, no stockings.
To go from a conventional school to The Garden School was a tremendous and marvelous shock. I couldn’t believe my luck. Even now, when I still suffer from my lack of education, I’m grateful for the years I spent at TGS. Why, I ask myself? The answer lies in the freedom we were given, the good friends I made and the seemingly endless fun we had. Education in the strict sense was a non event. Most of the time we did more or less what we liked. In those days the country was safe. We often paired off and walked miles across fields and woods. We worked in the morning but if the subject had no appeal, we could opt out and find an alternative occupation. In my case I’d read in the library. In practice most of the classes were easy going affairs which usually everyone attended. The accent was on fresh air, fresh fruit, Margaret Morris dancing, eurhythmics, musical appreciation and so on. In the summer we dragged our desks out or we sat on rugs. This was more or less typical of most of the few progressive schools in existence in the 20s and 30s. Soon after I left they changed as the education inspectors descended on them.
In general TGS has influenced my entire life. The headmistress imposed her views and sense of values on the school and they rubbed off on us. She was left wing, a pacifist, incredibly broad minded and non judgmental. She opened the school doors not just to artists and intellectuals who welcomed the progressive schools, but to coloured children, disabled children and in my day, two epileptics. It was as near classless as it could be and totally creedless. I remember an Indian Princess and her two ladies in waiting, two Chinese girls, daughters of famous black singers. Everyday stuff now but almost unheard of in the 30s. Alas as one who had suffered much bullying and unhappiness before going there I was not always nice to the newcomers. We were only tempted to taunt certain individuals. Looking back, I can’t understand why certain types of people bring out the worst in others. Even at TGS I’d suffered a little from being laughed at, voice copied, gestures imitated etc. I couldn’t cover up for my divorced parents as they took me out from school separately.
Fortunately, divorce was not considered a disgrace My ex gaiety girl step mother was thought to be a bit of joke. She would arrive very smart – very made up – dripping jewellery and trying very had to play the part. In the summer they brought a picnic lunch from Fortnum & Masons and in the winter they took me to the Compleat Angler. I usually took one or two of my friends out. Both my parents were very willing to have my friends to stay and there was always a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the school holidays"
MEMORIES OF ROBERT CLAYTON SWAN AND BARROWBY
May 2004 from Rachel Harding to her nephew, Benedict Fenwick.
"I think I was five or six when my mother Vi married Swannie. I had my birthday at Glenfinnan and Vi had just married Swannie. My brothers David and Jon did a lot of rowing and fishing. Cicely and Hester were up there too and it was the first time we had met them. We all enjoyed it enormously.
David and Jon were very anti Swannie and extremely jealous, totally disapproving of the marriage which much amused Vi and made it difficult for Swannie.
Cicely and Hester also disapproved of the marriage and hated Vi - as a protest I suppose they seldom came down and spent most of their time indoors with their old Nanny. Apart from that they rode and hunted etc as far as possible ignoring Vi and had lots of friends. They were always nice to me as Vi of
course was anti girls.
I think David and Jon only went to Barrowby once. I went for one whole winter with my pony and my governess – I loved it and had a room of my own for the first time. Swannie was always incredibly nice to me and I had a much better time up there than at White Lodge Cheveley near Newmarket.
Swannie used to stay on and off with Vi but they quarreled endlessly. I do not know how often they stayed at Claridges but they did and that probably worked better.
I know I met one other daughter of Swannie much older and married.
Re Enid the granddaughter - you say I think her grandmother might have been at Wycombe Court - my school which was originally the Garden School -i, moved to Lane End near Wycombe and it was next to Freddy Cripps - a friend of Bertie's and Swannie's - member of Whites - not sure if his niece was at school with me."