Introduction
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Next: 1933
Dorothy, Billy and John move between short-term accommodation solutions in England, Ireland and France. Dorothy sees another ghost.
Another fairly short chapter, due to Dorothy’s lack of notes from these two years. 1932 is especially sparse.
1932
Europe Again
The only records of any sort that I can find for the next few years – except for one letter written in 1932 – are the snapshots in my album. From them I see that we were certainly at the Bastide St. Priest with Zora and Dollie for several months, as the last pictures taken there were in April. There are pictures of Bunnie, Francois and Nancy Manhard, and lots of John playing on the beach or at the Bastide itself. I remember that after having refused to talk anything but Malay on the ship, he then began to pick up French from the servants at the villa. There was a little maid there named Clementine, and John, who was very fond of Ovaltine, used to love to shout “Clementine, et Ovaltine!” much to Augusta’s amusement; Augusta was then the parlour maid. I think he had his third birthday there in Cannes.
“Zora” is the nickname of Lily Wickersham (1870-1956), Dorothy’s aunt, three years younger than Dorothy’s mother Rebecca who had died in 1905.
“Dollie” was born Blanche Lucy Rigg (1872-1946), and had been married to another Malay rubber planter, Frederick Harvey Erskine Sperling, known as Harvey (1868-1921). She became Zora’s close companion after her husband’s death.
“Bunnie” is Dorothy’s other aunt, Zora’s older sister, Lady Frances Hadfield (1862-1949).
François is François de Buisseret (1899-1933), son of a friend of Bunnie’s who had died during the war. He was a Belgian diplomat.
I find a Nancy Manhard, nee Ponton (~1886-1936), married to William Edward Manhard of Westport Connecticut.
John’s third birthday was on 30 April 1931. Oddly enough I remember being in Cannes myself for my brother’s second birthday in July 1970, with Dorothy, John and our mother.
I think that it was while we were still there that we heard that Maurice and Ethel, who were terribly hard hit by the slump, couldn’t afford to keep on their little house, Adara, in Co. Kildare. Anyway we offered to take it off their hands for the last three months of their tenancy, and they agreed. The brothers had settled this between them, and then Ethel herself wrote to me to explain that there would be no sheets, as they must take them away with them. We stopped in London on our way and I remember we bought sheets at Moss Bros.
Maurice Ignatius Whyte (1888-1956) was Billy’s youngest sibling, his mother’s thirteenth child and his father’s fourteenth. He was gassed during the war and never fully recovered. He married Ethel Mary Fitzgerald (1893-1974) in 1921. They did not have any children.
Adara is still there, the centre of the Ladytown Business Park halfway between Naas and Newbridge in County Kildare. It had been badly damaged in a fire during the Civil War in November 1922, but more than eight years had passed and presumably it had been rebuilt.
I think we were at Adara for the months of May, June, and July. We bought an old second-hand Ford car while we were there. I had driven the same sort of Ford in Egypt, while Billy never had, so I undertook to drive it home. It was making a lot of noise and I realized at last that I’d left the brake on. Of course I took it off and then the car went better, but all the same it must have been a hair-raising drive for Billy. I was terribly out of practice and I’d never been a really good driver anyway. At one point I apologized to him but he only said: “I feel perfectly safe and comfortable, thanks.”
I still remember the feeling of confidence that that gave me and my driving improved at once. Later we drove that old car all over Ireland; I forget when we sold it.
Good for Billy! NB that although we still don’t know where or when Dorothy learned to drive, we now know that she had learned before or during her 1923 visit to Egypt.
There weren’t many people who lived near us; the Eustace Mansfields and the Henry Mansfields were the nearest. Billy had been at school with both brothers. When we first went there Mabel, Eustace’s wife, was away, but he asked us to tea. It was the first time I’d ever seen tea made in the old-fashioned way, with a boiling kettle over a spirit-lamp, and not only the tea-pot but each cup rinsed out with hot water. When Mabel came back she and I made friends. She was English, one of the Pagets, and told me that when she first came to Ireland she was very lonely and found people unfriendly. I must say that was my own impression too; once people knew who you were, and really accepted you, they couldn’t be nicer, but at first no one seemed to bother a bit. I know Billy was disappointed. We saw so few people, though I remember we once went to the Synotts at Furness for tea. Once Kathleen came to stay with her little Cairn, Jimmy, who didn’t like children and rebuffed John, but there was a cat who was friendly and a nice old gardener, Thomas.
Eustace Lattin Mansfield (1879-1945) and his wife Mabel Edith Clare Paget (1881-1951) lived in the Mansfield ancestral home at Morristown Lattin near Naas. They had two sons, born in 1903 and 1905, and a daughter, born in 1915.
Henry Mary Lattin Mansfield (1881-1948) and his wife Alice Mary Cronin-Coltsmann (1875-1965) may well have been living in the family home too; it was a large house.
Both brothers had attended Stonyhurst, Eustace a year above Billy, and Henry a year below. There were also two sisters, one older than Eustace and Henry and one younger, and two younger brothers, one of whom had died in 1915.
The Synnotts would have been children of the banker Nicholas Joseph Synnott (1856-1930), probably his son Pierce Nicholas Netterville Synott (1904-1982) and his younger brother Jasper Nicholas Netterville Synnott (1908-1978); neither of them married until later in the 1930s.
Kathleen Mary Whyte (1885-1960) was Billy’s youngest sister.
Billy had always meant to get an old Dublin Fusilier and his wife to look after us if we settled in Ireland, and did so then. I forget their name but the husband was hopeless, just left his wife to do all the work and she was so humble and down-trodden and pathetic. I don’t think we kept them long but I don’t remember who replaced them.
Ireland, Luchon, Scotby
When our lease of Adara was up with the end of Maurice’s tenancy we went to Coolavin to stay with Caroline and Charlie, but only for a short time as I see we were there in August and also at Loughbrickland in the same month. At Coolavin we saw quite a lot of Percy Mac Dermot and his family, or some of them: his wife Amy, who was a cousin of Magda’s, his eldest son Brian, Deirdre and Patricia and Hugh, his children by his first wife who was Cissie O’Connor. The other two, Jill and Miles, I think were away. Billy was very fond of Percy who had first got him to go out to Malaya, so without Percy we might never have met.
Charles Edward MacDermot (1862-1947) was the husband of Billy’s oldest sister Caroline Mary Whyte (1871-1969). He held the hereditary title of The MacDermot, Prince of Coolavin.
The MacDermot family house at Coolavin had been built as recently as 1898, by Charlie’s father, Hugh Hyacinth O’Rorke MacDermot (1834-1904) who restored the family fortunes by becoming a successful lawyer. I visited it a couple of times before the family sold it in 2013.
Percy John Victor MacDermot (1875-1955) was Charlie’s half-brother by Hugh Hyacinth O’Rorke MacDermot’s second marriage. He married Eveleen “Sissie” Blanche Mac Dermot (1892-1925) in 1913, and as Dorothy reports they had six children, Brian Charles MacDermot (1914–2003), Jill Mary MacDermot, later Cheesley (1915–1993), Deirdre Gara MacDermot, later Anderson (1916–1992), Patricia Mary MacDermot (1917-2008), Miles MacDermot (1920–1996) and Hugh Hyacinth MacDermot (1923–1988).
Percy’s second wife was Amy Mary French (1885-1972). They married in 1927 and had one daughter, Ann MacDermot, later O’Malley (1930-1995) who is not mentioned here.
Amy was indeed the first cousin of Billy’s sister-in-law, Magda Whyte nee Grehan (1885-1972). Their mothers were sisters, Constance Elinor Chichester, later French (1854-1940) and Mary Esther Chichester (1860-1900).
We also met the Douglas Hydes and it was at their house that I first tasted poteen, which seemed to me like bad vodka and terribly strong. It was illegal to make it, yet Douglas Hyde was President of the Irish Free State and had it in his house quite cheerfully.
Douglas Hyde (1860-1949) was a major figure in the Gaelic Revival at the start of the twentieth century, and had briefly been a Senator of the Irish Free State in 1925. He did not become President of Ireland until 1938, and the state was by then no longer called the Irish Free State, so Dorothy has got some details wrong. On the other hand, Hyde’s fondness for poteen is confirmed by several sources. His wife was Lucy Cometina Kurtz (1861-1938), born in Germany but raised in England.
At, Loughbrickland Bunty had a setter, Heather, and a spaniel, Duffy, and John loved them. She used to harness Heather to a little cart and John would ride in it.
Bunty, formally Esther Theresa Mary Whyte (1917-2000) was Billy’s niece, a favourite elder relative of mine from my childhood, and grew up at the Whyte ancestral home, Loughbrickland House. Her husband Denis Napier “Toby” Simonds (1919-1970) was my godfather. Their four children are all still living as of 2025.
In September Billy and I went to Luchon, but I cannot remember where we left John. Could it have been at Scotby with Lyla? I just don’t know.
Ever since our marriage we had been going to any doctor we heard of who might help Billy’s hearing, and somehow we heard that Luchon was a wonderful place for him to do a cure. We went, I think for two weeks only, and never went again though they told us that the cure would be much more effective the second year. I don’t think it did much good, that one time.
Bagnères-de-Luchon, also just Luchon, is a French spa town in the Pyrenees.
This is the first time that Dorothy expresses concern about getting Billy’s hearing problems treated. Given what we now know about nerve deafness, it’s unlikely that a second year would have helped much.
In October we were with Lyla at Scotby, near Carlisle. I think Mildie and Helen were the only ones at home with Lyla. There was a big spaniel, Mr. Rob, whom John liked, though he found him less helpful than Dominick at Coolavin. Dominick was a wire-haired terrier they had, rather large and most friendly. He and John used to go off for hours; John told me that sometimes Dominick would dig, and then he would, let John dig, so they took it in turns. I had knitted John jerseys, cardigans and trousers in bright-coloured wool; one outfit, I know, was brilliant red with the jersey of mixed colours. Towards meal-times a bright red speck and a white one usually appeared in the distance; John and Dominick coming home to Coolavin to be fed.
But to John’s dismay Mr. Rob refused to let John himself do any digging at all; the first time they were out together John came back in tears, saying it wasn’t fair. Still they got on well in other ways.
Letitia Mary Whyte (1872-1938), known as Lyla, was the second of Billy’s four full sisters. She married Stephen Eaton Lamb (1860-1928) in 1898, and they lived at Scotby in Cumbria. Mildred (1899-1967) and Helen (1901-1969) were the oldest of her five children.
It must have been while we were at Scotby that we had the idea of going as P G’s [paying guests] to various members of the family. We went first to Magda but that wasn’t a success. We paid £20 a month; it wasn’t much, but things were so much cheaper then and I remember Lyla saying that she could easily have paid for everything and more for us out of that, but neither Magda nor Caroline thought it enough. The trouble was that we were still paying back P. M. Robinson and we were terribly hard up. They never told us they didn’t think it was enough, they told other people and it got back to us. It isn’t pleasant being poor relations.
Magda, nee Magdalena Esther Mary Grehan (1885-1972), was the widow of Billy’s elder brother George. She lived in Loughbrickland as a widow for over fifty years.
Percy Malcom Robinson, an engineer, a banker and a member of the Straits Settlements Legislative Council, had loaned Billy the capital to invest in his Hibernia rubber plantation in the first place, and was now wanting it back.
When we got to Coolavin Ruth was at home. Some friends of Bay’s from Malaya came to stay, called Kennedy and Norman; we may have known them already but I don’t think we did. Charlie was always very deaf and very difficult to talk to; he lived in a world of his own with his books, but he could be very charming.
Ruth Mary MacDermot (1915-1987) was the youngest of Charlie and Caroline’s children.
Charles John “Bay” MacDermot (1899-1979) was the oldest of their living children – an older brother was killed at Gallipoli, where Billy too was wounded. Bay had also got into rubber planting in Malaya, like his uncle Percy and his cousin Billy.
Ireland, England 1931-2
We had Christmas at Coolavin; in fact I think we stayed till April. I can’t remember much about it; perhaps later it will come back to me. I do remember that Ruth and John were invited to a big children’s fancy dress party at Rockingham, and Caroline wanted them to go as Alice and the white rabbit, but Ruth [aged 16] absolutely refused. I don’t really think John [aged 3] would have enjoyed it much, but I’m sure that Caroline would; she has always loved a party.
Rockingham House was near Boyle, Co Roscommon, not far from Coolavin, the home of Cecil Stafford-King-Harman (1895-1967). He had four children born between 1916 and 1926, neatly between Ruth and John in age.
In April we were at Scotby again; they had started with Lakeland terriers there and there were a lot of puppies, which John loved. We may have stayed there till June or July; I have a picture – or rather several pictures – taken there.
We don’t have the pictures. But my father was always very fond of dogs.
But in July we were at a tiny coastguard cottage at Needs Ore; I have no idea who rented it to us but I know it must have been very cheap. By an odd coincidence it turned out to be one which Mary Syers had had for some time – I think she had owned it and then sold it; I found in a drawer some of the things I had brought her from Hong Kong.
It was one of a row of coastguard cottages, and I think we already knew some of the other people, or else we got to know them, but I can’t remember anything more except that once Polly and Kitty Merrick came to see us there.
Needs Ore is on the estuary of the Beaulieu River, across the Solent on the mainland side from the Isle of Wight. The cottages are still there. It is near Southampton, but pretty isolated.
Kitty Merrick (1900-1988), later Countess Wielopolska, was a friend of Dorothy’s from her first boarding school in upstate New York.
She had an older sister, Mary Harter Merrick, born in 1896; could this be “Polly”? We have not had a Polly before this.
We had been advertising for somewhere to live, paying £20 a month, and had had quantities of answers, mostly quite unsuitable. The best seemed to be a place called “The Cordons” at Chalfont St. Peter, owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Walker, and we went there. Billy and I had a nice big bedroom and John was in a small room adjoining, and we had a big sitting-room on the ground floor where all our meals were served. The food was very good and the other people there were nice. The Walkers had an adopted daughter, Cynthia, some years older than John, but she sometimes played with him.
The Old Rectory of Chalfont St Peters, known as Cordons, was later demolished to make way for a car park, but there is a plaque on the site commemorating it.
Churton Hanson Walker (1879-1966) was a former tea planter in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). His first wife was Marian Ethel (b. 1875), maiden surname and date of death unknown. By the mid-1930s he was married again to Phyllis De Groot (1912-2003) and they had children in 1935 and 1936, but it seems unlikely that they were already married in 1932.
I cannot find anything on the adopted daughter Cynthia; it is too common a name at that period.
I was working hard at typing – I don’t know how I could afford a typewriter; perhaps it was second-hand or did someone give it to me? The Buists lived very near and often came to see us, Marion and Fred, at least, I think Diana was away.
Colin was married by then, I believe, and Malcolm was in the navy. Marion and Fred had taken quite a nice little house near Amersham. Marion had a great gift for making a house charming.
Marion Carruthers Smythe (1875-1953) married Frederick Braid Buist né Sparks (1861-1946) 1894. Their oldest living son was Colin Buist (1896-1981); their daughter was Diana Hermione Frances Buist (1906-2000); the youngest son was Malcolm Buist (1913-1965). They had lost their first son, Kenneth Buist (1894-1915) in the war. Colin had indeed married Gladys Nelson (1895-1957) in 1928.
Amersham is only 9 km from Chalfont St Peter, so it was good that Dorothy’s old friends were so close.
We saw Bunnie and Uncle Bobby occasionally, but the latter was terribly caressed. In the one letter which survives of that time, one I wrote to Zora in August, I said I had been to London to lunch with him and Wilfrid, and Uncle Bobby was convinced he was almost penniless, and I patted his arm and assured him that things would soon get better. In that same letter I spoke of Zora’s coming to stay with him at the end of August, so probably she did come then.
Uncle Bobby was Aunt Bunnie’s husband, Sir Robert Hadfield.
Wilfrid Doneraile Stanhope Taylor (1868-1954) seems to have been one of Sir Robert’s staff, though Dorothy reports him as editor of Dod’s Parliamentary Companion in 1925.
John went to a little nursery school quite near, that autumn term, but he was either the only boy or the only one of two, and there were lots of little girls some of whom wanted to kiss him much to his indignation.
I find I’ve left out the ghost I saw at Coolavin. I think it was the first time I’d stayed there, in 1931. I’d learned about most of the Mac Dermots [there were a lot of them! Caroline’s husband Charlie was the oldest of thirteen siblings, eight of whom were still alive in 1931, and he and Caroline had another seven, four of whom were alive in 1931], but one evening coming down the stairs before dinner I saw one I couldn’t place. An old man was sitting in the hall by the fireplace – a most uncomfortable and draughty place to sit, and where no one ever did sit. I was coming down one side of the stairs; they joined halfway down and became one flight into the hall. I looked away from him, trying to think who he could be, but when I came to the part of the flight that went straight towards him, I couldn’t help looking ahead. The chair was quite empty, when I told Caroline she said that the only person whom she could remember sitting in that chair was her father-in-law. That fits in with the theory that I have always had, that ghosts are just something glimpsed from the past – or sometimes, I believe, from the future. The old man I saw certainly looked like a Mac Dermot and it probably was Charlie’s father.
The family legend is that Dorothy offered to play chess with the ghost, but he did not reply. She does not confirm or deny that story here. She saw two other ghosts, one in Paris in 1924 and one in Malaya in 1929.
One other event that Dorothy has left out is the death of Billy’s only surviving older brother, Thomas Aloysius Whyte, in 1931, leaving Billy as the heir to Loughbrickland.
Next: 1933