Dorothy and family continue to live in London, and her aunts continue to feature in her life. In September she has a miscarriage.
Introduction
Previous: 1935
Next: 1937
In a letter to Zora on January 6th I said that John was loving his bicycle, so I imagine he had been given one for Christmas, perhaps by Zora herself.
Dorothy’s aunt Zora, formally Lily Wickersham, lived from 1870 to 1956; she gave Dorothy an allowance which was Dorothy’s main income. She is buried in the same grave as her mother, her sister, her brother-in-law and her niece Dorothy in Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey; I tracked it down in September 2022, on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
We will also hear a lot below about Dollie Sperling, born Blanche Lucy Rigg (1872-1946), widow of Frederick Harvey Erskine Sperling (1868-1921) and Zora’s permanent companion.
On the 8th Margaret fell and broke her wrist in the passage. I took her to the Princess Beatrice Hospital, where Caroline had been. They had to give her gas to set it. She was told to go to bed but was so upset when she saw me working that she tried to do things herself till I got Billy to come and tell her she must go to bed, and then she did. She was so good and so distressed for us. Actually she did do quite a lot in a day or so, and we got Mrs. Goodenough to come more often. By this time Zora and Dollie had taken back Cécile, the maid they’d had for years, and Augusta was free to come back to us but was visiting her family first. I wrote to Zora that Augusta seemed to have changed in character and I wasn’t sure if I did want her; I said her letters were “a bit breezy” – whatever I meant by that!
Margaret (surname unknown) had been the Whytes’ maid since October 1935, so only a few months.
Mrs Goodenough is the “char”, who did basic cleaning. I find an Ethel Scarisbrick, born in Liverpool at the end of 1900, who married Horace Goodenough in 1928 and lived the rest of her life in London, living at 13 Richmond Buildings in Soho in 1939; she seems a likely candidate.
Augusta Noelie Marie Bages (1896-1990) had been Zora and Dollie’s parlourmaid at some previous point.
We went to a party at the Arundels’ and met May and Maud Whyte, sisters of Jack and Fred. Lyla took a house in Trevor Square, which wasn’t too far away.
I have not been able to trace the Arundels. “Earl of Arundel” is the courtesy title for the oldest son of the Duke of Norfolk, but in 1937 the then Duke was not yet married and had no children (and ultimately only had daughters), so it’s not that family.
John Frederick “Jack” Whyte (1865–1947), Frederic William Whyte (1867–1941), May Ellen Christina Whyte (1869–1958) and Maude Ethel Josephine Whyte (1876–1953) were second cousins of Billy’s on the Whyte side, but, confusingly, also first cousins once removed on the Ryan side. Frederic, a journalist and writer, was the only one of them to marry; he had one son, born in 1918.
Letitia Mary Whyte (1872-1938), known as Lyla, was the second of Billy’s four full sisters, and his favourite. She married Stephen Eaton Lamb (1860-1928) in 1898, and they lived at Scotby in Cumbria. She had five children, Mildred (1899–1967), Helen (1901–1969), Chris (1909-1964) who became a Jesuit, Dick (1911-1999) and Jessica (1916–1969). Dick has plenty of descendants, but none of the others married or had children.
Uncle George Wickersham died late in January in America. Though I knew him very little, really, I felt proud of him and Bunnie was devoted to him; Zora too, but Bunnie was nearer to him in age and he was so fond of her that Mildred, his wife, was quite jealous.
Doroothy’s uncle George Woodward Wickersham (1868-1936) was the only child of her grandfather’s second marriage, and had been Attorney General of the United States from 1909 to 1913. Rather dramatically, he died in a New York taxi cab, on his way to a lunch with members of the Council on Foreign Relations, of which he was President at the time. The law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft still bears his name (and also the name of President Taft’s younger brother), though that is about to change as a merger is planned with Hogan Lovells, to become Hogan Lovells Cadwalader.
George’s wife was born Mildred Wendell (1854-1944). They had three children, a son and two daughters.
Bunnie is Dorothy’s aunt, Lady Frances Hadfield (1862-1949), older sister of Zora and younger half-sister of George Woodward Wickersham, who was married to the metallurgist and engineer Sir Robert Hadfield (1858-1940). Bunnie and Zora’s sister, Dorothy’s mother Rebecca, had died thirty years before.
Zora and Dollie were staying at the Windsor again. Bunnie was at her villa, La Sounjarello, at St.Jean, Cap Ferrat.
The Windsor Hotel still exists in Cannes.
The Villa Sounjarello was the Hadfields’ wee place in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, near Nice. It is still standing, and undergoing refurbishment.
I have moved an out of sequence paragraph originally here.
The King had died and everyone wore black, or at least dark clothes, and there wasn’t so much entertaining.
King George V died on 20 January 1936, aged 70.
I’ve just come across a letter of Jan. 17th in which I said that I’d had a most worrying afternoon. Billy and I had been out to lunch and Margaret was to lunch with a friend and come back to tea as Gladys Wakeman-Colvile was coming. But Margaret never appeared. By 6 o’clock I was really very worried and rang hospitals and police etc. but with no result. Then about 7.30 she walked in, pale as death; she’d fallen in the street and hurt her had arm. She had rested at her friend’s and then had come back just to pack up and say good-bye. She accused herself of bringing trouble on us all, said she’d pray for us as long as she lived, and would never forget all our kindness. So then I wired for Augusta.
Gladys Louisa Wakeman (1883-1959) married Hugh Davenport Colville (1882-1962) in 1906. He was a naval captain who retired in 1922. Her family lived at Coton Hall in Shropshire, the ancestral home of American Civil War-era general Robert E. Lee; Gladys and Hugh changed their surname to Wakeman-Colville in 1927 in order to inherit the property, but appear to have sold it not long after.
I also said more about Caroline and the insurance in a letter of Jan. 29th. The insurance would pay expenses and give her 10 gns. [ten guineas, ie ten pounds and ten shillings, £650 in 2026 prices] over. The lawyers had found four witnesses but all were agreed that the accident was entirely her own fault; she wasn’t at a Belisha crossing and came out from behind a stationary car. I said in the same letter that Caroline was looking very well and going out a lot.
Caroline Mary Whyte (1871-1969) was Billy’s oldest full sister, married to The MacDermot, Charles Edward MacDermot (1862-1947). In November 1935 she had been knocked down crossing a London street, by a car reportedly belonging to the Thai royal family.
Billy Manhard in America had also been knocked down by a car, but I don’t remember the details.
Billy Manhard and his wife Nancy née Ponton have been recurring if somewhat mysterious figures in the narrative so far. I find confusing records of William Edward Manhard, and I think there may be several people of the same name who have got combined by my sources: the suggested dates are 1883-1969, with a couple more marriages thrown in (for one of which, see below).
Vera James had gone to live in Hampstead; I went to see them and said it was the coldest place I knew.
Vera Bideleux (1899-1983) had been Dorothy’s friend since they met in Paris in 1989. She married Rowley James (1900-1938) in 1926; I actually remember meeting Vera a couple of times myself.
I hope that Dorothy did not tell Vera to her face that her new home was too cold – but I cannot be certain!
My aunt Ann Hibbard wrote that she was selling the old house where they all lived as children, Papa and all of them, and going to live with a friend.
Dorothy wrote a bit about her father’s childhood here. Henry was the fourth of five children of William Charlton Hibbard (1814-1880) and Sarah Ann Smith 1815-1891); their first child (Mary, 1849-1852) died young, but the other four, Susan (later Susan Seaver, 1851-1909), Thomas (1854-1938), Henry (1856-1942) and Ann (1858-1940) survived to adulthood.
Dorothy has not mentioned visiting the house where her father grew up in West Roxbury, outside Boston, Massachusetts, but presumably did so at some point, as her aunt lived there until 1936. I have not been able to find the exact address, but it was at the western end of Bellevue Street, possibly the building now numbered 44. The Hibbards seem to have moved to the house in the early 1850s, so it had been the family home for over eighty years.
I found the Hibbard grandparents’ graves on a visit to Boston in 2022. Also on that trip, while researching family history in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society, I found a letter from Dorothy’s uncle Thomas Hibbard to her aunt Susan Seaver, recounting his own researches into family history in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1889.
Ann (usually Annie) Hibbard, Dorothy’s surviving aunt on the Hibbard side, never married but was a prominent mycologist (scholar of fungi). Her very close friend Gertrude Burlingham (1872-1952) named the fungus Lactarius hibbardiæ after her.
On Jan. 28th Lyla, Billy, John and I went to see the king’s funeral. We couldn’t afford seats but we went in the Park and were able to get on some empty buses which were parked there, and saw quite well. We had also been to the lying-in-state; we suddenly decided to go one morning early, and took Mrs. Goodenough – it was only about eight o’clock so the crowds weren’t overpowering but later in the day the queue stretched forever.
I had taken up Care Committee work and went once a week to St. Alban’s school in Southwark. I enjoyed it and the children were friendly and sweet.
The London County Council (LCC) had established the School Care Committee service in 1908 to provide a welfare service for London’s school children. The Care Committees were mainly staffed by unpaid upper-middle-class women volunteers, like Dorothy. The work included finding out which children were most at risk from poverty and getting support for them, such as food, clothes and boots. Southwark had particularly bad pockets of deprivation and was a hot spot for this work.
It took a surprising amount of digging, but I finally identified St Alban’s School, attached to St Alban’s Catholic Church on Herring Street in Camberwell. (I wonder if Dorothy was assigned to a Catholic school because she had become a Catholic herself?) The whole area has now been demolished to create Burgess Park. One of the contributors to this web page remembers attending St Alban’s School in the 1960s. The factory on the map made R. White’s Lemonade.
John had made great friends at school with a boy called Carl Montgomery. His mother was also Montgomery by birth, a daughter of Sir Hugh Montgomery of Blessingbourne, and when she came to tea with us she and Billy had a great time talking over all the people they both knew.
The Montgomery family of Blessingbourne, County Tyrone, were a noted Ulster military clan. Hugh Maude de Fellenberg Montgomery (1870-1954) (German Wikipedia) was not actually knighted but was a senior British military officer during the First World War, and went on to found the Irish Association which is still going strong (and of which my mother later served as chair).
His third child (of six) and second daughter (of three) was Elizabeth Langton Montgomery (1900-1965), who married David Erik de Montgomery (1891-1934). David’s family had been living in Sweden for 200 years, and I haven’t been able to trace a connection between the two Montgomery clans.
Their son, John’s friend Carl, was formally David Hugo Carl Montgomery (1927-1967). Both he and his father died soon after turning 40.
The next paragraph is out of sequence in the original typescript – I have moved it from its original place above.
Augusta must have come back sometime early in February, as I wrote to Zora on the 11th that she had nearly scrubbed her fingers off getting the place clean again.
We went to the De Burgh Whyte wedding, the daughter Amicie was married, but I forget her husband’s name. There was a reception at the American Women’s Club afterwards – Mrs. D.B.W. was American, from Chicago. Though we were only rather distant cousins, we were treated as family, put in the third pew, etc.
Amicie de Burgh Whyte (1913-2001) was Billy’s second cousin twice removed (and therefore my fourth cousin). Her husband was Roderick Walter (1911-1966). I do not find a record of any children. The marriage was over by 1946, when Roderick married Xandra Carandini Lee (1917-2002); she was the older sister of actor Christopher Lee (1922-2015) and one of the children of her marriage to Roderick was actor Harriet Walter. They too divorced, and Roderick married Deborah de Laszlo nee Greenwood (1917-1980) in 1975.
I don’t know anything about Amicie’s later life, though she survived the end of her marriage to Roderick by more than fifty years. I find an “Amicie Walter Will Trust” registered in England, which may have something to do with her.
Amicie‘s father was another William Whyte, Billy’s second cousin once removed William John de Burgh Whyte (1875-1940), a mining engineer. Her mother, Geraldine nee Vaux (1890-1967), was, as Dorothy says, born in Chicago; she and William married in Chicago in 1915 and Amicie was born in New York, where her father was overseeing the construction of the tunnels under the East River.
The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of Roderick and Amicie’s wedding records Billy and Dorothy as part of the bridal party (“Col. and Mrs. Whyte”). Farther down among the attendees (not shown in my screenshot) are listed “Mrs Stephen Lamb, and the Misses Lamb”, ie Lyla and at least two of her three daughters.
The De Buriattes from Malaya came to see us one day; I wonder what happened to them, I don’t remember hearing anything about them after that.
Ernest Arthur De Buriatte (1887-1953) had succeeded Billy as commander of the 3rd Battalion, Straits Settlements Volunteer Force, the former Penang & Province Wellesley Volunteer Corps; he was also a lawyer and served on the Straits Legislative Council. He was taken prisoner at the fall of Singapore in 1942 (when he would have been 55) and held in Japanese PoW camps for the rest of the war. His wife Anne MacKelvie Alexander was born in 1899, but I don’t find a record for her death. They seem to have lived in Australia for some time, though Ernest died in London.
I met a Mrs. Dwyer at Lyla’s one day. She had met my father and step-mother in Cairo, and they said they had been in Malaya. She said she knew only one person in the whole country, and it proved to be Billy, their son-in-law!
Alas, I have no further information on the well-travelled Mrs Dwyer.
One day I went to the Caledonian Market with Norah and Ailsa Nisbet to get furniture for a small flat they had taken at Islington. They got a big wardrobe, two cupboards with shelves, a table and four chairs all for 30/- and the transport of them was 5s. more. I said the things were well-made and strong, though shabby. I forget what rent they paid, but I know it was very little. Things were incredibly cheap then by present-day standards.
Billy and Dorothy had met the sisters Norah Mary Stewart Nisbet (1907-1957) and Ailsa Margaret Nisbet (1909-1988) in Majorca in 1933.
The Caledonian Market had originally been a meat market, but by 1936 was mainly for selling bric-a-brac. It was off Caledonian Road in Islington, close to Pentonville Prison but also presumably convenient for the Nisbet sisters in their new flat.
The table and chairs cost thirty shillings, or one and a half pounds, £90 by 2026 prices; shipping was 5 shillings, £15 in 2026 prices; indeed a bargain on both counts.
Dear Bercie Tainter was always asking me to get her things in England which she thought she couldn’t get in the U.S. I once wrote to Zora that one of the things she’d asked me to get was some American cold cream which cost much more in London than it would have at home.
Bercie Tainter, born Susan Bayard Ryckman (1872-1954) was an old friend of Aunt Bunnie’s. Her husband Frank Stone Tainter (1862-1942) was the borough engineer of Far Hills, New Jersey.
Kitty West and Sir Glynn were separated by now and he had gone to the south of France, while she had taken a big flat in Westbourne Terrace and took girls as P.G.s; I went there sometimes to see her.
Katrine Mary Mather (1878-1960) had married Sir Glynn Hamilton West (1877-1945) in 1903. It was she who set up Dorothy’s date with the Prince of Wales (who by this point had become King Edward VIII) in 1923.
We saw a fair amount of the De Freynes; Francis had had to have an emergency operation for Appendicitis, and while getting over that he developed Chicken-pox and was flung out of the nursing home and poor Vicky had an awful time as the flat where she’d been staying wouldn’t let her bring him there. She finally ended up at Lyla’s. He came to play with John once or twice.
Francis French, 7th Baron de Freyne (1927-2009) was eight months older than John Whyte, and had inherited the aristocratic title aged nine, on his father’s death the previous Christmas Eve. His mother was born Lina Victoria “Vicky” Arnott (1887-1974). His paternal grandmother was Lyla Lamb’s sister-in-law.
Fred Whyte brought the typescript of a book for me to read: “Marriage with Genius” by Madame Strindberg. It wasn’t well written; Fred had been revising it for her but when he’d put a thing into good English she often turned it back again. I thought it might have a success, but it didn’t.
As noted above, Frederick Henry Whyte (1867-1941) was a cousin of Billy’s on both the Whyte and Ryan sides. He was a moderately distinguished writer, who had moved to Sweden after the first world war.
The Austrian writer Frida Strindberg, born Maria Friederike Cornelia Uhl (1872-1943), had been married to the Swedish playwright Auguste Strindberg (1849-1912) for only a couple of years in the early 1890s, forty years before, and he had been dead for a quarter of a century by 1936, so it may not be surprising that her memoir failed to take off commercially. I have however bought a copy for myself, and will report back.
Diana Buist had gone off to the U.S.
The Buist family had been a big presence in Dorothy’s life since at least 1912. Frederick Braid Buist né Sparks (1861-1946) and Marion Carruthers nee Smythe (1875-1953) were old friends of Aunt Bunnie’s. Their children were Colin (1896-1981), who at this point was closely associated with Edward VIII, the new king; Diana Hermione Frances Buist (1906-2000); and Malcolm (1913-1965).
I said in a letter in March: “John is still top of his class, and they’re raving over him at school, their only complaints being that he laughs too much and eats too little! Every time I go to fetch him one of the mistresses pops out and starts telling me how amazing he is in some way. Three of his drawings have been sent up for a big competition of schools all over England, and are to be exhibited at the Guildhall. Really sometimes he seems too good to be true and I live in terror of something awful happening. But perhaps he isn’t as wonderful as we think, bless him. He was so sweet to-day with Francis (De Freyne) we impressed on him that Francis was just getting over his op. and couldn’t play roughly, and John took great care of him.”
Nancy Manhard died in America that month, March. As they were Christian Scientists they didn’t have a doctor till a very short time before she died. From what was told us it sounded like a perforated duodenal ulcer; Dr. Ginner in Cannes thought it was that. Dollie, who dearly loved her, was terribly distressed.
Nancy Manhard was mentioned above.
Dr Ginner is Ernest Wightman Ginner (1876-1960), the English doctor in Cannes, who had followed in the footsteps of his father Isaac Benjamin Ginner (1841-1895). His brother and sister became famous in the arts.
I went to a lot of plays, usually in the pit with Vera James, or Dolly Neville, or some other friend; Billy couldn’t hear well enough to enjoy straight plays. Grace Gibson was then living at Pyrford and I went down there once or twice, and she came up to London.
Dorothy does not mention it often, but Billy was seriously deaf as the result of brucellosis which he contracted in Malta at the start of the century.
We met Vera James above.
Dorothy Marion Ellington (1879-1957) was married to Hugh Lewis Nevill (1877-1915), who was killed at Gallipoli and was the brother of Mary, Countess of Enniskillen, one of Zora and Bunnie’s old friends.
This is the first mention of Grace Gibson, and unfortunately the name is too common to be certain who Dorothy means.
Tim Whyte died about this time; I’m not sure of the date, of a perforated duodenal ulcer, and it sounded so like Nancy’s death. We had never seen much of him though he was John’s godfather. No, he must have died the summer before, as I say in my letter that we were in Ireland at the time.
Tim was Thomas Aloysius Whyte (1876-1931), the last surviving of Billy’s six older brothers. He never married and is not known to have had children. He died a few weeks after his 55th birthday.
This story is five years out of place in Dorothy’s memoirs, which is very odd. I have checked Tim’s death certificate, and there is no doubt that he died in 1931, not 1935 or 1936. Dorothy is right to say that she was in Ireland at the time of his death, May 1931, just after she, Billy and John had returned to Europe from Malaya; it is one of the periods for which her records seem to be rather sparse, and her memory may have let her down when writing this thirty years later.
The Buists were living at Amersham but were about to give up the house and go to the West Indies as Malcolm’s ship was out there. No, it was Bermuda they were going to. I took John down there for a day or two before they left.
In a letter late in March – no, early April I said: “John’s school broke up on the 8th and we went to the final ceremonies. He had the highest marks in the school. Mr. Gibbs said to us before the mark-reading; that he was “brilliant and very thoughtful; and that he was one of the two boys in the school with the greatest powers of concentration – the other is a much older boy. I said I hoped he wasn’t just precocious and that it wouldn’t all peter out, but Mr. Gibbs said reassuringly: “Oh no, he isn’t brilliant enough for that!” Mr Gibbs complained that John was a bit too full of his own importance and hoped he’d get over it. He is rather tiresome at times and I have to impress on him that though he knows quite a lot for a boy of seven, he doesn’t yet know everything.”
Papa and Sally were planning to come over that summer and also Lyman and May and her daughter Frances. I complain in my letters to Zora that they wouldn’t tell me the date of their arrival, nor how long they were staying, but they finally did.
More on Dorothy’s father, Henry Deming Hibbard (1856-1942), and her stepmother, Sally Ames Brooks (1858-1946), here.
Dorothy’s brother Lyman Charlton Hibbard (1893-1956) had married May Tiedemann née Glenn (1895-1968) in 1933. She had two children from her first marriage, of whom the older was Frances Glenn Tiedemann (1921-1991).
Lady Richards was in London and took John and me to a cinema; her husband, Sir Arthur, was Governor of the Fiji Islands. Later their daughter Diana sent John some stamps and sugar, as well as I can recall.
Sir Arthur Richards, later the first Baron Milverton (1885-1978) had been a senior British administrator in Malaya for many years, and Dorothy would have known him as Under-Secretary of the Federated Malay States from 1927 to 1929. Billy would presumably have known him for longer. He married the much younger Noelle Bënda Whitehead (1904-2010) in 1927 – the same year as Billy and Dorothy, and a similar age difference. They had two sons, of whom one died in 2023 and the other is still living as of early 2026. Their daughter Diana was born in 1928, so was the same age as John. She married Glyn Jones Clement in 1960, and may well also be still living.
We went up to Lyla Lamb at Scotby later in April; evidently Zora was back in England by then as I speak of her seeing us off at the station. I started sketching with Lyla, who was very fond of it.
I also rode a bit. John had his birthday there. [30 April 1936, his eighth birthday.] Mildred had had a party for him before that, as she had to go away. Chris had gone back to Freiburg, and Helen and Jess were away too; there was only Lyla and Dick at home, though Joan Vyvyan had been staying earlier. Dick’s mare had had an adorable filly foal, Princess, who lived with her mother in a paddock in front of the house and was most friendly, came running to us whenever we called her, and put her head over the railings to be petted, and tried to nibble the buttons off John’s coat – he loved her. Lyla and I played chess a good deal.
We met the Lambs above. Harry Vyvyan was noted as being a friend of theirs in 1935; presumably Joan Vyvyan is a close relative.
One day we took John over to the Castle in Carlisle where the prisoners of the ’45 were kept. I said: “What brutes people were in those days!” Evidently we knew little of what Hitler was doing in Germany.
We went back to London early in May; I said I wished we lived in the country and that it seemed a shame to go back. Zora was at the Windsor in Cannes.
Bunnie gave a deb dance for Sonia Syers in May, and hoped I wasn’t hurt at not being asked, but I said to Zora: “Can you see me at a debutante party?”
Sonia Syers (1918-1982) grew up to become the well-known archaeologist and anthropologist Sonia Cole, associated closely with Mary Leakey. Her mother, who had become Countess of Enniskillen by her second marriage, was mentioned above.
Michel and Bee were at 22; evidently Bee’s divorce from Roland wasn’t yet definitely decided on.
“22” is 22 Carlton House Terrace, the London home of Sir Robert and Lady Hadfield (Uncle Bobby and Aunt Bunnie).
Michel Conrad Marie Joseph Eugène de Buisseret (1901-1967) was the son of Bunnie’s friend Caroline Story (1870-1914) and Count Conrad de Buisseret (1865-1927). Bunnie informally adopted him after his mother’s death.
Bee was his sister Beatrix Caroline Marie Josephe de Buisseret (born 1910). Her first husband was Roland Toutain (1905-1977), a French actor, writer and stuntman. She then married Pierre Vanlaer (1904-1985), also an air pilot and stuntman. I have not been able to find details of Bee’s death, though she was still alive when her brother Michel died in 1967.
Deirdre MacDermot stayed with us, looking for a job as secretary.
Deirdre Gara MacDermot, later Anderson (1916–1992), was the daughter of Percy MacDermot, Billy’s sister Caroline’s brother-in-law, who had started the family tradition of rubber planting in Malaya.
Augusta had cleaned the flat thoroughly while we were away, relined all the drawers, etc. Deirdre went on to stay with Elaine MacDermot on May 17th, and two days later Kathleen came to stay for a week. Helen took John and a friend of his, John Bryan, to Whipsnade, and was very much amused by them. Billy took Deirdre and John to the Tournament at Olympia. We saw something of Brian, Deirdre’s brother, and her sister Patricia. Biddy Corbally, who had a job at Hemel Hempstead looking after children, quite often came up to London on her day off and I took her to a play or a cinema. Every now and again I went to 22 to see Bunnie, who was very much taken up with Sonia’s parties; there were two, the dance and a cocktail party.
Elaine nee Orr (1896-1974), was the wife of the youngest MacDermot brother Frank (1896-1975), who at this point in time was a TD (member of the Irish Parliament) and a founder of the Fine Gael political party. He was Elaine’s third husband; they fell in love on a transatlantic boat crossing, while she was still married to her second husband, the poet E.E. Cummings (1894-1962).
Kathleen Mary Whyte (1885-1960) was Billy’s youngest sister. She never married.
Helen is presumably Lyla Lamb’s daughter, already mentioned above.
I am unable to trace John Bryan.
The oldest of Deirdre’s siblings was Brian Charles MacDermot (1914–2003); Deirdre herself was the third, and the next was Patricia Mary MacDermot (1917-2008), with another three younger ones.
Dorothy Mary Corbally, known as “Biddy” (1910-1981) was the daughter of Billy’s sister Nancy.
Cousin Lalla McGrath came over and went to Amsterdam to see her nephew Frederick van den Arend who was consul there, I think, but was to be sent to Java.
Sally Belt McGrath, known as Lalla (1858-1936) was a first cousin of Dorothy’s mother (and therefore also of her aunts Bunnie and Zora) on the Belt side. Her sister Lily Belt McGrath had married Nicolaas van den Arend, a Dutch architect who later moved to North Carolina. Their son Frederik van den Arend (1894-?1957) had several senior U.S. diplomatic postings, and indeed was transferred from The Hague to Surabaya, Java, in 1936.
I said in a later letter to Zora that the second party for Sonia wasn’t a cocktail party, just about a dozen of Sonia’s friends to dinner, ballet and supper afterwards.
I wrote a lot about Kathleen in one letter. She had just had all her teeth out, which meant that she could eat only soft food, so we had all meals at home. We took her to watch Polo at Hurlingham; she said she had watched it before but it turned out afterwards that she had no idea what was happening! We took her to a cinema. I said in one letter that it was very sad that there was nothing she could do; she was so clumsy with her hands. She seemed to live in the past and was always airing a string of grievances dating back to the remote past; I was very sorry for her but she was very depressing company.
Relatives who knew Kathleen told me that she may have had a mild learning disability. Having all of her teeth removed cannot have improved her mood.
Zora and Dollie found a villa – the Manouka – for the next year. Then the question arose whether Augusta would stay with us or go back to them as house-parlourmaid. Augusta was very much torn but in the end she stayed with us – for a time. I thought she’d be a nun in time.
Cousin Lalla did, I think, come to London for a day or two, as I am sure – or almost sure – that she saw John, but then she went back to the U.S.A. and died very suddenly.
Dorothy has the last two details the wrong way round; when Cousin Lalla died suddenly in June 1936, it actually happened in Antwerp, Belgium. Her ashes were brought back to the USA and interred near Philadelphia.
Early in June Billy and I went down to Folkestone for the day to see about getting rooms there for May and Frances [Lyman’s wife and stepdaughter] as well as ourselves.
We found the Majestic quite suitable; I wrote Zora that for us three, with a double room for us and a small room for John, and all food, we would pay 13gns. a week. The rooms for May and Frances were more, 5gns a week each.
The Majestic Hotel on Sandgate Road in Folkestone, originally the Westcliff Garden Hotel, was demolished in the 1960s.
The inflation calculator tells me that 13 guineas per week in 1936 multiplies up to £840 per week in 2026 prices, £120 per day, which is indeed a pretty good rate for accommodation with all meals for two adults and an eight-year-old. 5 guineas in 1936 is equivalent to £320 in 2026, again for one person’s accommodation and full board, so about £46 a day. These days, one can end up paying more than that for a bed for a single night in an indifferent hotel in central London.
Zora and Dollie were coming to England late in June and I got very worried over the situation in France; they had had lots of strikes and there was much talk of a possible revolution. However it didn’t come off and they arrived safely – I think on July 2nd.
A general strike from the end of May in France resulted in the Matignon Agreements of 7 June, which established a settlement between the employers, unions and state. Zora and Dollie must have thought that the apocalypse was at hand.
I went to see Bunnie from time to time. I said to Zora that Bunnie thought she was the object of my envy, with her beautiful villa and her lovely clothes and her friends in High Society, but that I didn’t want those things, only I didn’t want to belittle them to her because they were the only things she had.
Bee had gone to Paris and was in hospital there. Michel told me the divorce had at last gone through as Roland had never turned up for the reconciliation before the judge and so lost his case.
I wrote to Zora that it was only now that John started to go to school quite alone; I had thought he started it earlier, but it was in May.
Biddy Corbally came for a few days and then Papa and Sally arrived from America, but didn’t stay with us – we had no proper spare room, only the bed in Billy’s dressing-room. I had got them rooms at the Bolton, just across the street from Coleherne Court, but they didn’t like it at all. Poor Sally could hardly walk, with an inflamed ankle after having had a varicose rein injected in America. She stayed at the hotel except the first night, when they came to supper and I beat Papa at chess for the first time. Dick Lamb dropped in and he and Papa had a game, which, I said, Papa won as fast as possible. I said; “Papa is really wonderful and looks the picture of health and energy. I think Uncle Bobby rather dreads his energy and his playing golf so well and all. And none of them likes poor Sally, though I really can’t see that she’s so bad for a short tine and they don’t have to live with herl” However Uncle Bobby did invite them to the Nook just for Sunday, and drove them back to London next morning.
The Bolton was a pub, rather than a hotel, on the northwestern corner of Old Brompton Road and Redcliffe Gardens, directly opposite Coleherne Court. It is still there, but derelict.
On June 25th I wrote to Zora:
“Yesterday at John’s swimming lesson Mrs. Owen, his mistress, came up to me looking solemn and worried, and said: ‘Mrs. Whyte, I must speak to you about John. He really ought not to be in my class at all, and I’m most distressed about it.” I must have gaped at her speechlessly wondering what could be wrong when she added: ‘He’s far too good and is miles ahead of the others, yet I feel he shouldn’t be moved in the middle of term.’ Then she went on to ask if Billy and I would consent to his being moved up two classes, if the headmaster wanted it, the next term. He was already doing several of his lessons apart from the others, having got so far ahead of them. She said he reads a thing once and never forgets it, and is getting rather bored waiting while the others struggle away with the same thing. We don’t mind his going up if they all think it would be best; you see the classes are all very small and all much of a muchness as to age; it wouldn’t be like putting him with much older boys. Bless him, what pleases Billy most is that he is coming on at cricket and has improved enormously; the games mistress is delighted with him. Chiefly bowling, not batting, which is an odd taste for a small boy – he clean bowled a boy the other day and tells us he now bowls to ‘some of the good batsmen! ‘ “
I do not recall my father ever expressing any enthusiasm for cricket whatsoever.
Once Zora had arrived I have no further letters to refer to and can only rely on my memory. Sally disliked the hotel very much and later they moved, I think to the Regent Palace.
The Regent Palace Hotel near Piccadilly was rumoured to be the largest hotel in Europe when it opened in 1916. It was mostly demolished in 2021-12.
I had started a baby and was thrilled but hardly dared to believe it; John was eight and I had been so hoping for more children, I hadn’t seen a doctor yet. One afternoon we went to Taidie Ferguson at Putney and for some reason I felt absolutely exhausted when we got home. I went to bed. Next day Papa came in and wanted to take John to the Science Museum or something. John I suppose felt shy of his American grandfather, and didn’t want to go. If I’d been there I should have persuaded him – he would have loved it once he got there, and Papa was so good with small boys – but the first I knew was when Billy came into the room and told me that Papa had gone, and John hadn’t wanted to go with him. I was terribly upset – I felt John might never see Papa again (In the event that was Papa’s last visit to England and he died during the war) anyway I proceeded to have hysterics, and lost the baby. The doctor did say that the hysterics were due to the miscarriage, not the other way round, but I don’t know. It was a bitter disappointment.
All very sad. Dorothy’s father was the only grandparent that my father ever knew – both of Billy’s parents died before he met Dorothy, and Dorothy’s mother of course died when she was very young. And John was the only grandchild that his grandfather ever met (though Dorothy did have another baby, in 1939). So it’s a shame that their last encounter was not a happier one.
Taidie Ferguson of Putney, who has not previously been mentioned, has been difficult to pin down. I think that she was born Sarah Jane Russell in Newtownards, Co Down, in 1871, and married James David Anderson Ferguson (1873-1928) in Belfast in 1893, so in 1936 she would have been aged 61 and a widow for eight years. I have no record of her death. Her parents and most of her siblings emigrated to Australia.
But I think this all happened after Folkestone, because I’m almost sure that I went to Lyla’s to recuperate and we didn’t go till September.
We had a cocktail party for Lyman and May after they arrived, but rather stupidly didn’t ask Frances, thinking she was too young. She refused to eat the food at the hotel so when Lyman and May got back after the party they had to take her out to dinner.
Frances had just turned 15, which is certainly old enough to appreciate being included in a grown-ups’ party, and to resent being left out.
At Folkestone we saw a lot of Zora, and I saw Dollie. May didn’t quite understand the set-up and was very much hurt one morning when Zora refused to have a drink with her at one of the big hotels as she wanted to get back to Dollie. May said to me she didn’t think we liked her much, and I tired hard to make her see it was just because Zora was so worried about Dollie. However we had some nice times, and John and Frances bathed and swam – Frances was very good and dived beautifully.
Dorothy Buckwell brought her Dorothy – about the same age as Frances – over one day; she had been rather boasting about how good Dorothy was but she said no more after she’d seen Frances in the water. Frances made friends with a boy in the hotel who wrote to her for years after-wards.
Dorothy Buckwell, born Dorothy Marie Wills (1889-1964), married Robert Leighton Buckwell (1873-1952) in 1912, and knew the Whytes from Malaya – indeed Leighton Buckwell gave our Dorothy away at her wedding to Billy.. They had five children born in Malaya between 1914 and 1922, the youngest being the said Dorothy (a year younger than Frances).
Evelyn and her sister Violet – was her married name Farmer? – Evelyn Reynolds, I mean, came to stay at the same hotel. Evelyn was seriously thinking of becoming a Catholic, which she later did.
Evelyn Reynolds has been a frustrating presence throughout the memoirs. Her family lived in Bournemouth, and Dorothy was staying with them in August 1914. Now we learn that there was a sister called Violet. Unfortunately it is too common a name to pin down further.
I don’t think Papa and Sally were at Folkestone, but I don’t know where they were, only that they were in London when I had that miscarriage.
Then we went to Scotby in September. I didn’t want anyone but Lyla to know about my miscarriage. I have found since that other people feel the same; one has a sort of shame about it, as though one had proved inadequate. Lyla had to tell everyone that I’d had flu, but it didn’t satisfy them, they couldn’t think why I was so listless and lacking in energy, though I said to Zora that I felt perfectly well but was not taking any long walks. Chris left for his final retreat before being made a sub-deacon on September 12th; Dick had gone shooting in Scotland, and only the girls were at home. I did a good deal of sketching, mostly with Lyla, sometimes alone. I said in one letter that there was really no news, that we just sketched and pic-nicked and played bridge and chess and walked and read and talked, and that I felt quite well and strong again. The most important thing that happened was that Chris left his retreat and came home without being made sub-deacon. He rang up Lyla, who was terribly distressed. The next day everyone else was out and I was alone when he walked in. He asked me how everyone had taken it; he seemed quite calm himself. His bishop had been very kind and understanding and had told him to take three months at home and not to worry about anything, just leave it to God.
This was only a temporary setback in Chris’ ecclesiastical career, as he was later ordained as a priest and ended up Vice-Rector of the Pontifical Beda College in Rome. In official records he is always referred to as “Joseph Cuthbert Lamb”; I don’t know if ‘Chris’ was a family nickname or his religious name (or indeed if it was his birth name and ‘Joseph Cuthbert’ was the religious name).
Zora and Dollie were by now installed at the Chalet Manouka, a comfortable modern villa with modern furniture but also modern conveniences such as a lift which we appreciated more than the furniture though the latter was quite comfortable – mostly tubular steel.
The next three paragraphs are inserted on a separate sheet.
I have found a letter of September 27th 1936 in which I told Zora that Moira Christie-Miller’s baby was still-born [Dorothy gives more medical details, but we don’t need them here]. It was a boy.
Moira Christie-Miller née MacDermot (1910-1969) was the daughter of Billy’s sister Caroline, who had got married in December 1935.
We had only just got back to London when I wrote. Norah Nisbet didn’t seem too well, and Ailsa was worried about her. Deirdre MacDermot brought Harry Monahan to see us.
Harry Monahan was one of the trustees of the Whytes’ Loughbrickland estate. Billy was the other.
We had been to Marjorie Rigg’s wedding and I said it was so pretty. Owen proposed the bride’s health. He also gave John a whole glass of champagne and would have given him more but was prevented by the bridegroom’s aunt, a very nice woman to whom I’d been talking quite a lot.
Marjorie Rigg (1908-1993) was the daughter of William Trevor Rigg (1874-1962), who was the brother of aunt Zora’s friend Dollie Sperling. Interesting that it was not the bride’s father but her uncle, Owen Davys Rigg (1866-1952) who proposed the bride’s health and decided who got champagne. The wedding was on 3 October 1936, and the groom was John Fitzroy Evelyn Coningham (1912-1973); he and Marjorie had two children, one of whom is I think still living as of 2026. His parents both had numerous sisters and married brothers, so we are unlikely to resolve the identity of his prudent aunt.
Back to the main typescript.
We went back to London at the end of September and I started painting classes at the Chelsea Polytechnic, three days a week. I also started my Care Committee work in Southwark. Uncle Bobby took me to a show of antiques and presented me with a small Roman glass vase costing £10 – and incidentally quite useless to me, as it is so fragile it would have to be kept in a glass case and it just put away in the silver chest. But it was a nice thought! It was guaranteed first century!
Uncle Bobby was quite extraordinary. He kept imagining that he was very poor, and urged economy on everyone, but he was really a very rich man. He always liked to have a woman in the house; Bunnie never stayed for long, and of course I was taken up with my own family, but he would get Evelyn Reynolds, or sometimes Valerie Churchill-Longman, or Bee, best of all, if he possibly could.
We have met Evelyn Reynolds and Bee de Buisseret already.
Valerie Lee Kavanaugh Churchill-Longman (1916-1986), who went by “Valerie Churchill” in later life, was born in London to an Anglo-German father and a Pennsylvanian mother. She never married, though at one point was engaged to the famous British urban planner Niel Abercrombie (1911-1984).
For a number of years Marion Buist had kept an eye on things at 22, and had engaged servants etc., but then Bunnie got a Miss Esme Jones who came in several times a week, and who engaged all the servants. One of the first things she did was to get rid of Blanche, the head housemaid, to whom we were all devoted and who was an excellent maid. Bunnie complained to me that all her friends were upset at her having let Blanche go, and said plaintively that surely she could employ whom she liked. Miss Jones was also determined to get rid of David, Uncle Bobby’s man, and finally succeeded – at least it was given out that David was no longer well enough, but we all thought it was Miss Jones. I never liked her; she was very effusive but I never felt that she was sincere. But I suppose she was really rather pathetic. She and Joyce, Uncle Bobby’s niece, were very thick. She got Uncle Bobby to invite Joyce more than he usually did; he wasn’t really very fond of her. But she was his only niece – he had two sisters, but only Florrie, Joyce’s mother, had a child.
Difficult to untangle the palace politics of the Hadfield home here, but I can confirm that Sir Robert had two sisters, Florence (1864-1909) and Lizzie (1868-1950), and that of the three Hadfield siblings, only Florence had a child, Joyce Mary Hadfield Wire (1897-1974). By 1936, Joyce had been widowed and remarried, and had four children, two from each marriage.
Esme Jones is far too common a name to track down.
Blanche’s full name was Blanche Champ, but again there are several candidates.
I have not been able to discover David’s surname.
One day I took John to tea with Elaine MacDermot; her son Brian Hugh was about three years younger than John. [I vividly remember Elaine’s son, the art dealer Brian Hugh MacDermot (1930-2013).] Elaine had just had an awful time with a nursery governess, who came to stay in the house while Brian Hugh’s Nannie was away for a week. The governess had been coming daily all winter and seemed splendid. Elaine went gaily off to the country on Saturday and on Monday was rung up by her cook who said that the governess had locked herself in Elaine’s room and had a locksmith there! Elaine rang up a friend and asked her to go in and get Brian and keep him with her, and she herself rushed back on the first train.
The woman had unlocked or broken into everything Elaine had, jewel-case, bureau etc. and collected a good many of the choicer things in an upstairs cupboard. She had sent for the locksmith to mend a broken lock which she didn’t want Elaine to see. Elaine stood over her while she packed and cleared out, and saw that she didn’t take anything – as Elaine had come back long before she was expected, she had taken her completely by surprise; Elaine had had two detectives meet her at the house, too, but since the woman had taken nothing Elaine let her go.
I took John to the Marsden-Smedleys’; their boy Luke was about the same age, with a younger brother, Christopher. Actually both these events took place earlier in the year.
We met the gloriously named Basil Futvoye Marsden-Smedley (1901-1964) in 1926, when he married Dorothy’s friend Hester Harriott Pinney (1901-1982). Their sons were Luke (1929-2012) and Christopher (1931-2015). I find an indication that there was a younger daughter too, who may well still be living.
First sentence of next paragraph duplicates information from the inserted sheet earlier.
Marjorie Rigg was married at the end of September or early October [3 October]; I remember we took John to the wedding and Owen Rigg gave him champagne, and Sidney and Nellie Womack were there and made a great fuss over John. They were such dears. Sidney had been Aunt Dollie’s chauffeur and Nellie had been her maid for years. After they married Zora and Dollie shared a maid, Cecile, a great heavy lump of a woman.
Sydney Womack was born around 1887, and his wife Ellen ‘Nellie’ Marshall lived 1886-1964. They married in 1920.
I have no further information about Cecile.
We were very much considering sending John away to boarding-school, Mr. Gibbs was prepared to keep boys till they were ready for public school, but all John’s friends were leaving soon; I don’t think there were ever more than two or three older boys there. So we went to see a school at East Preston, but decided against it.
I thought this might be something to do with Preston in Lancashire, but in fact it’s a different place called East Preston near Worthing on the Sussex coast. I have not found any more information about the school.
We saw lots of young cousins of Billy’s, Philip Roche, Jo O’Conor, Patricia and Deirdre, Beryl Clarke with her fiancé, Dick Rumboll, and Brian MacDermot who brought a friend named Leahy, just off to fight in Spain – or so he said; I don’t know if he really did it – and of course Biddy Corbally, and her brother Pat, in the Ulster Rifles.
Philip Roche (1917-1970) was the son of Billy’s first cousin on the Whyte side, Henry Roche (1864-1944). He had an older sister Barbara (later Barbara Weston, 1909-2008) and a younger brother David (1916-1999).
Josephine O’Conor (1909-1980) was a more distant relative through Billy’s Segrave grandmother.
We met Patricia, Deirdre and Brian MacDermot earlier.
Beryl Elizabeth Kathleen Mary Clarke (1910-1986) was the daughter of Billy’s first cousin Gladys (they also had two sons); she married Charles Richard (“Dick”) Rumboll (1908-1984) in 1938.
Given the family’s political proclivities, it is likely that young Leahy was off to fight with the pro-Franco Irish Brigade rather than the socialist volunteers.
We have met Biddy Corbally already. I remember her brother Pat, formally Marcus Joseph Patrick Matthew Corbally (1903-1983), who had an artificial leg due to a combat injury in WW2.
We thought for a time of going to Algiers, to get some sun. Augusta had a cousin there, to whom she wrote, but we heard that the prices there were as high as in the south of France.
Fred and Marion Buist returned from Bermuda; as luck would have it Malcolm’s ship was ordered home and I don’t know if they even saw him. So then they decided to go to Germany. We were all convinced that Fred would land in gaol there, as he refused to believe that there was any danger from Communism. He told us that when they went to get their visas he said to the man:
“What is all this business about Communists? What are they, anyway?” And he added : “Fellow couldn’t tell me.”
It was particularly cloth-eared of Fred to quiz a German official in 1936 about the domestic risks of Communism. It also shows the blinkered perspective of Dorothy’s set – the fact that there was more chatter about a theoretical Communist threat in Germany than the actual growth of fascism in 1936 is rather telling.
Fred was also very indignant at the idea of men wearing shorts in the tropics and got really angry with Billy once when Billy said he liked them. Later he sent Billy a newspaper clipping of an article by a man who also didn’t like shorts.
Fred sounds very strange.
We decided against sending John away just then. He had been moved up into a class with a master and seemed to be getting more self-confidence, and was also keen on football.
I did my first day at the Southwark Care Committee on Oct. 30th, and after that I seem to have gone each Friday. I was rather nervous at first at the idea of taking particulars of family incomes, but no one seemed to mind giving them.
Jan Juta [well-known painter and old friend of Dorothy’s and the Hadfields] was staying at 22; I dined there one night and wrote to Zora that he was a real asset at meals, as he was always ready to talk pleasantly. Every now and again Uncle Bobby would want me to go to a film, or a reception, or something, but as Evelyn was there I didn’t always go. As I wrote to Zora, provided there was some female there I didn’t think Uncle Bobby much minded which one it was.
On November 11th Billy and I went to Trafalgar Square for the two-minute silence; I said it was most impressive the way that the pigeons all rose and flew over our head with a strange ghostly sound.
Mrs. Simpson came in to see a plaque that Uncle Bobby had; Colin Buist brought her and they stayed about twenty minutes. Uncle Bobby said she admired the plaque ( I can’t remember which one it was, the “King’s Plaque” I call it); he thought she was badly dressed but Wilfred Taylor [Uncle Bobby’s secretary] said she had a “beautiful form”.
Mrs Simpson was born Bessie Wallis Warfield (1896-1986), and had been the lover of King Edward VIII since 1934; his determination to marry her, despite her being a divorcee, was to cost him the throne a few weeks later. As well as being an old friend of the Hadfields, Colin Buist was close to the royal family and presumably knew her well.
Sir Robert had a quite massive collection of plaques. I do not know if the one that Mrs Simpson wanted to see is also one of those preserved in the Robert Hadfield Room in Sheffield University, which I visited in 2024.
Just about this time, Late November, I noticed that John couldn’t see the numbers on buses as far away as I could. We took him to Doctor Gossip, our own doctor, and then to Sir Stuart Duke-Elder, and the latter said it was a very mild kind of short sight and might never increase, provided he wore glasses while growing.
Dr James Gossip (1889-1977) was from Inverness, and knew the Whytes from Penang.
Sir Stewart Duke-Elder (1898-1978) was probably the leading ophthalmologist in Britain. He was still in his 30s.
My father wore glasses for the rest of his life.
On Nov.25th Uncle Bobby had a puppet-show party. I wrote:
“What a party! Joyce was staying so she received with Uncle Bobby at the top of the stairs to the drawing-room so that all the women, going up to leave their coats, were received before they had taken them off. Miss Jones hovered just behind, all but receiving too, and also Valerie and Evelyn. It was AWFUL. Then we all squashed into the drawing-room but only the first two rows and the people at the back who stood up could see anything to speak of. Mary and family, Lord Enniskillen, Kitty, Sonia, Uncle Bobby and a couple of boys were in the front row…. Billy and I had dined with Esther Rickettson at her club and all went together. Ozzie Darell sat by me, and Jeffie his mother was there, Kitty West, the two Yeats-Browns, Lois Alderton (Wilfrid’s daughter), Sir Louis Knuthsen and many others. The original idea had been that the party was to be for Evelyn and me, but Miss Jones got him to ask Joyce to come up.
Many names dropped here, amidst the continuing Hadfield palace politics.
We have already met Valerie and Evelyn.
Mary Cicely Nevill (1879-1963) was Sonia Syers’ mother. Her first husband was Thomas Scott Syers (1883-1918), killed in the war, and in 1932 she married John Cole, 5th Earl Enniskillen (1876-1963).
The first Kitty mentioned may be Lord Ennikillen’s daughter by his first marriage, Kathleen Irene Cole (1919-1976).
I find an Esther Edith Ricketson (1886-19576), who was born in Australia and died in Monte Carlo but lived in England in the 1930s, and seems a promising candidate. She has not previously been mentioned.
Ozzie Darell is the future Sir William Oswald Darell, 7th baronet (1910-1959), son of Brigadier-General William Darell (1878-1954) and Eva Jeffie Bainbridge (1888-1966). They have not previously been mentioned.
We have already met Kitty West.
The Yeats-Browns have not been previously mentioned. The notorious pro-Fascist writer Francis Yeats-Brown (1886-1944) was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom had five children born between 1914 and 1923, so “the two Yeats-Browns” are probably two of the latter family.
Lois Cecil Beatrice Taylor (1892-1977) was the oldest of Wilfrid Taylor’s four daughters. She married Frederick Charles Kent (1892–1962) in 1914 and then Samuel William Alderton (1887–1958) in 1922.
Sir Louis François Emil Behagen Knuthsen (1869-1957) had been the head of Lady Hadfield’s famous hospital at Wimereux in the first world war. His knighthood was pretty recent, from the 1936 New Year Honours list.
A lot of these people seem rather old to be the target audience for a puppet show!
The night before Uncle Bobby took some of us to a dinner at the British Science Guild at the Hyde Park Hotel. The first idea was to have Joyce and me. He had only three tickets. Then Evelyn said he wanted her to go, so I asked Little Nurse to find out if he still wanted me, but she rang up later to say he had another ticket for Evelyn and did want me. In the car going there he suddenly said that Evelyn shouldn’t be there at all, that he only wanted Joyce and me. I said quickly that I’d go home, Evelyn sat tight, and finally he found he had a ticket for her after all. But he said she couldn’t sit near him, as he wanted Joyce and me on either side of him. Every time I spoke to him Joyce butted in. Quite amusing. Good dinner but dull speeches.”
I had written a serial, “The Black Bungalow” and had sent the first instalment to a magazine, and had a letter at once from the editor asking to see the rest of it. I worked hard to finish it off and send it, but it was returned.
Dorothy never did get anything published. I fear that we have discarded all of her fiction writing.
In early December the news broke about the King and Mrs. Simpson. Actually Evelyn Reynolds had been talking of nothing else for ages, but the rest of us had paid little attention.
…though obviously, enough attention that it was a big deal when Mrs Simpson visited Uncle Bobby’s house to look at his plaques a few weeks before.
Brian MacDermot came to say good-bye before going to Peking as Consul.
Brian Charles MacDermot (1914–2003) was mentioned above. his career culminate in the role of British Ambassador to Paraguay in 1968-72. I remember meeting him at his home in Stowmarket in the 1980s.
I helped at the Docklands Jumble Sale, with Joan Oglander Aspinall and I got Cecil Dircks – née Bateman – to help too.
Florence Joan Gertrude Glynn Oglander (1884-1961) married Cecil Faber Aspinall (1878-1959) in 1927, a second marriage for both. My research indicates that they hyphenated as Aspinall-Oglander rather than Oglander-Aspinall.
Victore Cecil Theodora Gabrielle Bateman (1897-1980) was the sister of Philip Bateman, Dorothy’s friend from her Paris and Romania days. She married Laurence Rudolf Alfred Dircks (1895–1961) in 1920, and then William Henry Trinder (1877-1950) in 1938.
On December 21st we were to leave for Cannes, to spend Christmas with Zora and Dollie.
In a letter of 11th December I said that the excitement was all over and that King George was reigning over us, so I suppose the abdication had been the day before. [Yep.] On Dec. 18th there was John’s school play; he had the part of an old shepherd in the “Reluctant Dragon” and had quite a lot to say, and did it well.
The play was presumably based on the short story of the same name by Kenneth Grahame.
Of course once we got to Cannes the letters stop, and I haven’t found any diary of that holiday as yet. But I can remember some of what happened. Billy Manhard was staying there too; he was going to all the places where he and Nancy had been together. He seemed very unhappy but he loved to talk about Nancy and he talked to Zora nearly every night till late; we all felt very sorry for him. Later he went to spend a few days with Bunnie and told her that he had married again. we didn’t know that, but on Christmas Day he had a telephone call from America, from someone he called Jackie – later we knew that that was his wife. He had told us about some young woman he knew – a widow or divorced, I’m not sure which – with a little girl; he spent a lot of time finding a doll to take back to the child.
As mentioned above, Billy Manhard’s story is difficult to nail down, but I find evidence of his marriage in New York to Carlene DeCoppert (1908-1978) on 2 December 1936; she had been married previously and had a son. It seems rather eccentric of Billy Manhard to marry her on 2 December and then immediately go to France without her.
Fred and Marion Buist were in Cannes, at one of the hotels, and once or twice Fred and Billy and Billy Manhard played golf together.
The typescript goes straight to 1937 without starting a new page, but we’ll stop here for now.