VANDA MARY SANDERS HOWDEN (nee FISKE) Autobiography

Printed Oct 1980. Followed by Eulogy.

Compiled and Edited Aug 2000 by son Dr. Patrick ffyske Howden, BackYard TEch, Cone St,

Macleay Island, 4184, Australia. Tel/Fax: (07) 34095100.

According to authoritative text I have - "Fiske Family Papers" - Family Fiske are traced back to about 100 years after mid Viking times. Scottish background Father's name Howden is found the same as a Yorkshire moor, weir, town... as well as a Norwegian village etc - an indication of similar Viking descent.

Victoria Street, Kensington, London is a narrow little street and on a corner half way down and still standing is a small old Georgian style 2 storey, basement house in which I was born. My Mother, who was born Grace Baldry, told me my Father, William Fiske, had straw strewn up and down the road to make the horse drawn carriages less noisy for my Mother, who was very ill - one cannot imagine what the noise is like from the present traffic.

My Mother was an artist, one of 13 children who lived in an old manor house in Norfolk and who, due to my Grandfather's leaning towards music rather than attaining a lucrative living, they were extremely poor. My Father, William Sanders Fiske, was the second son of Thomas and Elizabeth. The family consisted of Alice a nurse, Edith who helped to keep house, Dr. Thomas Fiske and Ada who appeared ta do odd jobs. I never knew my Grandfather who died before I was born, but my Grandmother lived many years. They were Plymouth Brethren and lived in Parkstone near Bournemouth. My Grandmother wore black clothes and a white starched cap with tails from the time my Grandfather died, also a stiff 2" wide black leather belt with all the household keys on it; even salt was locked up! I only met my Mother's Father once when I drove my Mother down to Littlehampton to see him and we took him, aged 96, for his first drive in a car at a steady 10mph. He was a small man with a good sense of humour and could still play many tunes from operas from memory on his violin at his advanced age. He must have been impecunious and quite happy go lucky and my Father regularly gave my Mother 7/6 a week to buy a postal note for him for tobacco money.

I have never known where and how my Father and Mother met. I heard that my Grandmother wanted my Father to become an architect and certainly he had a facility in drawing, though he left home for London and managed to put himself through Law School by working in the Law firm of Gedge Fiske & Co. He and my Mother must have met in London at this time and she had a studio near Lancaster Gate. They were married at St. Matthews Church, Bayswater on August 25th, 1897 and lived at 8 Leinster Mansions, Hampstead. They are buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. (When I visited graves early 1970s, someone else's graves had been attended to all those decades - ed).

My Mother's Brother, Harry Baldry, whom I never met, was also an artist and I believe he has portraits at Windsor Castle.

He died of tuberculosis when quite young, but he and my Mother did go to Italy to paint and there she was greatly influenced by the Italian painters Titian and Tintoretto. I believe nearly all her family was either artistic or musical and she herself was a very clever portrait painter, particularly as she had never been able to afford lessons. She exhibited in the Royal Academy in London, and was "hung on the line" as they called the first row of pictures. She told me she met a Jewish lady who introduced her to many people for portraits and in this way she was able to do well painting people such as Lord Mayors English Cities.

Finally she was able to take herself and 2 sickly sisters over to Canada for them to be in a more suitable climate. She herself returned to England and must have married my Father shortly afterwards. Two less-alike characters would be hard to find, my father from a religious and very strict family and my Mother from a Bohemian upbringing in a talented artistic and musical family. My Father was a very clever man and passed his law exams about eighth in England and frequently won prizes. My Mother I believe had little or no education; she could read and write, add up a little and that was all. My father was shy and very reserved, my Mother all extrovert and could have made an amusing comedy actress. Besides painting she could play any music by ear and had a very attractive contralto voice. They had one son, my Brother Guy; oddly enough I cannot remember anything about him in early years.

Earliest recollections are of our 2-storey house in Wimbledon just at the top of the hill. It had the normal back walled garden with a large tree in it. I can remember the cork-floored nursery with its fire and brass fireguard and Nanny carrying me up the stairs. Also I was allowed to peep through the banisters when my parents entertained. I can remember my Mother pushing me out in a big pram and when we came across some gipsies in their caravan she sang the song to me about:

"My Mother said I never should

Talk to the gipsies in the wood

If I did, she would say

Come along gipsies and take her away".

This literally terrified me, whereas I had loved their brightly coloured caravans previously. I can remember being fed largely on Plasmon biscuits soaked in milk for supper. It must have been the 'pre-baby food' fad for children.

I never asked why we moved to Kensington, but I suppose Wimbledon was a long way for my Father to travel to the City to work, though the flat we moved to was really unsuitable for children. It was on the 7th floor of Albert Hall Mansions, opposite the Albert Hall - I think No. 68. Almost at once I was sent to my Brother's boarding school, St.Clare at Walmer, Kent. I was the only girl, only 4 years old and there was a very nice elderly maid called Sarah who mostly seemed to look after me.

I can remember the lamplighters in the streets of London lighting the gas lamps and also our chimneys being cleaned by a chimney sweep and all the fuss and preparations to cover the furniture and clean up afterwards.

There were also the fire brigades drawn by horses and the excitement and clatter they produced.

I had lessons with the boys and was learning French at the age of five. I got on with them all very well. Strangely enough during World War 2 in Australia at a cocktail party for a visiting RN ship HMS Ramillies, I met a Commander Waters who had also been at St.Clare and remembered my maiden name. He told me he had given me a brass ring at the age of six or seven!

The only bad events at this School were when I tried to pat an old white horse mowing the playing field. It turned and bit me on the cheek and another event, going with the boys and being 'dared' to watch pigs being slaughtered in a farm next door and standing on something to see over the wall and falling off in a terrible state on seeing the poor pig.

Very early in life my Brother and I spent a summer at our family friend's place, Mrs.Price and her unmarried daughter Dody at Pinner, Harrow. In those days there were hay fields across the Road and our garden was huge, so we often had afternoon tea outdoors and I have photos of us there with my Brother dressed up as Bonnie Prince Charlie. I remained friends with Dody Price right up to several years after my marriage and she was living in Eastbourne with an old friend of hers and I took Merlin and Patrick down to see her when we were in England (when? 1930s).

I was really happy at St.Clare. I saw little of my Brother who was 4 years older, nor can I remember any of the staff other than Sarah who cared for me, or the journeys to and from school.

Later I was sent to the Junior House of Roedean School, Brighton and I well remember my first term when I was 'put into Coventry' by the other girls for some reason entirely unknown to myself. No one spoke to me unless told to do so by a teacher and I hated them all after the friendly little boys I had been used to. I could not understand girls who pulled one's hair and pinched.

However, eventually I made some friends, two of whom are still my friends today - Kathleen Archer, Mrs.Gemmill of Rhodesia and Kitty Owen, an American girl, now Mrs.Spence of New York. Kitty and I, when at the Senior School, were caught climbing on the roof of the Chapel by the Head Mistress, Miss Laurence, but she only reminded us that it was her responsibility to see we did not kill ourselves at School!

During the War we took a dislike to all foreigners and a poor Belgian girl, Yvonne de Jaeger, got a fearful teasing and was shut in the underneath pipe lines and given only an apple and told to crawl the length of the school to get out. However I think she was let out sooner, or I hope so!

Kathleen and Kitty were in the Junior School at my age; other friends I made in the Senior House later. Kitty was a wonderful girl, extremely pretty, so unusual in a schoolgirl, curly blonde hair, blue eyes and a lovely figure. She was extremely talented in the arts, could play anything by ear on the piano and also play made up tunes as she went along. She was excellent at dancing and also a gymnast. I don't think she was good at the 3 Rs, but she could write poetry and draw and paint.

At home life was pleasant until World War I. My Mother and Father gave very small dinner parties at times. I can only remember a few of the people; one was a Turk whom my parents called T.T. for the Terrible Turk who spoke fluent English. Another was a Mr.Wilson Lovatt, a businessman from Wolverhampton and a longstanding friend, Mrs. and Miss Remer, also our family doctor Dr.Cutler, who lived in a lovely old Georgian home nearby. My Mother painted his father's portrait from an old photograph. Our flat was solid but very ugly; the front hall had a full-length mirror with a huge window box of aspidistras in it and I or my Mother washed their leaves in milk from time to time. All walls were papered in dark brown - my Mother thought that showed off pictures well - except the dining room which had scarlet walls and black carved wood furniture.

The drawing room was upholstered in gold and held my Mother's piano with a gold curtain hanging down its back and a 5ft high black wooden stand holding a large brass container with yet another aspidistra! Drawing room and dining room had narrow balconies and our canary hung in its cage whenever it was sunny outside. I used to be sent down to High Street Kensington to buy a pennyworth of groundsell from the old bonneted lady selling it in the street.

I cannot remember any children coming to play with us and although my Grandmother sent me a really lovely doll and made a satin cape and frock for it with hood edged with fluffy stuff, I put it away and loved only my old Teddy Bear. I longed for animals and eventually we got a little dog from Derry & Toms Store, a Yorkshire Terrier whom I called Curly, though, no doubt due to incorrect feeding, Curly developed skin troubles and was sent to my cousin's gamekeeper in Axmouth Devon where he had a very happy life.

During the holidays my brother and I were sent to Kensington Gardens to sail our boats. Guy was quite fearless and launched his off to the middle of the Round Pond with gay abandon. It always returned safely, whereas I was terrified I would lose mine becalmed in the middle and timidly pushed it out about 2 feet where it was immediately becalmed and I became frantic. Aside from this occupation our only other amusement in holidays was to use one pair of roller skates between us, my Brother's on his right foot and mine on my left and go round and round the Albert Hall pavements.

I know I was taken on one grand occasion at Christmas to see a play, which was 'Pinkie and the Fairies', my first play and I can remember being absolutely spellbound, but I cannot recall any of the play.

I know we must have been rather poor in those days. My Mother made most of her frocks with the help of a dear old lady called Mrs.Pell who eventually made, with my Mother, all my school uniforms for Roedean. This made me feel very singled out at school, as I was the only girl I knew of who did not have embroidery on the top of her after school frock. I think it must have been difficult for my Father to meet our boarding school fees. My Mother often 'turned' her coat and skirts to wear them longer.

My Mother and Father had totally different characters. My Mother was an extrovert and loved theatres and concerts and going out; my Father hated going out and loved his books and antiques and a very quiet life. My Mother took me to church on Sundays and on Sunday afternoons we nearly always went to a very high up seat in a gallery next to the organ at the Albert Hall Sunday's Concert. So every holiday I had access to good music, although my Brother was far more musical than I was and could play from ear like my Mother. I cannot remember him going to concerts with us. My Mother could sing also. I remember also, watching the suffragettes having a rally at the Albert Hall and Christabel Pankhurst being arrested, all or which we could see from our balcony.

In the afternoons my Mother had a 'rest' and my Brother and I lay on the floor with books and a pillow, plus seven toiled sugar sweets each. The floor was supposed to be good for our backs but I think all the books we read probably did us more good!

The great excitement of the year was Christmas and our cousin Maud Stephens in Devonshire sent us up a big hamper of food, usually pheasants and salmon and fruit and vegetables from her estate.

Oddly enough for an artist my Mother was an excellent cook, but we also had a dear cook-cum-general factotum, Mary Anne Lee from the Presentation Convent in Mullingar, Ireland. Her two sisters who were married also knew us, but they traded upon poor Mary Anne who gave them all her salary and nearly kept all their children. She was a most remarkable person, dark with a high colour and a terrific sense of humour. She scoured the flat on the day-a-week cleaning day, with damp tealeaves (eliminates mites!) on the floor and a hard broom.

If I was at home I polished furniture, in particular a large old mahogany chest in the hall on which my Mother loved to keep a brass bowl with marigolds brightly reflected in the polished mahogany.

Mary Anne had her spaniel dog Shawnie over from Ireland but he wasn't trained for traffic and lay down in Kensington High Street. On sending him home she hadn't heard if he had arrived and sent a telegram 'DID DOG ARRIVE AND WHAT WAS HIS FARE?' to the Mother Superior.

I visited the Presentation Convent once when I was on holiday and stayed in Mullingar at a little old inn with candlelight and had lunch with the Nuns and had to help them nail flags to a pole for a fete as they nailed their fingers.

In our August holidays my Father twice took us across to Oost in Belgium where we had endless fun on the sandy beaches and riding down the sandhills. Our parents played golf together, my Mother on the handicap of 7 and my Father about 14, as no doubt he had less time to play. We sometimes had an old friend Mr.Cresskey with us who also golfed. I thought it was all heaven and took years getting over my disappointment at not going in the year the 1st World War broke out. In fact, our picnic basket and trunk of clothes went off in advance and, of all things, the basket was returned to us after the War 5 years later, undamaged!

My Father joined up as a 'Special Constable' (like ARP Warden) at nights and also paid for a Canteen for soldiers on Purfleet Rifle Range at the Docks. My Mother ran this Canteen and clad in long skirt, boots, a blouse and old coat did all the work herself. In holidays I went down with her and have a photo of myself serving out sweets that were 5 for 1d. We had hot cocoa and pies and sandwiches of a sort with tea. After a while I noticed the men we served becoming older and worse in health and I, who was taught to shoot at school could have done better. One poor old fellow had epileptic fits; I was shocked to see him. My Mother was extremely fitted to run this canteen; she could make anyone laugh and had masses of comic stories and was kindness itself. I was usually so tired at the end of a day that I fell asleep on the train seat coming home; also it was so cold in winter.

Another expedition was to get up at 4 a.m. and go to Covent Garden Market and buy for the Canteen and fruit and vegetables for ourselves. My Mother made excellent jams and marmalades. My Mother and Brother and I all did SANDOW exercises in our bathroom every morning; it was very popular in those days and consisted of two handles attached to long elastic ropes which were attached to the wall and you pulled against the elastic. After that my Mother and I had to plunge into a cold bath winter and summer. I hated the whole procedure and I doubt if it did anyone any good.

During the War I was at home in the holidays until the air raids. I remember vividly one raid. We had guests for dinner and Mary Anne had cooked sprats, when the sirens went and the guns at Marble Arch started to fire. For some reason we all went out on to our back verandah where our ice chest was kept and in the sky I -'saw the Zeppelin on fire, which came down at Cuffley near Enfield. Then we were whisked down seven flights of stairs to the basement where we sat and ate sprats amongst the hot water pipes. (apparently she quick-sketched such event to fill-paint later - ed). A bomb fell in Exhibition Road next street to ours and I can still remember its 'whistle' as it came down and wondering if I'd be alive. I was literally terrified. Next day we saw the immense crater it made, luckily missing the Science and Natural History and Victoria & Albert Museums.

After that it was decided we should go to my Grandmother's home at Parkstone for holidays, which I hated as, although she never scolded, she was severe and my Auntie Alice even more so. However my Auntie Ada really liked having us and took us to the roller skating rink in Bournemouth and let us have what we liked for lunch, which was always tongue and a large piece of cake. My Grandfather had been a dear old gentleman -Thomas Fiske - and my Mother had painted his portrait. Yet she and my Grandmother had nothing in common, despite my Mother being very good to my Aunties, ensuring they got nice warm eiderdowns for their beds, stopping the cuckoo clock in the hall so it did not wake everyone up. My Grandmother being deaf never heard it anyway!

My Auntie Alice, Uncle Tom and Auntie Edith had gone off to Aylesbury (stone circles - ed) at one stage, where he was a doctor and Alice a nurse whilst Edith housekept. But my Grandmother sent for them all to come back as she said as a 'widow she needed them'. My Auntie Edith was very nice looking and the Estate Agent of a big property near Aylesbury that he looked after had asked her to marry him, which she wanted to do. Unfortunately he had a title and my Grandmother refused to allow her to do so, saying 'You are not to set your cap at a person so far above you' - so poor Edith never married neither any of the daughters.

Their drawing room was a mass of small tables to hold all sorts of little ornaments called 'What nots' plus a very slippery horsehair sofa on which we had to sit to hear prayers and Bible reading from the family Bible by my Uncle Tom before breakfast each day. Servants came up from the kitchen for it. Everyone disliked this formality except for Granny, to whom it was a lifelong institution. After her death it was discontinued in the household.

At the back of their house they had a croquet lawn and a little summerhouse where Granny sat and watched us all play. This we enjoyed. I offered to help my Uncle Tom weed his garden, but was only allowed to do so on great sufferance as he grew prize carnations each tied up to a stick with one bloom on each. So reminiscent of the family, my Mother thought.

After the War we went to Sandbanks, a peninsula out of Poole Harbour and used to bicycle over to see Granny, a very exhausting hill climb, but lovely going back.

At school we had terrible food in World War I, usually rice thrice daily, as a cereal for breakfast, with tiny bits of mince in it for dinner and again as a cereal for supper, with black treacle over it. No fruit and few vegetables. We were mostly all very thin and very hungry. I remember throwing a breadboard across a room because I couldn't get any more bread.'

At school I was reasonably good at sports. I remember our 2nd Eleven-Cricket team won every match against other schools one summer. I loved the sports and am still interested in Cricket and at school we played Hockey and Lacrosse, but not Tennis at that time. (For years before she died, there was little else on her TV or radio but sports, frequently all night - ed). We had a good swimming pool and learnt at the end of a moving pole with belt attached. It was a covered enclosed pool so we had rings we could swing on above it. In winter the senior girls learnt shooting there with extraordinarily out of alignment rifles. Also we learnt carpentering and in the war made crutches for wounded men, never 2 crutches the same height! We also knitted what were called 'Serbian Squares' - no-one could make out what for. Later we were told they were for Serbs to use as saddle cloths.

My great joy was the studio where I learnt painting and clay modelling. I loved gymnastics and was in my House Team. I didn't like learning piano and rarely tried to practice. Yet I liked singing in the choir (extremely badly). We had a very beautiful Chapel.

It was decided that I should do Senior Cambridge Exam rather than Matric, as it included Art as a subject and I was so poor at Maths. We had a great many subjects: English, History, Geography, Chemistry, Botany, Art, French and French conversation and Arithmetic. We were taught Elocution and Scripture. For the former a formidable lady came down from the College of Dramatic Art in London to hear us read an unseen passage to her individually. I think most of us could read well and grammar classes were very strict.

Unless we had to go to a dentist or it was half term, we stayed in the school grounds the whole term, though we never felt 'enclosed'. There was one outlet, a tunnel to the beach in the cliffs followed by awful rocks to walk on in the sea, with at least 360 steps to climb back up the tunnel. The only other outings were free Thursdays, when we went careering over the Sussex Downs led and chased by 2 teachers on a 'Scout run' - we literally ran all the way for 2.5 hours non stop up hill and down dale and drank almost a basin of water on return. I know I should have stayed on another year as I was very immature, but all my friends who were mostly 18 were leaving, although I was just 17. Only Kathleen Archer remained on and became a Senior Prefect.

I can remember I was anything but happy at home, lonely for my school friends. However, I decided I must do something and my Father and I went to see a little hospital down at the Docks where I could train to nurse. There was small pox down there and my Father was anxious about me living in a room nearby, so that idea fell through. I started working one day a week voluntarily at a Creche for poor children off Nottinghill Gate in a slum area (where lady friend Paddy and I lived 1969-73 - ed).

This was an eye opener for me, the children were delightful, aged about 3 months to 6 years, yet so dirty and tattered and ill fed. We changed their clothes to our own and washed them and took lice out of their hair, fed them, played games, gave them a rest on stretchers and taught them songs and plays. One little fellow, Billy, really got to me, he was hopelessly retarded mentally, still he always knew me and clung to me like a little dog. I learned he had three mental sisters and the Mother was mental also. Several children came from families with TB and yet had to pick up drink from a nearby pub for their parents on their way home. Only the Matron was a paid worker and she a very wonderful woman.

My Mother and I painted in one of the Museums. As long as one copied a picture one could use the Museum almost as a studio. I also started at the Chelsea Art School and was horrified at my first life drawing class to be confronted by a nude model playing tennis against a wall. I had no idea how to draw her if she had remained stationary, let alone if moving! I learnt a great deal there from drawing front casts, but eventually it had to be given up, as my Mother had not been well for some time with heart trouble and arthritis.

I started Spanish lessons and could speak and read quite well. So she and I went overseas on a ship via Panama to Los Angeles to stay with a very nice American couple at Santa Barbara in a charming little house at Montecito. Each day breakfast on the patio with dinner at a quiet restaurant nearby. My Mother gave them instructions in Art. I went down to Los Angeles and stayed with a delightful elderly American lady we knew and for the first time ate pickled peaches before sleeping in a four poster bed with white chiffon curtains. Then I met again a Swiss boy I had been friendly with, Rene Fix, the last time I saw him for many years. He was to die in a car crash in Brazil some years later.

My Mother and I also fitted in a visit to Japan our way to Hong Kong and home. We met a very nice couple from Chicago and travelled with them. We were shocked to see the devastation in Tokyo caused by the tremendous earthquake they had. Our hotel being of reinforced concrete was the only one standing and everywhere tramlines were buckled and upended. Oddly enough the little fragile looking Japanese houses of paper and wood were frequently still standing

We carried on to Nikko which is so beautiful surrounded by trees with a red lacquer bridge and very ancient temples. On our train to Kyoto we sampled the Japanese lunch boxes of matchwood, bought through the train window. Inside was raw fish which none of us could eat, although it was considered a delicacy. The women's kimonos were beautiful and their little shoes much more colourful than the clothes in China.

We found a curved narrow all devoted to shops selling teapots. We were a bit disappointed that although the cherry blossom in parks was lovely they had no lawns, only pebbles on the ground.

I had been out to the winter sports at Klosters and Davos with a friend of my Mother's and her family, Violet Kidd, but I caught measles and had to remain at Klosters whilst they went on to Davos. My Mother came out to be with me and we became friendly with an Australian girl Linda Giddings (nee McMaster) and her husband. They introduced me (I was 18) to an Australian man Harry who was later to become my husband. But I went on up to Davos and again had bad luck injuring my knee in a heavy fall. I was so disappointed as I loved skiing and had climbed the Buhlenhorn Mountain with a party of skiers. Only 2 guides, 2 men and myself got to the top. The view was marvellous, but as so often happens on mountaintops there was an icy wind that made our lunch break rather miserable. The guide had to help me down a good deal. My Mother again came to meet me in Paris where followed a bad heart attack. A French doctor told her how very ill she was, as she never bothered to take care of herself.

Several times I went with her overseas in winter because of her acute arthritis; twice to Biskra in Algeria where the legendary Garden of Allah is situated. It is a date plantation watered by artificial little channels running between palms and very lovely brilliant bougainvillea trailing over white walls of a small building in the garden.

I painted in the Market Place and several Arabs came up to watch and were intrigued. One had a bandage over an eye and when I asked to see it he showed me a badly infected eye. So I set off to a chemist and bought ordinary Boracic powder plus an eye glass with distilled water and showed the Arab how to rinse the eye at least four times daily and to keep it open, never bandaged and in three days it was well.

We became friendly with some German girls and a Polish girl there, the latter named Eveline Woyniewicz, whom I think with her husband, were killed by the Germans during the War, and their Estate confiscated. We all learnt to ride, though one day the guide brought me a very difficult horse that bolted straight away. How I remained on it I really can't imagine, except that I was athletic and finally thought I'd pull on one rein with both hands until its head was almost looking over its shoulder. This finally stopped it. I found out from the Police that it was a horse ridden by the army and accustomed to galloping off into the blue directly it was out of Biskra. This habit should have prevented it being used by tourists.

An interesting person we met at the hotel was Elizabeth whose complexion really needed all her products, as it was like leather:

We also met a friend of H.G.Wells, Odette Keun, who was very kind to me, as she knew my Father who had become H.G.Wells' solicitor. She was a French authoress who lived in Wells' south of France home. She was quite ugly, but immensely attractive, vivacious and interesting. My Father came out for a short holiday at this time and it was a rest for him, although I don't think there was much to interest him in Biskra. It was a colourful time with the French Foreign Legion in the Town and the Arab Spahis in their red burnoose robes. We saw a kind of military tattoo, the Arabs on magnificent horses riding at full gallop across the desert.

At nights the German girls and we went on camels to visit anything: Arab encampments to eat their highly flavoured 'Cous-cous'. These were hotter than Indian curries with small pieces of lamb or goat in the cereal. We saw many caravans setting off for Timbucktoo further south. Claire Sheridan the author was also there.

After one of these overseas trips my Mother and I returned to find that my Father had bought a tiny piece of land in Hyde Park Gate, Kensington and built a rather pretty house there, with a roof garden and greenhouse on top of it. It was in the same little cul-de-sac where Winston Churchill retired and where the famous sculptor Epstein lived.

The drawback to the house was that it was right on top of the pavement and the traffic from the main road High Street, Kensington, thundered day and night. So my Father and Mother changed rooms as she did not mind it so much. My Brother had a room upstairs with the piano in it. Regrettably he was not working and had only had a few rare months of work here and there. He was very clever and had passed all law exams until his finals, which he refused to take (like Conrad for years at Uni - ed). My Father put him into a business as manager of a big bus garage as Guy was very mechanically minded. This again fell through. He and I never had a quarrel or dispute, he was such an easy going fellow, though his romance with Violet Kidd broken off by her father when Guy did not do his final law exams, seemed to shatter his whole life. This was when I was only 16 and obviously of no help to him.

At this time I set off each day to a secretarial course, leaving when my Father went to work. The course was in Regent Street near the Polytechnic. There I met a lifelong friend there Phyllis Colebrook, also doing the course. We would lunch at odd little teashops near the British Museum. We both finished the course and she went on to a job whilst I decided to go to the Regent Street Polytechnic to study sculpture - again I was dismayed to find myself in a class with students working for the Prix de Rome, huge full size statues. However, another girl and I were started on just the model's head, other days doing drapery in clay. I really loved the work.

My Mother and I had been to Italy and on the way back we stayed in Holland when I was 18. There we met a family named Van Doesburg of the Dutch biscuit family. The two sisters, Nolly and Marguerite (Peggy) became lifelong friends and were forever trying to instigate a marriage between their brother Richard and I. He and I danced in London whenever he was in England, but I never fancied living in Holland although I liked visiting the country so much.

Another lifelong friend was Simone Reutlinger from Paris. She stayed with me in London in our former flat there. We met them at Saint Briac in Brittany on a summer holiday. Whilst my Father and Mother golfed, Simone and I went for swims and met friends. With her parents we set off to see lovely old French places, such Mont Saint Michel joined to the mainland by a causeway, where we had the best 'omelettes' I had ever tasted at a little French restaurant built into the cliff face below the Abbey. My Mother was very good to Aime Reutlinger when she was taken ill in the hotel and in return they invited me over to Paris for a holiday.

My Father liked the husband very much, as he was interested in antiques too, although a photographer by career. I think I was 18 when I stayed with them and still had hair down my back: They had a tiny little flat in the Champs de Mars near the Eiffel Tower and there I lived a completely French life. Only Simone and her father spoke English, so I had to learn French. Sundays I went with Simone to Mass and then we met all her young friends and walked in the Bois de Boulogne, and in the afternoons to Museums with Monsieur Reutlinger. I can remember seeing Marie Antoinette's shoes, about our size 2 - I thought they were for a child.

If Simone was invited to a Ball, her parents and her grandmother came as our chaperones. She was allowed to invite her young friends and cousins to her flat where she played the piano and sang songs. We danced in her room about 15ft x 10ft. In the mornings rugs were rolled up and we did dusting and cleaning with dusters on our feet, which polished the floors! Then we went to the Markets and brought back their staple foods, always steak with watercress for dinners and often a cheese omelette followed - absolutely delicious. Simone's eldest brother was killed in the War and her younger one only called round once; he was considered the 'black sheep of the family' and there was a terrible row.

Our main occupation was to get Simone married and her father had decided upon a young army officer named Milliot, who was about half Simone's height and whom she called 'Le petit Milliot'. There was an extraordinary old lift in the flats of rattling wire like a cage. Simone insisted on the 'petit Milliot' going down on his knees and begging for her hand in marriage in the lift! I was covered in confusion, as I felt he was serious whereas Simone was joking - so on his knees he went.

Simone's family were all enchanting. George and Georgette Demontmorot, cousins with a baby girl to whose apartment we went for dinners. They lived with their grandparents in a huge apartment. Then there was dear old Grandmere who spoke no English albeit such a friendly soul. Plus Simone's cousin Manon Stephan who had to work and was a dress designer, as well as her fiance Robert Stephan and one of my beaus, an English banker, who used to take us out too. We had such very happy times. Simone was the liveliest wire one could imagine. I was eventually a bridesmaid at Manon and Robert's marriage.

Simone had an Aunt who was a famous French actress of the Comedie Francaise, Cecile Sorel, acting mostly in plays such as Moliere's. She was not married then, but was great friends of the Comte de Segur. She was very kind to my Mother and I when my Mother was in Paris and took us to the theatre in her car and drove us home later. When I stayed with Simone she invited us all to dinner one night. I remember I had no evening dress, just a black silk afternoon one with a red rose at the waist and my hair down as usual. Mme.Sorel couldn't speak English, still she was enchanting to me and took me to her room and put my hair up with comb,s putting the red rose from my frock in my hair (I never wore my hair down again!). (Boo hoo - ed).

The apartment was magnificent with marble floors and Persian rugs and lovely antique furniture. The dinner table was marble with cloth of gold covering it and at one end of the huge dining room was a fountain playing over masses of flowers. Everyone was so kind to me, a little 18-year-old girl from London. Later Simone came to stay with me in London but somehow, probably because of her Catholic religion, the suitable men I could introduce her to shied off except as a distant friend. No-one would think of marriage, it seemed. Nevertheless we had great fun and one fine July night after dancing with friends, Simone and I danced all the way down Piccadilly at midnight with our party.!

A friend of mine, Michael Franklin, invited us to Oxford University O.U.D.S. Ball (Oxford Union Dramatic Society). We went by train and changed at a hotel, as it was a fancy dress Ball. We danced all night followed by breakfast on the river in a punt to arrive home with balloons hanging out of the train windows and fast asleep in a corner.

We also went to a magnificent Ball at the Van den Berg's house in Kensington Palace Gardens, the margarine family. I had met Elsie the daughter in Switzerland skiing. It was a wonderful home and Simone looked lovely in brilliant red chiffon, a frock given to her by her actress aunt.

During several years I travelled in winter with my Mother. The first long trip was to Argentina and back on the same ship SS Andes. I was most impressed by my first view of a tropical land at Santos, Brazil. We had made friends with two Nuns on the ship and my Mother decided to go ashore for the day and take a car drive as it was incredibly hot and humid. We drove all along the beach on extremely hard sand, quite the best way to keep cool for the day. The next stop was Rio which I feel now is the most beautiful harbour in the world, with Sydney 2nd and Vancouver 3rd. Coming in at dawn with the Sugar Loaf and other mountains still half covered with mists and dozens of islands all over the bay, it was a lovely sight. My Mother decided to take a drive once more, so we collected the Nuns and set off to the Sugar Loaf Mountain which has a huge statue of Our Lord on the summit. Looking down from the mountain we were astonished to see literally clouds of the brilliant blue Brazilian butterflies huge in size forming a fluttering carpet of blue.

We drove back via Copacabana with its wavy lined pavements to the city. My Mother wanted to see our shipping company. I had learnt Spanish but not the South American variety and not Portuguese. I tried Spanish whilst we walked in terrific heat for miles until we found the address given us as 'Mala Real', This I thought was Royal Mail Company, though turned out to be a suitcase and leather goods store - 'Mala' being a similar word for mail and trunks or suitcases. We were so hot and tired we went back to the ship.

Our next stop was Montevideo where fortunately we had some Spanish American friends, the Herrera family. This family we met at the top of Vesuvius in Italy first and we were all drooping coins into lava to recover as souvenirs. Senor Herrera was a newspaper owner and Leader of the Opposition in Uruguay's Parliament and remained so all his life, unfortunately never regaining power. He was a charming Spanish aristocrat. They had sadly lost their eldest daughter in childbirth and Senora Herrera took to black clothes for ever afterwards, as was the custom. Senor Herrera was amusing and they all spoke excellent English. He remarked to my Mother, 'Ah! You English, you all say how you love England so much yet you are always abroad travelling'! His second daughter, Hortensia, became a great friend of mine and still is, although we have only met three times since those days (one could never stop Olde Ducke from writing dozens of letters weekly in later life - ed). She was about three years younger than I was. It was lovely to meet them all again and to go driving around Montevideo. We felt a little lost in Buenos Aries where we knew no one, still we appreciated the beautiful city.

On board our ship was a South American family of father and 10 young children, whose wife had died in Europe. Although passengers tried to help him, it was a major project to get them al lined up on deck ready for a meal. They were all dressed in black down to the smallest toddler.

My Mother and I also visited Hong Kong. It was April, a great mistake because of the heat. My Mother suffered with her heart and we had to find a ship and set off for Canada and a cooler climate. It was delightful in British Columbia to see the azaleas and other flowers after the heat of Hong Kong. My Mother had visited Canada in her youth, accompanying two sisters who were very delicate and whom she paid for with her portrait painting. It was about 1890 and I have a Canadian news article on the three Miss Baldry's trip across the Rockies by train - quite an event for three young ladies. I believe her sisters remained in Canada.

During these years I had seen Harry Howden, the naval officer I met in Switzerland, once or twice and he wrote frequently. My Mother was increasingly ill with her heart trouble, but my Father and Aunts liked him. However on one of our travels I met a very good looking boy called Coard Squarey, whose home was in Salisbury. As he was in the P&0 Company office he moved around the world and had been to Australia and the U.S. We were both keen on sports and I doubt if we had many interests in common. However, we became engaged, I think on the rebound on my part from falling very much in love with another Dutchman, Otto Reuchlim. Though as Courd was in their Diplomatic Corps, we parted because, as far as I could see, I would practically never be back in England or see my parents. Coard was to go to the U.S. for the P&O soon after our marriage. I knew it would not work out well and he was too nice a person to have his life messed up by me. He adored children and was very keen to have a family - sadly enough the girl he finally married never had any children.

Our engagement had been broken for some time when my Mother became so ill she was in a nursing home out of London. One night the specialist sent for my Father and I at midnight as she was unconscious and died that night. I had always adored her and it was the saddest night. Her sisters, who took no notice of her in her lifetime, all wrote to me asking for her clothes etc. - it was horrible.

I went for a little car tour in my Sunbeam coupe car my father had given me, for a week in Devon with my friend Kathleen Archer. The car broke down at Fingal Bridge on Dartmoor and we had to 2 days for spare parts. My father sent on a cable to me from Harry Howden asking me to marry him; he was in China with his ship. I asked my Father if I could go out to see him to make sure and he said 'Yes' and suggested Kathleen travel with me. She phoned her Mother who said 'Yes but take your warm underclothes with you'! We returned to London and as I felt I would not be returning home, I packed up everything I had.

My Father had booked to go a voyage to South Africa and my Brother was leaving for New York to marry Winifred, a Canadian nurse he had met some time previously. They were to return to London. We left behind Hilda Lyon who had been my parent's maid for some years and who was to immigrate to Australia after the 2nd War to live in Adelaide, where she is now (d 1988 - ed). Unfortunately she did not know my Mother except when she was ill the final few years. Breakup of our home life was dreadfully sad and I was glad my Father could get to South Africa and see our cousins there. My Brother and I sent radio messages to each other from ship to ship. It was February and Kathleen and I travelled to Montreal from Greenoch in Scotland, a freezing cold voyage with thick fogs off Newfoundland, foghorns blaring and immense seas. We battled to walk on deck and got nicknamed the two 'Miss Walkers'. Finally it was too rough to do anything but lie down and cling on to everything even though we were never seasick. We crossed Canada by rail: I can remember at one stop getting out at Calgary and walking up to the engine to get the smile on my face unfrozen! We got a second ship to Shanghai and had anti typhoid injections on board, which made me very ill.

Harry's ship the HMS Mantis, was up the Yangtze River, so Kathleen and I stayed in the Cathay Hotel in Shanghai built by Sassoon family. Lots of people to dance with, either naval officers or friends and who should turn up but Coard Squarey from the P&0 Company and also Arthur Phillips, another old friend, both bachelors still, Phil from Borneo where he was manager of the North Borneo Trading Company. However, finally the Mantis arrived for a day or two and Harry and I got engaged and it was decided we would Marry in Hankow, as the ship would have a week's leave there. So Kathleen and I set off on a river steamer the four-day trip to Hankow. Harry and I were married the following day (1931) at the British Consulate and a Church of England, with only Kathleen and the Mantis' officers there plus some other naval officers from the flagship HMS Bee, including the Admiral and Captain Kekewicz.

Kathleen flew back to Shanghai. Harry had rented a friend's little bungalow for the weekend and then we went to a small missionary hotel. After four days a cable had been sent from London by Barclays Bank, my Trustees, telling me my Father died at his London Home. Later Hilda Lyon told me he had been eating his dinner and when she entered the room he had died. There was an autopsy and it was a terrible shock, as I would never have left London at that time had I known he was unwell. No one knew. I had only left three months before, when already a woman client of my Father's firm and a niece of Lloyd George's had been telephoning the house whilst I was still home hoping to get him to marry her. She wanted money for political causes I think. It was very fortunate for him that he had not done so, as his health was evidently fragile and to go off on a political campaigning trail would have meant the end for him. She sent me a five page cable asking for money and saying he had left a will in her favour. However Barclays searched everywhere and never found anything at all - so I gave her one of his very valuable antiques as a memento.

The night Harry told me of my Father's death, of course I was extremely upset with shock and being in a strange country. Incredibly he went to a Russian nightclub without me!

The men on the ship were extremely kind. The First Lieutenant Glyn Langley, has been a lifelong friend and godfather to one of our sons (Merlin). First we went up river to Changsha, on a tributary river of the Yangtze.

I had to travel on the Mantis, an unheard of thing in the British Navy for a woman, as no river steamers went up there. The water was so low in summer that the ship ground on the bottom many times and I can't imagine how we arrived. Changsha was a big city. We lived with other foreigners on an island in the middle of the river. The other foreigners included the British Consul, the British American Tobacco Company and reps. of various oil companies. I particularly liked a Mrs.Belbin, the Swedish wife of the B.A.T. rep. She taught me how to do draw and thread work such as the Swedish do on linen and recipes for delicious biscuits and Liver paste.

Daring the day till our husbands got home we were more or less confined to our houses or compounds because of vicious 'Wonk' dogs who snarled and snapped at one's heels if one went out at all. Harry took me across the river and a long walk into the mountains before breakfast one day. Again dogs were a pest. We met very nice German missionaries, a Dr.Eitel and his wife who ran a mission hospital in the city that we visited. But it was a terrible day, as the Chinese were fighting each other, one side Bandits, the other side Chang Kai Shek's men Several had been killed and their heads stuck up on staves high on walls. The incredible noise and dirt, smell and spitting in the narrow streets cannot be described. I gather missionaries get used to but it almost nauseates one.

I felt I had to do something, so I got a very old man to come in and sit for me to draw, until he didn't turn up and I found out his relatives disliked him having a portrait done - they regarded it as against their religion. Luckily I got the daughter of our laundry woman, a 12-year-old girl, to come and I did a watercolour of her. These 2 pictures I still have.

One night everyone was at the Club on the Island and someone gave Harry a pewter mug full of what he thought was gin and tonic. He tossed it straight down. But it was Vodka and something mixed. He became completely drunk, the first time I had ever seen anyone drunk. It was snowing and I had to get him home along a narrow path by the river. At last we arrived, at only so far as far as the sitting room in the rented bungalow as I couldn't drag him further. So I covered him up and it wasn't cold there where he stayed asleep till mid morning! It was a terribly cold winter and we had to seal up every window with sticking plaster and heat even the toilet seat before one could use it. However, spring comes all in a day and the leaves come out and before you know it's terribly hot and summer. The humidity is unbelievable then, with oil stoves in cupboards to dry them.

The river now rose and the ship left and we stopped once to visit a Catholic Mission where their bishop and two brothers had been rescued from bandits by my husband in a boat, so we had real Sherry from Spain and Madeira cake with them. They were very informal and amusing.

I had been very unwell in Changaha, a form of dysentery. Dr.Eitel the Missionary Doctor said I should not remain during the summer in the Yangtze Valley. Thus he arranged for me to go up to Kuling to stay with some Scandinavian Missionaries at their summer cottage whilst the Mantis went on up to Chungking. The Yangtze was in flood, a major disaster with thousands of Chinese drowned and swept away, the harvest useless. Normally they had two harvests a year as it was so fertile there and food was excellent with all the vegetables they grew and ducks, teal and tern wild along the Yangtze. It was fascinating to see the Chinese taking off their padded winter clothing and using just their indigo dyed trousers and either white tops or indigo. They would de-lice themselves and their clothing after the long winter.

At Changsha on the island I had witnessed a dreadful scene. One day a great deal of shouting came from the river bank and a crowd of Chinese were dragging a Chinaman along the rocks bordering the river with chains and hitting him with leather whips. I sent one servant to tell my husband on the ship, but when he came he said he could not interfere with China's own laws of justice. It appeared the man had only stolen a few bits of old clothing - this is probably why there is so little stealing in China.

At Hankow I met a distant cousin of mine who was a missionary nurse there and she took me out to see the vast encampment of refugees from the flooded river. They were in open straw huts, really only a roof of straw and she showed me the only food the missionaries could give them, a small bowl of rice per day. So many of them had tuberculosis and others dysentery. My cousin also developed TB and later had to be sent back to England.

I was put on a river steamer to go down to Nanking and up to Kuling. I was the only white person on board and my next door neighbour at meals was an aged Chinese professor type of learned person. Oddly enough the food was European style with knives and forks and spoons and the poor old gentleman did not know how to manage without chopsticks, so scooped his fried egg with one of his 3 inch long finger nails!

Bandits on the riverbanks fired upon us, though as the river was so wide in floods we were not badly hit, yet it was impossible to have windows or shutters open. The scenery is monotonous except far up the river at Chungking gorges as well as small island rocks with temples on top. At Nanking I was met by the naval officer from the gunboat down there and put into a sedan chair with 4 bearers to go up the mountain as there was no other way. Looking back on it all I really wonder how I survived the various ordeals, coming straight from London speaking no Chinese and often alone travelling. I was really very frightened going up the narrow steep mountain path with a precipice on one side. The bearers had to take rests often and, as is their custom, would shout or laugh at each other. I had no idea what it was about.

Soon we arrived at Kuling, a very pretty village mostly built by missionaries and finally at the Scandinavian's bungalow which was on the highest slope above the township. There was a very friendly Norwegian called Miss Vila Vinsness; a jolly fat Swedish one, the most senior I thought; Miss Schuelberg; a very thin and fanatical Norwegian. Finally a pretty young Swedish one aged about 18 who eventually had to be sent home as she contracted too many illnesses, finally TB - obviously not missionary material, too soft and gentle for the hard life down on the Yangtze. The Catholic Missionaries remained throughout all the terrible hot summers down in the Valley unless they fell ill. I felt much better in the cool atmosphere and commenced painting again. They had a cute little rock swimming pool surrounded by orange lilies and lovely views. Very large hopping sort of spiders about 3" long jumped around the rooms. I sent one back to the Natural History Museum in London.

They sang a great deal, mostly hymns or prayers so I tried to join in. Unfortunately I contracted severe tonsillitis A Chinese surgeon at a Mission Hospital took out my tonsils and I came back in a sedan chair the same day, rather the worse for wear, although the operation was evidently very well done.

A little later my husband came up for a weekend. He told me nearly everyone on the ship had boils and abscesses due to the damp hot climate, and he was concerned about Glyn Langley who seemed to have something wrong with his back. This turned out to be schistosomiasis, a liver worm, from snails, which gets into one's system through one's boots when walking on river flats. He had been shooting duck. Eventually he had to return to England as the disease disables one and the back becomes completely bent over.

Later we went down to very British Singapore for leave, which was delightful. We stayed at a small hotel called 'The Tiny' with a bedroom and sitting room, though it was not safe for me to go out alone. One night we went to a Russian cabaret just before Harry's ship went back up river where I contracted para-typhoid and was in hospital for weeks, as at first they thought it was influenza. I had had a water ice at the cabaret and it was that which gave me the infection. I should have known better, as we always drank distilled water etc. I shared a room with a young New Zealand woman who happened to have known Harry in their youth in Auckland. Her name was 'Karly' Muir also with typhoid. She had been on a Pan Pacific Conference as a secretary, though had to return to New Zealand when she felt stronger. So we were very lucky to have been in the same room and able to have someone to talk to. We remained friends until I learnt of Karly's early death in New Zealand.

In Shanghai we could buy wonderful books from England and the US. With no domestic chores to do I read a great deal. Also the White Russian shops were excellent. They would make frocks to measure.

I went with friends to see the real Chinese quarter where a little island tea house and bridge over the lake, was where the Willow Pattern designs were taken from (coincidentally our 1950s house name in Turramurra, Sydney - ed). It was a terrifically crowded part of the city and extremely noisy with really fearful smells and everyone appeared to spend half their days spitting, usually just behind one's back! The huge Cathay Hotel was owned by the Sassoon banking family and the so-called 'Concessions' were owned by various nationalities: US, British, French, etc. and one really did not get to know any Chinese people unless one was a missionary.

Shortly I was strong enough to go back up-river and met the ship at the port - Nanking I think. Again I could not go out alone. I was the only naval wife up the river. In the afternoons we played tennis and went to the usual Club. Once more I became ill and had no idea what it was, except my back hurt. After about 4 days it was obviously jaundice and I had to go on a river steamer to a Shanghai yet again. My husband departed on his ship to go up river and paid all our servants including the washerwoman.

As darkness fell there was a terrific din in the courtyard and about 80 Chinese men all screaming at each other and shouting. My own servant came running upstairs to my bedroom and told me all the others were relatives and friends of the washerwoman who wanted a large tip. I thought I had better not start giving out money, as everyone would want some. I was really terrified and had only a little white fox terrier belonging to the Company we rented the bungalow from plus a large metal torch, to defend myself. I sat up till dawn with all the screaming and shouting below, having barricaded the door with a chest of drawers. At dawn the Chinese 'Comprador arrived (Manager for the Company) and he got out a huge leather whip to hit everyone in sight thus clearing the courtyard in no time. Moreover he had sent for help from the gunboat that had replaced my husband's ship. Two big British sailors arrived to guard me and take me down to my river steamer. It turned out that my husband had tipped the washerwoman too well and therefore they thought they could get more still for all her relatives and hangers on! I have never been so terrified in my life.

I stayed in hospital in Shanghai until I was well and then it was time for my husband to leave China (1932?). We came to Sydney on a small passenger liner via Brisbane. I had heard a great deal about Sydney from my husband and how he hoped we could find a flat at Rose Bay, which I imagined was a little bay surrounded with roses. When we came in the Heads and I saw thousands of red roofs I was extremely disappointed, although I said nothing. I was astonished at the beautiful light in Australia, quite the most distinct impression in my memory.

We stayed for about a week at 44 Macleay Street, Potts Point, at that time a boarding house. There I chanced to meet an Australian girl called Pat Denyer, whom I first met years before in Switzerland. It turned out she had married an English banker in Penang and that my friend Kathleen Archer had got off her ship to stay with Pat on her way home from Shanghai to England. Getting on the second ship she met Archie Russell from Kuala Lumpur and they were married in England later. Kathleen lived in Malaysia and had a son Tristan who still lives there and runs the family business of silver and tin mines also rubber plantations etc. Archie died of TB and Kathleen returned to England with Tristan aged 16 months. When we were in England for a short time I saw her in a flat at Paddington before she went out to South Africa to attend to more business interests her husband had had. Here she met William Gemmill and finally married him to live in Rhodesia where they had 2 girls and a boy, all now married, the girls living in Rhodesia and David the boy living in England.

My husband had some weeks leave due and we went up to the Blue Mountains. It was August and we were frozen after the heat in China. My Father gave me two hundred pounds for a wedding gift of furniture for a future home and Harry suggested we use it on a voyage to California on the Monterey. Itwas a wonderful ship and we met a family Mr. and Mrs.Hill. He was advertising manager of the Telegraph newspaper and became our friends for years and their daughter Thelma in Sydney asked me to be godmother to her daughter Leilani, who was born in Sydney in wartime, whilst Thelma's husband was in India with the British Indian Army.

In California we visited friends of mine in San Francisco and then took a bus to Los Angeles, stopping off at Carmel on the way before catching our ship home.

At the end of a week my husband had to join his Australian ship Albatross, a Seaplane Tender (this part paid for Hobart - ed). I was left in Australia knowing no one at all except Pat, who went back to Penang and a woman called an Nell Merivale, a former friend of my husband's whom I met only once.

My husband was sent to England to bring out a destroyer (Vampire, see "Service" Record) with several other naval men. I was lucky in that I could see my old Aunts at Parkstone and my cousin in Devonshire. We had a 'service' roomed apartment near Harrod and had a really an enjoyable time. I even met once more the Australian girl who had introduced us to each other in Switzerland. She died of appendicitis soon after having a baby daughter. I also met my old school friend Kitty Spence in London with her husband, though she was always very busy, as they went out a great deal.

I came back to Australia on a cargo ship and my great friend Elaine Hutcheson (he Chief Engineer in charge Vickers Docks Garden Island during WW2, and she later managing Legacy - ed) was also on the same ship. It was arranged that I should stay with Eveline Vance, one or Harry's sisters in New Zealand whilst he was still away from Australia. The ship went to Auckland and by this time I was having our first baby (Patrick, 1934). We had to travel overnight by train to Wellington. On the ship Elaine and I went to the Fancy Dress Dance as a Victorian pair with 'Boater' hats with a long flounced dress for me and 2 bikes made from my golf clubs with shoes for saddles!

In Wellington I was so sad when Elaine had to leave for Sydney. I was left alone with sister-in-laws I did not know. However they were all 6 very kind to me and I liked their families. I spent the time making all the clothes for our baby and we used to all meet over in Wellington going to each other's homes. The old family home unmarried sister Jessie lived in had large sloping gardens, big rooms and a little square box tower room on the roof.

Finally I departed for Sydney not long before my baby was due. Harry had a flat for us in the Astor building in Macquarie Street. I had to find a Doctor and book in at Dilbur Hall. I was fortunate in going to Dr.R.I.Farber. He and his wife became friends over the years.

Soon I found a little flat at Gladswood Gardens Double Bay where I met other naval people, becoming friendly with one called Joan Robinson whose husband was in the RN. He was out here for 2 years. Joan and I played tennis and golf together at Rose Bay Golf Club, besides Bondi surfing near daily. We got badly 'dumped' at times and had no idea what the shark bell was for. We were bathing when a lifesaver told us what he thought of us for not coming out!

In January the 'Albatross' went to Hobart town Tasmania, whilst Joan and I went there on a coastal steamer. Joan was very good at tennis and I discovered ladies could play 'Royal Tennis' at a Club if it was very early before men started to play. So we used to be on the covered court at 6am and play for 2 hours, a game rather like squash with a larger court. In the afternoons we all played golf, a lovely course as one could eat apples, mulberries and mushrooms between holes! We also went for drives to Port Arthur or up country to really enjoy ourselves, except that Joan had started a baby and didn't feel very well.

In Sydney I had become friends with old friends of Harry's, Dusty and Ula Rhodes (he and Harry initial Commanders of Sydney naval base HMAS Penguin - ed), who had a cottage nearby up Ocean Street, Woollahra. They had one child and Ula had her second that year at Dilbur Hall, a small private hospital near by. Joan had her daughter Susan there and by this time I was going to have a baby too. Harry returned and we arranged to rent Eustace Holroyd's Darling Point house. It was really far too big for us despite lovely views. Patrick was born not long afterwards (5/6/34) at 9-1/2 lbs. Soon my eldest sister in law Amy came to stay with us for a while. Harry was sent to Flinders Naval Depot (oct '34) - when Patrick was about 4 months. We had the Commander's house as Harry had been promoted to Commander in China (31 Dec '31). We badly felt the cold again, so we had a little stove put in a verandah upstairs next to our bedroom. The gardens were lovely (still were in mid 1990s when we visited to get photos - ed). There was a sort of cage made of wire screen netting on a frame and just enough room for two to sit inside for afternoon tea. It preserved us from mosquitoes rampant day and night in the T.Tree and mud flats. It was here I became a great friend with Harley and Killie Wright (he into WW2 submarines + brief skipper HMAS Canberra, d late 1990s - ed) also Lois Glover a friend of Harry's in Melbourne, we had a dance for everyone in the house. Supper was kippers and waffles, Harry's choice - sounds odd but was quite nice.

Later I had a miscarriage there and had to go for 2 or 3 days to a Melbourne Hospital. It was just at the news of the Duke of Windsor's abdication I recall.

Later Harry was told he would go to England for the Coronation Service in the Abbey for King George V1. As I was having a second baby (Merlin) we were going to New Zealand to stay at Harry's family home Furneaux Lodge, Endeavour Inlet for 3 weeks (Captain Cooks navy base, this now exquisite resort we visited 1999 - ed). Then I was to go to Wellington for the baby and Harry would come there before shipping to England. I had been down at Endeavour Inlet with Harry; it was a lovely place and Harry had put an unemployed ex-naval petty officer Barker and his wife there to caretake. They had cows and chickens and I 'bought fruit trees, paid for a lot of furniture and also alterations to the house such as a bathroom, water heater and a breakfast room on the roof, plus a new room for the Barkers and their children.

Aline Cathie, Amy Webb, Ada Howden, Jessie and Harry all remained at the Inlet with their children, but I had to go back to Wellington 3 weeks before my second baby was due as the doctor insisted. I stayed in a very lonely hotel, except that Mary Pears, Harry's second sister, called to see me once or twice and was really kind. The night Merlin was born Harry had arrived in the morning from the Inlet saying "I knew I'd be here in time".' We were at a long film, out I had to go to hospital that night. It was terribly overcrowded and I was put on boards over a bath, with one pillow. However Merlin arrived satisfactorily. He couldn't think of a name, so Harry chose that one from a local library 'Idylls of the King!

Harry left for England and I was put on the ferry to return to the Inlet with Merlin with Merlin, who was 3 weeks' old. I worked very hard there, making a garden, even ploughing with a bullock to make beds! Also helped Barker put up a telephone pole. I put on gumboots and stood in the stream for hours getting stones big enough to make crazy paving at the back of the house to keep things dry in winter. I used to row the boat across the Inlet to get our mails or go fishing. I had a Karitane nurse there, as in naval life there is so much entertaining to do one has to have permanent help with children. It grew colder and colder and we became almost housebound, I was exceedingly lonely. None or the in-laws asked us to stay, so finally I rang old family friends of theirs, Holmes family of 3 maiden ladies. Two ran their own school and the other kept house. They told me at once to all pack up and come stay with them till my ship left for England. There Annie, Eva and Breta Holm, of Swedish ancestors. The family owned the Holm Shipping line and had known the Howdens all their lives (we travelled as only2 passengers on Holmburn to New Caledonia, New Hebrides '68 - ed).

They were so kind to us and saw us off on cargo ship for England (1937?). Harry had booked us for it to sail via Cape Horn - thank goodness it finally went via Panama and the East Coast of the U.S. As it had iron decks I was fearful of Patrick slipping into the sea. Merlin used to be out on deck in his pram covered with coal dust from the funnels. We had 2 days in Panama staying in a hotel on shore as heat was terrific in the docks loading cargo. Very pretty in the gardens there though the City was extremely crowded and dirt. Panama Canal is always beautiful and fascinating. Thus even in the intense heat one cannot go inside and possibly miss seeing the lovely scenery and various locks and the Culebra Cut through rock face.

The next place we docked at was Norfolk in Virginia (1937) to coal, thence New York. Here my friend Kitty Spence met the ship and so did the Everest Haights whom I had only met once before. They were friends of my Father's. Kitty first drove us to her flat in New York. I had never seen anything like it. The bathroom had original black ink drawings of street scenes all over it at all angles! Then we went to Sands Point on Long Island where we met her husband of that time and their baby boy Robin who was exactly Merlin's age. All the nurseries had to be burglar proofed because of the likelihood of kidnap of a wealthy child. Several friends wandered in and out 'like a hotel' Kitty called it. Her husband was one of the four Lehman brothers, bankers of New York and had a wonderful art collection. Kitty's 3 daughters, Wendy, Helen and Kaywin, by her first husband, were also there - 3 very pretty little girls who lived in a bungalow in the extensive gardens with their governess. I felt it was not a very happy home, yet concluded that could be because I was unused to such wealth or people who lived with it. But nothing changes Kitty and she was just the same as in our days at Roedean. She had a studio in another little cottage and painted wonderful portraits of the girls. She also wrote poetry and was very gifted and attractive.

I set sail for England once more and Harry had got us one of these odd little 2 rooms per floor houses in Philimore Terrace in London with a tiny garden. He was in Intelligence Division of the Admiralty. We had a delightful Austrian girl Maria, as cook. Unfortunately the Karitane woman for the children never got on with anyone. Moreover Maria had been brainwashed by Hitler to join the "Youth through Joy"' or some such movement, so she left and we had a succession of hopeless domestic helps, which was difficult as I had to entertain.

Merlin was christened at Brompton Parish Church with my godfather present and Glyn Langley also. His other godfather was Stribling Snodgrass, an American friend of Harry's.

One night Harry said we must ask some Russians for dinner. One was Admiral Orloff. His ship was at Portsmouth. When I asked why he had to come on that night Harry said because he's being sent back to Russia and. will be shot! Apparently he had allowed his men ashore in Portsmouth where they had a very good time, though Russians do not like that and he was thus to be killed. It was an awful dinner party knowing what I did.

We became friendly with the Swedish naval people of the name of Boldt-Christmas; in fact all the Scandinavians were charming. We went to one dinner given by, I think, Romanian Ambassador and his wife - a very formal candlelit dinner for about 20 people. I was really perplexed as to what to talk about seated next to a foreigner I had never seen before - still it was an experience.

Unfortunately somehow or other Merlin got septicaemia and it affected the meninges of the brain for which he nearly died and would have but for the fact that the Germans had developed antibiotic pills just recently to eventually cure him after a lumbar puncture. He had been a plump and placid baby and because I breast fed him for 7 months he put up a lot of antibodies which helped. The Karitane nurse was a tremendous help at that time in helping save his life.

We all went for a holiday up to Harry's Aunt and Uncle, Admiral and Mrs.Harry Niblett (my middle name - ed) in North Wales, their daughter Constance is Patrick's Godmother. A lovely old stone house in beautiful gardens, but oh: so cold in winter. Old Uncle Harry was a real 'old salt' and I believe was in a siege of Paris, though when and how I don't know (didn't he fire on own side? - ed). He used to swear like a trooper and thoroughly upset Aunt Ada who was a very well brought up Scottish lady. Unfortunately their only son died of TB soon after. We went about in a pony trap and visited elderly neighbours and people in the village where Merlin got much better.

Harry later was told to visit some of the countries he was working with ie: Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. So we sent the children down to my Aunts at Parkstone who were delighted to see them as they could not do so often, whilst we set off for Prague by train. As we had to change trains at Nuremburg, we had breakfast at the railway buffet. An immense crowd was outside lining the street several deep with the restaurant full of army officers. Presently there was terrific cheering. We asked the army officers what for and they said for the Fuhrer Hitler. So we stood up and saw him drive slowly past in an open army vehicle saluting in his uniform without any shield against possible assassins. At that time he had not attacked Czechoslovakia, nor Poland I think. Had I known what would happen in the following years I could have thrown a bomb at him easily from my seat!

Their Prime Minister Masaryk in Prague had just died and all the shops had his photograph draped in black in their windows; he was much loved. Prague is a fascinating city, some old streets almost medieval, including the street of the alchemists with cobblestones and little bow windows with quaint gables. Everything was very clean and the countryside looked inviting if we had had time to explore it. The people also were very nice, sensible, calm and jolly.

We went from Prague to Budapest, one of the loveliest cities on the Continent. We stayed at a famous hotel overlooking the Danube, the 'Gellert' which had a swimming pool with waves. We went to nightclubs, which were really perfect of their kind for good food, excellent dances and pleasant rooms. We liked the goulash so much and their wines. They are a fun loving gay people by nature and there was an amusement park on an island in the Danube much frequented by everyone. The buildings, State ones included, were magnificent, only problem is that the Danube is not blue!

The hotel was magnificent though dozens of fleas in the beds! The general atmosphere is rather French. We went on by train to Belgrade in Yugoslavia. It was hard to find people speaking English, though everything, hotels and all, were very clean. We went a drive to see the magnificent sculptures at a little distance outside the city done by one sculptor Mestrovic. These were over life size and rather modern for their time. One reached them along a perfect, very wide highway (Autobahn) built, we discovered later, for and by Hitler to his armies in the future.

In the train again to Romania, somehow Harry broke the glass on a table in our compartment and refused to pay for it, despite wildly gesticulating train officials and guards. I have no idea why he did not want to, as he had definitely dropped something on it. I thought we would be hauled off to gaol in Romania! We only stayed about 2 days there as we found both the capital and the people unpleasant. The higher class ones had all been educated in France whilst the others appeared to be more or less gipsies. The architecture was very French. One night we had to meet a naval fellow, at least I presumed so, in a Park and I was supposed to translate for Harry as the man spoke French (I've been trying to ascertain his naval spying activities - ed). As it was all about destroyer specifications and so forth I really could not help much. We returned to Budapest most gratefully and enjoyed further days there having fun in the amusement park and visiting places of interest before returning to England to pick up the children.

We all returned to Australia together on an Orient Liner, not a very interesting trip (nanny was Gagga; this must have been when I fractured my skull on door water-excluder - ed). The boys had meals in the nursery dining room, so I did not see enough of them for my liking, whilst we had meals when they could play. I had sold nearly all my father's antiques, except some porcelain and Persian rugs, in London in order to purchase a house for ourselves in Sydney, so we brought everything we wanted out with us. We rented a large house in Fairfax Avenue, Bellevue Hill, to spend days and days searching for a suitable house to buy. Harry wanted large mansions such as the one at the end of Darling Point that would have been quite impossible for me to run.

Finally, we had 4 or 6 people to dinner, I remember the Farncombs (warship skipper - ed) there and Harry looked out of a window and pointed to an old house at 49 Wolseley Road, Point Piper some distance away and said 'I've bought that one today'.' I had not even seen it, but evidently he was tired of looking! Next day we went to visit and there were two families in two flats below with one man in a basement. Obviously there would have to be loads of alterations and renovations as it was very old.

I think it was at this time that Harry was due for sea. Auntie Alice was seriously ill with cancer in England. So I cabled my Auntie Edith I could come over and put the boys at Silver Waves (stolen generation! - Yuk - ed) nice boarding house for children at Cronulla. I went back by cargo ship to see my aunties who had had a great deal of my upbringing in World War I and of whom I was so fond. My Auntie Alice died soon after I returned to Australia.

The political situation was becoming worse, with Germany very threatening, so much so that I telephoned Harry, who had arrived in Sydney unexpectedly, and told him everyone was sure war would come and should I try for a ship out of Norway as none were available from England. He was astonished that everyone felt so seriously in England, though told me to get out quickly. The only way was in a German plane via Frankfurt and Copenhagen to Oslo, thence a Norwegian cargo ship. People did not fly so much then for long distances.

The plane was black and silver, I remember, with a very poker faced stewardess. On board was a one-legged Englishman with everyone else German and Japanese (spies? - ed)! We ran into a terrible thunder storm with lightning all round the plane which rose and fell hundreds of feet at a time, causing our heads to hit the roof or sides despite straps. I was terrified of the lightning hitting the plane and I expect it was touch and go in reality. I was so frightened I couldn't do anything and was cold as ice, my mouth quite dry with fear. At last we came down in Frankfurt where Stormtroopers took away my and the Englishman's passport to usher us in through a different door to the Japs. That Englishman asked me if I'd like a drink and by then I could just talk again and told him I had been terrified and he said everyone thought I looked quite cool and calm so they didn't like to show fear! We thought we would be kept in Germany with no passports. However, after the plane's engines had started we were taken out on the tarmac by two Stormtroopers and put in the plane before our passports were returned! We were so glad to see Copenhagen and neutrality.

At Oslo I stayed in a missionary hostel two days, waiting for my ship. My dear old missionary friend Vila Vinsness had put me into the hostel and taken me a ride up a funicular railway up a mountain to a lovely feast of wild strawberries and cream in a little tea house at the top. It was the last time I was to see her, sadly enough.

On the cargo ship were several Australians and when we reached Cape Town we all elected to go by train up to Johannesburg then down to Durban to rejoin our ship there (seems like I'd been S.A. before late 1940s - ed). So we saw a little of the country. I wore slacks, I remember and a Boer woman in the Transvaal told me what she thought of me dressed a man! In Durban I was met by some of my friends from years before, specially 'Maggie' Sanders, married and living there. We had a great time before my ship sailed.

Back in Sydney we rented a small flat nearly opposite the house I had bought on Point Piper, so that I could keep an eye on alterations going on and the boys loved Lady Martin's Beach. But War broke out almost immediately. Harry's ship, HMAS Hobart, was off to sea almost the second day. The boys and I went along to a Wolseley Road lookout to see the ship disappearing off to war. I felt terrible with two little boys to care for. Luckily of course we had the house and not nearly as bad as many sailors' wives who had not so much to live on as we had.

They took so long altering and fixing the top flat of the house that finally I moved in, although unfinished. That soon hurried things along.

With the boys at school, I went with Elaine Hutcheson to see if there was anything we could do by volunteering. However, everyone was much younger and without children. So we both worked at the Naval Auxiliary in George Street, near Martin Place. Elaine mostly packed parcels and bales of knitted clothes for the men whilst I learnt the knitting machines at a factory, later teaching on them (many based in our home - ed). Also one day a week I made beds and cleaned rooms at a hostel for overseas officers in Macquarie Street. I had to take my little boys with me there, but we had a good play in the Botanic Gardens, or went to the Museum or Ballet it there was time.

Elaine and I joined a group working for the Naval War Auxiliary making toys for children. These were unobtainable during the war. We got old coffee tins from the U.S. troops and I painted the picture or pattern outsides whilst Elaine did the plain parts. Once I put a Walt Disney design on one. Because we had a little shopfront in Rowe Street, a Walt Disney agent saw the design and told us it was copyright! We made these into sand buckets for children, with Captain Hutch' coming in to mount wire handles which he called 'Handles by Hutcheson'. I made some wastebaskets too and we even had some orders in advance.

I had no car so it was exhausting bringing home all our food up from Double Bay shops to the hill up on Point Piper (actually my job alone most often, via tram or WALKING - ed). One day I found the boys using their trolley cart to make money by saying it was for the Red Cross and that they were pulling parcels up the hill for people! I made them give it to the Red Cross (stinkers - ed).

One day in the City I saw a news poster saying Destroyer sunk' but it wasn't the Hobart. With my friend Elaine Hutcheson I arranged an afternoon tea party for all our ship's wives at Cahills, seating them all at tables marked with the suburbs nearest their homes. They were delighted to meet others they had not known.

Another time I visited all I could, in particular one obviously very poor wife who was up in one room near Centennial Park in bed with a brain fever. I got help for her in that terrible place - only one gas cooking ring and no heating.

I had all our officer's wives to dinner or lunch from time to time and when HMS Ramillies, a huge cruiser, came in and many of us were asked on board, I found that the Admiral Tom Baillie knew Harry. So he came to dinner with me and we used to surfing at Bondi before breakfast. Also dancing with others at Prince's nightly sometimes. He was keen on sketching and used to paint on the beach in front of our house. It was good for relaxation after warfare.

There were many enjoyable nights at Prince's, including one with Hutch and Elaine and many officers of the U.S. Navy, including several of their medical psychiatrists. I asked one of them how they treated their men and he said 'put them into 2 categories - the worst in 1, the next best in 2 and the psychiatrists all in the best class!'

Hutch and Elaine and I went to the Ballet - which somehow was out here - so of course to the Tivoli Theatre to see Mo - or in fact anyone who could make us all laugh.

I used to see Mr. and Mrs.Hill, who also lived on Point Piper and the Dangar family on the hill. Thelma Hill had married and gone to India, though returned to Sydney to have her baby daughter later on. The Hobart was in the Red Sea in a terrible climate for months directing the Somaliland evacuation of Scottish regiments replete with all their mess silver! As the Hobart was to have a 'rest' refit leave (Dec '40) in Ceylon, Harry asked me to fly over. I put the boys at Silver Waves again (wot stolen generation? - ed) and got on a plane. I hated flying so much at that time, I got off the plane in Singapore to change to a ship (before Pearl Harbor - ed).

I had a cabin with a very nice English girl, wife of an English army officer in Hong Kong who said they were still playing polo up there. Arrived in Ceylon to stay at the big hotel on the beach awaiting the ship. Unfortunately the Tropics invariably bring back a form of dysentery; however, I did not stay in bed and friends of Harry's, Hope and Hugh Urquhart, were so kind and hospitable to me. He was manager for P&0 Line there.