Aunts (1864-1941)

We were a very close-knit family within which chaff and laughter were seldom absent; no doubt living in close proximity during World War I helped, but the links prevailed for long after. My half-sister, Beatriz, maintained that here was a latter-day form of Forsythe Saga. It has been a source of great satisfaction to me to witness how my wife has interested herself so much in them, and they in her.

Very much senior member was Eleanor, Auntie Ellie. Still pretty when I knew her, with laughing blue eyes and nose tip-tilted, she was vivacious and invariably busy. She was like a warm and compelling breeze carrying one along joyfully in the direction that she wished one to go. Admonish me she did, and sometimes severely too, but I was never left with any sense of recrimination. She kept a large, happy and efficient household. She did this, I think, because her particular charm was the interest she took in what anyone said or did without trace of being over inquisitive.

She had married Francis Johnston two months before her father died. This Lowland Scot was a deeply religious man and a staunch Liberal in days when there was no Labour party to speak of. Within the family he was affectionately known as "The Elder", a form of address to which, I believe, he was ecclesiastically entitled. On Sunday evenings the entire household, including the staff, would be assembled for night prayers. His elder son, Frank ("F.B."), once having sprained his ankle playing tennis on a Sabbath, found it necessary to explain his ailment to an unfortunate slip while strolling through the kitchen garden. He became stone deaf, but could hear by means of an ear trumpet with a celluloid mouthpiece that he carried suspended round his neck.

Three events indicate the sort of man he was. As a young man, he, my father and their brother-in-law, Robert Barber, were accustomed to catch the early morning ferry across the Mersey to work in Liverpool. One day, the tramcar being late, they found the gangplank to the ferry-boat already raised. Barber, the athlete, leapt over the barrier rail to be followed by my father. But Francis Johnston knew the regulations and preferred to face the music of being late than to break the rules. Unfortunately, the next ferry was sunk in a collision and Uncle Francis was for a long time in the cold water as a result of which he completely lost his hearing.

On another occasion he was returning late from work when he was accosted from behind by a footpad ("mugger"). Suddenly becoming aware that he was being addressed, possibly some poor fellow enquiring the time, he turned and thrust the mouthpiece of his trumpet towards the robber’s mouth. The latter, imagining this to be some new type of secret weapon, fled into the darkness.

Then, when first the Johnstons acquired a motorcar, my uncle advertised for a chauffeur. There was a host of applicants for the wage was good and the lodge of their house, Mérida, provided agreeable accommodation. All of the applicants, bar one, were highly skilled for the work; that one had never even driven before. It was this man my uncle chose, as his credentials as a Christian were by far the best. Davis, having passed well a driver-mechanics course paid for by Uncle Francis, stayed with the family for many years, married the parlour-maid, Florence, and in retirement they regularly visited by cousin Averil.

The Elder, as can be imagined, had viewed Roman Catholics with the greatest mistrust. But my mother and he developed a deep friendship and she was always received with much affection and interest when she visited his home. He was a generous man and my visits to Mérida were enhanced as he invariably slipped me a ten shilling note. World War I made anxious days for this lovely couple; Frank in Palestine with the Northumberland Fusileers and Philip, who went straight to France from Uppingham at the age of 18, was a Forward Observation Officer with the IV Corps Heavy Artillery. Blessedly, both emerged unscathed; "FB" to succeed his father in the shipping business and Phillip, after exploring the possibilities of farming in Kenya, to the Stock Exchange.

I shared a birthday with Margaret Ethelind, Auntie Maggie, and as she sadly had no children of her own, we forged a very special and affectionate bond. Visits to her home "Southdown", standing between the main line railway and Sandown Racecourse, were always joyful and, for me and my cousins, it became a second home. She was a beautiful woman, with gray eyes and was what the Mexicans call, "muy sympática". She and my mother and Beatriz became particularly close and found much in common in each other.

Auntie Maggie had never lacked suitors, including one who was Master of the Cheshire Foxhounds, but she kept them all at a friendly arm’s length. When she was 41, my father took her to dine with a batchelor friend, Willie Guild, at his house in Esher. They arrived early and as they walked up the garden they heard their host singing "Abide with Me" to his own accompaniment on the piano. They paused, and Margaret whispered to her brother, "This could be it." They were married in St. Mary’s, Liscard, in the same year as my father’s marriage.

"Unkelbil", as he was universally known throughout the clan, can best be described as the very greatest fun. He had reddish hair and mustache, and twinkling blue eyes that disappeared when he chuckled – which was often. He had a wonderfully inventive imagination and many were the exciting journeys he and I would take into the land of make-believe. He would create mysterious little people and in our letters we would exchange information about them; sometimes he would telephone from his office if there was anything urgent to convey. His daily departure to catch the train was a ritual and he was always in a hurry. He would eat breakfast sitting sideways so that I could fasten his button boots, while Auntie Maggie arranged his coat and tie. She and I would then propel him out of the front door, brief-case and all, and as he marched down the road he would wave his umbrella, life his bowler hat and cry "Whoop, Whoop" without turning his head. He wrote little poems about various members of the family and enjoyed particularly mischievous sallies at the Elder. He was a keen fisherman, and it was enchantment for me to accompany him and Auntie Maggie to the cottage in Porthoustock or Salcombe, one of which they usually rented for their summer holiday. His sudden and unexpected death in his office, the year after my Mother’s, was a great blow to me, and indeed to all the clan.

As a very little boy at Manor Lodge I always welcomed Alan when he came "to play", although he was four years my senior and exceptionally tall. My heart would sink, though, when I would spy him arriving on his cycle with two pairs of boxing gloves. He was so tall, he had such a long reach, I was such an easy target. Anyway, I never cried.

With her mother an invalid, the house was run – and believe me properly run – by Ailsa who combined this task with commanding a large group of senior Guides. Many years later my family and I had reason to be grateful to her when we were survivors in Durban, South Africa, from a torpedoed ship. Reading the news in Cape Town, where she was running an orphanage, Ailsa immediately gave up her well earned leave to come to Durban and give us an invaluable hand, and raise our morale.

A high-light of my school holidays was in September when I would go with the Barbers to Moniaive to shoot at their farm at Benbouie, near Glencairn. It was rough shooting in the hills over dogs and I remember the thrill in getting my first – and only – left and right.

Last, but by no means least, of the Gleadell sisters, was Isabella Giffen, "Auntie Bell" to all her grand-nephews and nieces. In my generation we permitted ourselves the liberty of referring to her as "Iggabell". At the age of four she contracted scarlet fever which left her stone deaf for life. This affliction she overcame by sheer force of character, and she soon became an expert in lip-reading as she never wore an aid. As a result, she never knew sound and her speech was affected accordingly. It had its compensations. Once on a train journey together, we were joined in the compartment by a young couple who conversed in whispers throughout so as not to be heard by "nosey parkers". At our destination, my aunt revealed to me all that had passed between the pair. This ability paid dividends, especially at large family gatherings, when it was difficult to hear above the noise.

Auntie Bell spent many years looking after others. First, her widowed mother at Manor Lodge and later an elderly aunt and uncle, the Catchesides, who lived nearby. In World War I she became a legend at the Soldier’s Hospital in Liscard where she and her niece, Averil, in their trim nurse’s uniforms, were constantly being summoned by the men for real or fictitious reasons. As one Tommy said, "Its the larf that does yer good". After World War II, when help was impossible to find, she went to Southdown to help her sister, but this was not a great success as may be imagined, when two elderly ladies with strong personalities live in each other’s pockets.

This Aunt was partial to practical jokes, including those directed at herself, and she would chuckle away with delight at the antics of the little ones; equally, she had no time for "stuffy" gatherings, nor entertainment of a questionable variety, and she would express her displeasure in succinct terms. Always smartly dressed and in good taste, she would examine my turnout before a party – even in my twenties – rather like a critical Sergeant-Major. "Ragbag", she would exclaim, and I loved it. I never knew her to be late by a minute for any appointment, except once when I had wickedly locked her in the ‘loo’. And she loved that.

Being deaf, she was very perceptive and I benefited much from her cogent advices. At the end of one dressing-down, she concluded, "And, young man, you were lucky to be given your Mother. Your wife you will have to choose for yourself. You have been shown the standard to be followed and do choose someone of your own faith". She herself was a devout follower of her own church, and she referred to the Almighty as "Gawd".

She was an ardent patriot and during the invasion scare of World War II, I dreaded to think what she would to do Hitler had he arrived in The Wirral. Unfortunately, Hitler must have been warned of this awesome possibility because, during the German air raids on Merseyside, her little house received a direct hit. Luckily she was out, but not a moment was lost in cleaning up the remains. On the same night, Manor Lodge, then a Home for the Elderly, was similarly destroyed. Aunt Isabel died in her 89^th year, a much loved great-great aunt.

My sister has written with her own inimitable excellence about our other two aunts, my mother’s younger sisters, in two essays: "My Mother and I" and "My brother Paul". But they deserve a mention here as they too had an influence on my childhood. Gertrude was not only exceeding pretty and gay, but highly gifted musically. She composed little tunes for me and sung them at the close of day as bath-time approached. At the start of World War I, my mother would invite groups of wounded soldiers to tea, and Auntie Gertie would entertain them with a wide range from her repertoire, from the classical to songs in which she had them joining enthusiastically. It was a complete surprise to all the clan when she suddenly announced that she was off to Canada, pace the submarines, to enter an Ursuline Convent in Saskatchewan. There she was blissfully happy, and near her brother Bernard’s family, and she built up a wide reputation for music and singing at the convent school in which she taught.

Aunt May was utterly different from her two sisters, small, almost cherubic of countenance, and essentially a messenger of peace. Even an argument that became slightly heated would distress her deeply. When not in her gardening gear with upturned straw hat and small gold-rimmed spectacles, she dressed primly in a tweedy sort of way with a large brooch at the neck. Her gait suggested slight bandy-legs, although of course I was never able to confirm this. She painted beautifully and her pictures were in great demand; some that hung at "Commons" have always adorned our sitting-room walls. She was the happy possessor, too, of green fingers and her knowledge of flower and shrub was almost encyclopaedic. A stroll with her through country lanes was an education and she would introduce the wild buds and blossoms to her companion as a proud school mistress might introduce a class of favorite pupils to visiting parents. She was on intimate terms with the birds and little things that live in hedgerows. Alas, I did not benefit sufficiently from all her knowledge; my mind was probably taken up with far less important things.

She had traveled extensively in Europe before World War I, principally in Poland, and she made the journey to Yucatan with her grandmother of 80, to visit my mother. When that war broke out, she returned to become a Land Worker,. After which she went to live with the Fisher-Unwins (of Printing renown) to care for their gardens at Oatscroft, near Midhurst. Mrs. Unwin had been Jamie Cobden, daughter of Richard, the great Liberal parliamentarian and close friend of my maternal grandfather.

While at Oatscroft, Aunt May learnt that her brother Bernard’s youngest daughter in Canada had been blinded in a tractor accident on their farm. So she sped out to Saskatchewan to take almost sole charge of the little girl.