22nd March

Aunt Pamela – Childhood Memories (Part 3)

[KPD left – as well as her diaries – an old exercise book, falling apart, and not by any means full, but containing some family history information. Inside the front cover she has written: ‘I meant to rewrite this book…I hope I have not repeated myself too much”. I have tried to remove such repetition, and to have reordered the contents to make more sense, giving headings, leaving out simply genealogical material etc. I have also added some explanatory footnotes. But the text is all her own.]

4. Life in Berkhamsted after the First World War (continued)

• Uncles & Aunts used to send cheques for Christmas, usually £1¹, to be divided 5/- for Martin & Gerald, 3/6 Anthony & me, 3/- Christopher approx. We always had to put some in the Post Office & all had accounts from [when] infants & bought bicycles later. Mine was £5 2^nd hand.
• We had small plots at the bottom of the garden & once when Uncle Trevor² came he planted some coppers³ for us.
• Mother always did the cooking & we never had the same pudding for weeks. Lovely steamed & baked [puddings]. She also made the bread. We had an old kitchen range & then a gas cooker. The range heated the weather & we had rotten baths in a freezing bathroom. Often we used a child’s bath & had more water. A large can was filled with hot water & kept in a lined basket. We also had a hay box & the porridge cooked overnight. Flat Irons were heated on the fire or gas until we had a gas iron (?) flames came out at the sides sometimes.

5. KPD’s siblings as children

• Gerald⁴ was the most accident prone. He once careered down a hill on his bike into a car but did not break any bones. In fact none of us broke a bone as children. Mother thought it was the hard water.
• Christopher⁵ was always delicate & had whooping cough when he was just over a year [old]. We all had it. He did not go to school until we moved to Blandford in 1926.
• Christopher & I played with paper dolls, cut out of fashion book[s], stuck on paper with names & ages on the back. We sat up in bed, rucking up the bedclothes to make rooms & not daring to move. The dolls went to school etc. Probably about 1918⁶.
• That was the year [1926] Gerald went to Bolivia. He went with Kitty Daman & Uncle Jack (her father) to marry Charlton Fergusson at Lima. We did not see him for 44 years⁷.

6. Memories of KPD’s maternal Grandparents

• I stayed with the Grandparents at Eversfield⁸ when I was almost 7. I went to South Bersted Vicarage first, Uncle Trevor took me over on the cross bars of his bike.
• Granny walked with a stick & wore a lace cap. She would have been 77⁹. A few years later she spent most of the time on a sofa.
• Gran-gran [Arthur Evershed] wore a velvet smoking jacket & a smoking cap. Embroidered by granny – I gave one to Chichester Museum. He was only allowed to smoke his pipe in his study.
• Gran-gran pottered about the garden, he swam near the mill until he was over 80. He read the lesson at Apledram (sic) Church¹⁰ & took me on the back of his tricycle. Aunt Connie¹¹ taught me to tell the time.

[More to come from Aunt Pamela’s memories of childhood soon!]

1 £1 in 1922 is worth, depending on the measure used, between £53 & £485 today.

2 Uncle Trevor Evershed, a Vicar in West Sussex, was one of the older brothers of KPD’s Mother. The siblings seem to have been close, as KPD mentions spending holidays in her Uncle’s house (a ‘home swap’?)

3 ‘Coppers’, an annual evergreen shrub, seems an unusual gift for young people these days!

4 Gerald (December 1905-April 1985) was KPD’s second oldest brother.

5 Christopher (February 1915-February 1985) was KPD’s only younger brother.

6 In 1918 KPD was 8 and Christopher 3.

7 KPD’s text is not clear – Kitty Damon married Charlton Fergusson and settled in South America. One of their children, Ian, later married Gerald’s daughter, Ines. It is, however, correct that Gerald only returned once to the UK, in 1970.

8 Eversfield at Fishbourne, near Chichester, was the house where KPD’s maternal grandparents, Dr Arthur Evershed (1836-1919) and his wife, Mary lived. A retired doctor, Arthur Evershed was also a noted artist, specialising in etchings and watercolours. Eversfield is still identifiable, but it is now called ‘Roman Landing’. South Bersted to Fishbourne is about 8 miles.

9 Mary Evershed was born in March 1841, so when KPD was ‘almost 7’, she was about 76. She lived until 1923, so 4 years after her husband.

10 Actually ‘Apuldram’; it is located in fields near Chichester Harbour.

11 Constance (‘Connie’) Evershed (1868-1951) was one of Arthur Evershed’s daughters; unmarried she lived with her parents until their death. KPD remained close to her until her death.

This photograph (from April 1914) shows some of the people mentioned above: it shows the Golden Wedding of Dr Arthur Evershed, KPD’S maternal grandfather; he is the shorter, white bearded man standing 2nd from left (his wife, Mary, was unwell and isn’t in the photograph) . On the far left is the Rev. Trevor Evershed, one of Arthur’s sons, mentioned by KPD quite often in her diaries. The two women who are standing are two of Arthur’s daughters: Constance (darker blouse) and Annette (white blouse). ‘Consie’, as KPD called her, remained unmarried and KPD frequently visited her for the rest of her life. Annette married Cecil Braithwaite, a wealthy stockbroker (who probably took this photograph as he appears in a very similar one clearly taken at the same time having swapped with Charles Deakin, the tall young an at the back; Charles later married to Theodora Braithwaite, one of Annette’s two daughters sitting at the front. She is on the right, and her younger sister Annette Sylvia, is sitting on the left). The last man is Arthur’s brother-in-law Rev Henry Field.