Family History - FARINA / COTTERILL by Ann McKay
This is an attempt to make some kind of order out of all the material that I have been gathering since I retired. I had inherited some records from both sides of the family, but regret not having asked relevant questions while the older generation was still alive. I was seriously prejudiced against the Farina's because my mother (with good reason) and I had a poor relationship with my father. He had tried to do some research, based on jottings and scraps of records, but lacked the time to pursue it further. It now seems so ironical that, while living in Purley (1948-63 when he died) my father was so near places where his father had lived, but he never knew this. He had inherited two tiny diaries for 1865 and, 1868, kept by Henry Moses the artist and engraver - his father's maternal uncle. For years we had known of their existence (they are now my sister's property) but the minute writing style put me off reading them. When I did, I found that in 1865 they were living at 'Rose Villa' but with no indication as to location until one small entry - "walked to Ladywell". Henry Moses walked every day, even in his late eighties. My younger daughter lived in a house in Ladywell, which is now part of Lewisham. So, after this tiny clue, verification was straightforward. The family - Henry Moses, his wife Sophia (d. 1860), Rosa Farina, her sister, Rosa's son Alfred (my grandfather) and daughter Rosa all lived at Rose Villa, a very handsome house built in the 1850's on the Earl of ? German's estate. It was originally known as Carnden Villas and is now No.3 Wolerand Road, Blackheath in the Parish of St. Mary, Lewisham. Henry Moses was probably the first leaseholder and the family lived there until June 30th, 1865 when they moved to Islewood then to Cowley, near Uxbridge before 1867-8. I visited Rose Villa and gave the current owner a copy of the 1861 Census, when the family was living there. My elder daughter, when she lived in Dartmouth Row, Blackheath in the 1960's, passed the end of Wolerand Road everyday on the way to and from Lewisham Station. Many of the fine houses were bombed in the Second World War, so only three of the original Camden Villas remain. How fortunate that Rose Villa should be one of them! I have also seen the site of 113 Shooter's Hill Road where the family lived from 1847-53. 1853 was, I believe, when they moved to Rose Villa. A section of houses was demolished in 1969 to make way for the M2 and the site is now a large roundabout. The house in Cowley was an exciting discovery for me. It was known as Lincoln Villa in the 1860's and now goes by the name of The Old House, Cowley High Street. It is an attractive 18th Century detached house with most of its garden since built on. I was there in September 1990 and it was such a thrill to see the pigeon house still there as Henry Moses had written in 1869 - "Alfred put up the pigeon house." By then, Henry Moses lived there alone, except for when Alfred was on leave from the Navy ("the Spanish Service"). Young Rosa died on a train at San Sebastian in 1867 on her way to visit Alfred - there used to be a letter from him describing this tragic event. Rosa was born in Lambeth in 1842 and was described as a "scholar at home" on the 1851 Census when she would have been 8 years old and living at 1 Margaret's Place (113 Shooter's Hill Road). According to Henry Moses, Rosa was often unwell and in pain from neuralgia and head pains. I believe she had TB as she died of a haemorrhage. My grandfather, Alfred John Patrick Farina was born on October 24th, 1836 and died in Newcastle on January 13th, 1914, after a full and adventurous life. He was said to have been born at 7 Clarendon Place, Maida Vale, Middlesex, which later became 14 Maida Vale in 1868. I have recently found that his parents were married at St.John the Evangelist Hyde Park Crescent on Feb.28th, l836. There is a Clarendon Place adjacent to the Crescent, so that would seem to be his birthplace, perhaps that of his two brothers also. I was aware that Charles Edmund existed, as a note said that he had died in Washington DC but with no date. I can't trace Alfred's birth on the General Register, which came into being in July 1837 (after his birth). My father thought that the local church had been bombed, and the register of births along with it. I was also given information that a second son, Charles Edmund, named after both grandfathers, existed, with a note that he had died in Washington DC but with no date. However, his existence has come to light on the 1851 Census for St. Mary's, Lambeth, when he was 12, so he must have been born in 1839, also in London, Middlesex. He, the 14 year old Alfred and their 36 year old mother Rosa, a widow and 'annuitant' were listed as visitors in the house of Catherine Moses at 4 Upper Portland Place, Lambeth (part of Wandsworth Road). Catherine Moses was listed as a widow, aged 60, and described as a 'landed proprietor'. She must have been Henry Moses' sister-in-law, born, like him, at Westminster. The 1845 Post Office Directory listed Henry Moses as living at 1 Upper Portland Place. Henry Moses Junior was at 4 Upper Portland Place. Then, in the 1845 Street Directory, at No. 4 John Moses was listed. Catherine Moses is presumed to be his widow. A photocopy of an engraving from Henry Moses' "Sketches of Shipping" of 1824 says it was published by him at 1 Portland Place, Wandsworth Road, Dec. 1st 1824. I have a photocopy (my sister has the original) of a list of works engraved by Henry Moses. In 1840 he was living at 25 Newington Crescent. I remember, as a child, seeing engravings of religious subjects at my grandfather's house at 4 Bentinck Road, Newcastle which were by HM. Two of these ('Cries of London' and 'Lavender Sellers') were, thereafter, in our house, 202 Wingrove Road, Newcastle. They disappeared when we moved to 6 Highfield Road, Purley in 1948 and much else which pertained to the family was destroyed or sold after my father's death in 1963. I own MA's volume of etchings of Greek vases, which was thought by Geoffrey Grigson to have been seen by the poet John Keats, and was perhaps the inS ' ation for Keats' 'Ode to a Greek Vase', as he had not seen the original. HM worked for the British Museum for 35 years, engraving antiquities. He also performed similar services for the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, for Lord Carlisle at Castle Howard, for Sir Henry Englefield (vases), for Lord Northwick- (coins), for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, for Flaxman's 'Illiad' & 'Odyssey', for the Librarian to the King of Prussia (plates). In his diary he mentions the name Vulliamy, an architect in Greece and Asia Minor for whom he did engravings. 1 have seen some of MA's drawings and engravings at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Henry Moses died, aged 88, at Cowley, having been born in Westminster in 1782. He married Sophia Wynt Cotterill of Clerkenwell in St.Pancras Old Church in 1815 and they were probably childless. They are buried in Brockley Cemetery. She was born on January 22nd, 1796. In July 1996 I discovered the enormous family born to Edmund and Sarah Ann Cotterill, which is listed in the IGI. Previously I only knew of some of the names (those baptised at St. James Clerkenwell - Caroline, Mary, Sarah Ann, Sophia & Harriet). These did not include my great grandmother Rosa. These are the children I have discovered: William c. 15/5/1793 at StAndrew, Holborn, Edmund Mingary c 18/10/1794 at St. Andrew, Holborn (named presumably after Thomas Mingary, who married his father's sister, Sophia on 30/11/1796 at St. James's). Next were Caroline c.29/8/1795 then Sophia Wynt c. 22/1/1796 and married 11/11/1815 to Henry Moses at St.Pancras Old Church. Following next came Mary c. 7/5/1797 at St. James, Clerkenwell, Sarah Ann c. 10/7/1798 also at St. James, Thomas c.9/2/1804 at St.Andrew, Holborn, Harriet c.2317/1806 at St.Andrew, Georgianna c. 19/11/1807, Cecilia c. 3/11/1808 at St Pancras Old Church Caroline c.4/4/1811 (was this a replacement Caroline? Had the one born in l795 died?), Matilda c. 16/7/1812 at St.Pancras Old Church, where she was buried in 1832. A 2 months old baby Jemima, was also buried there in 1832 from the same address in Sion Terrace. Rosa came next - c.3/10/1813 at St.Pancras Old Church followed by Cordelia, c.22/6/1815. (On the IGI a Henrietta Holmes Cottetill was christened 4/7/1811: her father's second name was Holmes. This must be a mistaken date, as the second Caroline's christening was also in 1811 - one of them may have been born in the previous year and christened later. By 1807, the family lived at 2 Sidmouth Street in the Parish of St.Pancras. legant Regency houses, some of which still remain were just beginning to be built there. From the baptismal dates, it would appear that the move to Sidmouth Street coincided with attendance at St. Pancras Old Church about 1808. Matilda's death in 1832 was at Sion Terrace, which is quite near Sidmouth Street and is now called Whidbourne Street. I think that many of the children must have died young. Perhaps I may find out one way or the other at a later date. The connection with St. Andrew, Holbom may indicate an address in that area or it may be the Parish to which Edmund Cotterill belonged before his marriage at St. James. The new church had only been recently built when he and Sarah Ann married in 1792. In 1995 I passed St.Pancras Old Church in an Inter-city coach which went from King's Cross down St. Pancras Road. The railway and road were built across the churchyard in 1968 and the church, which is small, stands isolated in a dismal area. There are still services held there. It was closed when the new church on Euston Road was built, but had to reopen as the new large church could not accommodate all the congregation. Apparently it was one of the largest parishes in the area. I have read F. T. Cansick's Epitaphs of St. Pancras (1869) with interest, though there is no mention of Cotterills. Many French émigrés of the Revolution are buried there along with notable people such as Mary Wolstonecraft and William Goodwin. By 1851 Harriet was living at Shooter's Hill Road with the family, described as aged 44, 'annuitant'. I have noted the death of a Harriet Cotterill in 1872. Caroline visited the family often according to Henry Moses' diaries, and young Rosa visited her at Thornton Row, wherever that was. Edmund Cotterill and Sarah Ann Pain were both minors when they married at St. James, Clerkenwell on 27/11/1792. They were "married by licence with the consent of Edmund Cotterill, the lawful father and with consent of Sophia Pain, the lawful mother." Edmund Cotterill was described as a merchant on the registration of Cordelia's baptism in 1813 and he is listed in the 1812 edition of Kent's London Directory as Edmund Cotterill Senior, bacon merchant of Vine Street Liquorpond Road. Elsewhere, as a bacon and butter merchant. The present names for these streets are: Vine Street is now Vine Hill and runs into Clerkenwell Road which was formerly Liquorpond Road. Perhaps it could be assumed that the butter and bacon shop would have been on the corner where the two roads join. Probably father and son were both merchants. Since writing this, I have twice visited Clerkenwell in 1996. I was delighted by Clerkenwell Green with the 18th Century Sessions House, cobbled surround and the Close leading to St.James Church. This very fine Church was built in 1792 by the architect James Carr, who was a local man. It is on the site of a very old church, mentioned in the time of Henry II and by 1788 had become very dilapidated. (See notes & photographs.) On a more recent visit to the area I found Vine Hill, off what used to be Liquorpond Road, I discovered that the siting of the streets had changed, as Faringdon Road was not there until later. By a strange coincidence my younger daughter and, for a short while, my daughter lived in a flat in Roseberry Mansions, right next door to what is now Vine Hill. Apparently the street was a centre of the wine trade. Could this be the connection made by Carlos Farina wine merchant, with the Cotterills, if indeed he was the Charles Farina who married Rosa. The Cotterills were always said to be where our Royal Line of Descent was connected - I inherited a copy of this line, via my father who had it from his sister Molly and it was considered by them all to be authentic. However, I have discovered that Joseph Cotterill, Rector of Blakeney, Norfolk (1824) married twice. It was from his first wife, Ann Boak of Brockley, that the Cotterills were descended and whom my family believed were cousins. While Joseph Cotterill's second wife, Anne Robina whom he married in 1826, was the daughter of Edward (Christian) Hare of Dorking who was descended from Edward 1st 's daughter, Joan of Acre. What a blow this would have been to my father's sisters ! As they were indubitably always right, they would have never believed that Joseph Cotterill's eldest son Henry, (b. 1812) became Bishop of Edinburgh and died there on 16/4/1886, aged 74. His son was Sir Joseph Montague Cotterill, born in 1851 in Brighton and was a surgeon in Edinburgh until his death at his home, 24 Manor Place, Edinburgh on 30/12/1933. My father passed on to me printed biographies of both the Bishop and Sir Joseph. The latter was always referred to as my Grandfather Alfred's cousin and to have shared a strong physical resemblance with him. Joseph Cotterill, the Rector of Blakeney was the son of Charles and Dorothy Cotterill of Cannock, Staffs. I have the transcript of his baptism, where his date of birth is given as 12th March, 1781, also that of his brother Thomas b. December 1st 1780. Their parents, Charles and Dorothy, were married in Cannock on July 28h, 1768. A son, Charles, was born on January 28th 1769. None of this is, as yet proven (1998). In the many obituaries in local and national newspapers when my grandfather Alfred died in 1914, his maternal grandfather was named as "Sir Thomas Cotterill - Mile End' Cotterill, a former Lord Mayor of the Metropolis." In the same obituaries Alfred's father was said to have been a "prominent member of the London Stock Exchange". On investigation, both of these statements proved to be untrue yet typical of that very Victorian trait of self-aggrandisement. It was the flamboyant touch of my aunts! Other aspects of Alfred's life were, however, accurately reported. Namely service in the Spanish Navy and with Garibaldi's campaign in Italy. So, do the Clerkenwell Cotterills connect with the Cannock Cotterills? Or did someone think it would be nice to be connected with the Reverend Joseph whose memorial is in Blakeney Church? I remember my Aunt Molly conducting me round Westminster Abbey when I was about 15 and showing me a memorial there to a Cotterill ancestor, Clement, killed in a sea-battle against the Dutch in the 18th Century. The Farina's were great romantics and this must have derived from Alfred, as Madeleine, a daughter of his first marriage, seems to have been very like my aunts in theatricality and flamboyance, from her daughter Sheila's descriptions in her letters from Melbourne, Australia. The second eldest daughter of the first family was Edith or Edna, as she was called. She was a born entertainer and wanted to go on the stage singing and dancing bit had injured a knee as a child which left her with a limp. Of the second family, two of the aunts, Molly and Theo, actually were actresses.1 am still trying to research a connection between the Norfolk and the Edinburgh Cotterills. Sarah Ann Paine, who married Edmund Cotterill in Clerkenwell in 1797, brought to the family Paine's Bible, in my possession since my father's death. This is a calf-bound, hand- written Bible with Old & New Testament, Apocrypha, Psalms and Concordance, begun in 1718 by Henry Paine who was born in Cambridge in 1682 and buried there. He spent....years writing it. An inscription inside gives the Paine family descent from Henry Paine, born and buried at Reading whose son William was born at Reading in 1652 and buried in Cambridge. Sarah Ann was baptised on Jan. 12th 1774 and died in London on November 8th 1850: I have a copy of her will, written in 1845, when she was living at 22 Brand Street Dorset Square, London. (This area was bombed during WWII) In the will, she appointed her daughter Sophia Moses as executrix and to dispose of her effects as she sees fit To her daughter Caroline she left her gold watch, a gift to her from her brother David on his coming of age. Her brother was born on March 1st 1779 and died one month after Sarah Ann on December 1st 1850. Sophia Moses died in 1860 at Rose Villa and is buried with Henry Moses at Brockley Cemetery. My father was always under the impression that these sisters were the Reverend Joseph's daughters and sisters of the Bishop of Edinburgh. I wonder how they got it so wrong? Another family myth concerns that man of mystery, my great grandfather, Charles Farina. I was always told that he came from Ireland and was descended from a survivor of the Spanish Armada Wrecks. Having discovered that he was not, as stated in Alfred's obituary, a leading member of the Stock Exchange, I have spent a lot of time trying to find out who he was. Charles Farina died prematurely, aged 48, on 23/5/1846 at Cases St, Liverpool, of a heart attack. When the family were about to move from Rose Villa to go to Isleworth in 1865, Henry Moses wrote in his diary - "Mrs. Farina, Rosa and Alfred went to the Cemetery this morning ... .... Mrs. Farina paid Cemetery 5/-." Which I presume was for care of the grave of his wife Sophia in Brockley Cemetery. In trying to trace Charles, I have failed to find him in Ireland through the International Genealogical Index, but have not followed up suggestions given by the Irish Genealogical Research Society as this would require expense. Unfortunately, Irish records were burned in Dublin in 1922 and, failing any knowledge of a Parish connected with the family, it would seem difficult to pursue. Of the Armada survivors, very few are known to have lived: The Valencera foundered at Mallen Head, 500 Spanish came ashore, 300 were killed and 200 scattered. In Blasket Sound, the Ricaldi and Santa Maria della Rosa all sank. In Donegal Bay three ships were wrecked and 600 died- In County Mayo, the crew of the La Rata joined the Santa Anna, which ran aground and all crew drowned. The La Gerona (from Naples), with 1300 sailors and soldiers, sailed to Scotland where it was wrecked and only 9 men survived. My sister once met an Irish priest in Malaya in the 1950's who said that Farinas lived in a village near his in the West of Ireland. I have found two Farinas in the Irish Post Office Directories. I have the feeling that Charles did not come from Ireland. The only trace of the name I know of is in Clerkenwell, London in the 1830's. Between 1835 and 1838 Charles Farina & Co., Guernsey Brandy Merchants, 56 Little Sutton Street & Carolas Farina, wholesale brandy depot at the same address, are listed in the Post Office London Directory for 1835. The Clerkenwell rate books show a rental value of £40 and the same for 1836 & 37, the same for 1838, but another tenant was there in 1839-40. Charles Farina is also listed as Vinegar Maker and as Farina & Co. Wine Merchants, but in 1840, Pigot's Directory lists Charles Farina Brewer, at 14/15 Old Montague St., but no listing after that date. Did he become ill and stop working then? I have a feeling that this is the right Charles Farina. The business being in Clerkenwell might possibly mean that he met Edmund Cotterill through business and thus met Rosa. The only other Farinas I have found were a baby named Julia who died in Lambeth Workhouse and was buried 6/2/1846, also an 8 year old boy called John who died at a school in Tooting Bec during the 1849 cholera epidemic. This was probably Drouet's Academy, where a number of pupils died and to which Charles Dickens drew public attention. There are now (1998) some 15 Farinas listed in the London Telephone Directory. In 1992 I sent a letter to them all, asking whether they had any connection with Ireland and where their Farina ancestors came from. I had 9 replies and their forebears came, in equal numbers, from Spain and Italy. As Alfred served in the Spanish Navy, I hazard a guess that Charles Farina, wine merchant in Clerkenwell, is perhaps the one I'm looking for - but the search continues. I thought that it would be easy to trace such an unusual name, but it has proved to be quite otherwise. I have to wonder whether the family subsequently wished to give Charles a more respectable identity. He was certainly not a member of the London Stock Exchange. My grandfather, Alfred John Patrick Farina, is the central figure in this History. He lived from 1836-1914 and fathered 16 children. I have quite a lot of information about his colourful and successful life, though there are big gaps. After his birth at Clarendon Place on October 24th in 1836 or 1837 I did not know where he and the family lived or where he went to school until I received the following information. On 8/1/1848 Rosa Catherine, his sister, was admitted to the Liverpool Rd. Workhouse in Islington from Tooting. On 11/5/1848, Alfred, Charles and John were all admitted from Brixton and on 15/5/1848 Rosa was admitted from Edmonton. On 15/5/1848 Rosa was discharged to Lambeth. On 25/5/1848 Alfred, Charles and John were discharged to Brixton then, on 18/7/1848, to the Juvenile Pauper Asylum, (also known as Drouet's Academy) in Tooting. On 31/8/1848 Rosa Catherine was discharged to the Juvenile Pauper Asylum in Tooting. On 6/1/1849 John died at Tooting of cholera. This was the first intimation I had that Alfred and Charles had a brother, John, born in 1841.+ In the Magistrate's Court at Sessions House, Clerkenwell, a court case over unlawful settlement 'Lambeth v. Islington' was heard. Rosa, and her mother Sarah Ann Cotterill, were examined by a Magistrate on 23rd May, 1848. Sarah Ann was described as living at 20 Fulham Place, Paddington. Rosa and her children had not resided in the Parish of St Mary, Islington for the necessary 5 years and therefore were deemed to have no right to be in the Workhouse there as a charge on that Parish. They had been there because of poverty since Jan 27th 1848. On examination, Sarah Ann was Rosa's witness, she said that her husband Edmund Cotterill died in 1815 (Rosa was then 2 years old) and that, in December 1818, she had rented and occupied 3 rooms at 8 Walcot Place in the Parish of St. Mary, Lambeth and was there upwards of 40 days until July 1st 1819. She swore that she had since done "no act whereby to gain a settlement". The Magistrate at Clerkenwell Police Court ordered Rosa and her family to be removed to St. Mary, Lambeth as the place of her last legal settlement. A date was set for an Appeal, as Lambeth were aggrieved by the decision and consequent cost to them. On July 10th 1848 the Petition against their removal to Lambeth was heard and adjourned until October 9th 1848. At this hearing, the Appeal, it was stated that Lambeth had never been the place of the last legal settlement of Rosa and the children, and it was refuted that Sarah Ann lived in 8 Walcot Place in 1818. The Guardians of the Poor, who were appellants for Lambeth, required that the Pass Warrant issued at the Clerkenwell Court in May must be given up, as it was issued on grounds proved to be false. It was then stated that Rosa was to move to her sister (this was Sophia Moses and her husband Henry Moses, with whom she lived until she died on Dec 3rd 1868 in Cowley). The children, however, were sent to Sutton Hall, Tooting Graveney, a Juvenile Pauper Asylum, called an Academy, run by Benjamin Drouet. The Workhouse system separated adults from children and various Parishes sent pauper children to places like Sutton Hall. It was a notorious 'baby farm' from which the children became slave labour. In 1841 there were 400 children there. In 1849 an outbreak of cholera spread rapidly, because of unsanitary conditions and overcrowding. 118 children died and are buried in St.Nicholas' Churchyard, Tooting Graveney. Charles Dickens raised the scandal in 'The Examiner' in Januaiy 1849 (see photocopied articles). The Parish of Holborn brought a prosecution against Drouet but he was indicted, moved away and died not long afterwards. There is now a plaque in the Churchyard to commemorate the children. John aged 8, died there of cholera on Jan 6th 1849. The Census for 1851 shows that Rosa, Alfred and Charles were all living at 4 Upper Portland Place, Lambeth (approximately where Sainsburys now stands). This was the home of Catherine Moses, a widow aged 60, described as 'landed proprietor'. She was probably the widow of a brother of Henry Moses. The Farinas are described as 'visitors'. Rosa Catherine, on the same date, was living at 1 St. Margaret's Place with Henry and Sophia Moses. Harriet Cotterill, aged 44, was also living there, described as 'annuitant'. She was Sophie and Rosa's sister, born in 1807 and referred to above. I am horrified by what happened to poor Rosa and her children and think of her tramping the streets of London with them, homeless and destitute. What had happened since she married Charles Farina in 1836? Alfred and Charles were both born in Middlesex, according to the Census, and Rosa in Lambeth. I hope in time to discover more about this period in their lives. There is a Clarendon Place, off Bayswater Rd and near the Church where Rosa and Charles were married on Feb.28th 1836. Was Charles the Charles Farina & Co. Vinegar & Brandy Merchants of 56 Little Sutton Street? Rates were paid from 1835 until 1838 'm the name of C. Farina, after which his name disappeared from that address. However, in 1840, Pigot's Directory lists a Charles Farina, Brewer, at 14/15 Old Montague Street. I find it so plausible that Rosa would have met Charles in Clerkenwell where the two businesses were so close together. I wonder whether his business failed because of a tendency to alcoholism on his part? And whether he died in Liverpool after deserting the family or was there simply on business? His first two forenames, Patrick Halfpenny, suggests his connection with Ireland, which my father talked about, may have some truth in it. The fact that Rosa said he was "a native of Germany" is a great surprise. Little Sutton Street now called Northborne Street is in the vicinity of Goswell Road and runs parallel to Great Sutton Street which is still in existence. Old Montague Street also still exists and is adjacent to Brick Lane, EC I. In 1996 I went to look at Northborne Street, but there is nothing there except a large modern office building on Great Sutton St and a large demolition site behind the line of Little Sutton St. At the same time as Rosa and her children were destitute, it is fascinating to have discovered that her second eldest brother, Edmund Mingary Cotterill, was a highly successful goldsmith. (Rosa's and Edmund's circumstances are Dickensian in their contrasts of poverty and success). He was, as. I have noted, baptised at St.Andrew's, Holborn, on Oct 18th 1794. He was the second child of Sarah Ann and Edmund Cotterill, the bacon and butter merchant. His father's shop, and perhaps their dwelling house, was directly opposite Hatton Garden, the centre of the goldsmiths trade, as it still is. It seems likely that such propinquity may have decided his trade. In 1833 he joined R &-S Garrard and Co, the Royal Goldsmiths, whose workshops were in Haymarket and Panton St. Cotterill had been trained as a sculptor at the Academy School and became head of Garrard's design department in 1833, where he remained until his death 'm 1860. His work took the form of centrepieces and other display silver, such as presentation cups and trophies. According to the Illustrated London News (Vol. 1, 1 842) "he deservedly stands at the head of the class of artists who model for silversmiths and his productions, annually exhibited at Messrs. Garrard, have earned that house a celebrity which no other can equal". Edmund Cotterill apparently travelled in the East whence he derived inspiration for work depicting Arab horses, camels, oriental scenery and costume. At a sale of silver at Christies in June 1998 a famous piece by Cotterill, 'The Emperor of Russia's Vase', was sold for £ 115,000! By a strange set of circumstances, my sister met Dr. Helen Clifford, an expert in silver at the V&A Museum. She invited us both to visit her in London and were taken to Garrard & Co. in Regent St. to meet the Head of their Silver Department and to watch one of their engravers at work. They were all very excited to meet descendants of Edmund Cotterill. I was given a handsome catalogue - 'Royal Goldsmiths - the Garrard Heritage' containing some pieces by him. My sister and I now realise that a lovely bronze table piece of St. George and the Dragon, which used to occupy a place on our dining-room mantlepiece at 202 Wingrove Road, in Newcastle, must have been by him. I always admired it but I can't remember whether it came with us after we moved to Purley in 1949. Perhaps it had belonged to Sarah Ann, thence to Sophia and Henry Moses, and so to Alfred. As mentioned earlier, before this latest digression, Alfred was a 'visitor' in Lambeth for the 1851 Census and, as his sister Rosa was living at Shooter's Hill Road then, perhaps all the Farina's were living there, apart from visits to Upper Portland Place. Certainly they all eventually made their home with Henry and Sophia Moses, which must have been a heavy charge on them, though Henry's career as an artist & engraver was obviously successful and he was prosperous. Alfred was certainly like a son to him and the formers great interest in art must have been a direct result of HM's influence from an early age. HM's favourite subject was sketching and painting ships, particularly on the Thames and the docks there. This could have influenced Alfred in his career in the Navy and, later, as a Marine Engineer. HM writes in his diaries that Alfred accompanied him on walks, helped him with the garden - planting roses is particularly mentioned. . As a young boy, Alfred went to ?Osborne Naval Training College? from where he served an apprenticeship in maritime engineering with Messrs. Penn of London and Messrs. Stephenson of Newcastle upon Tyne - this was probably his first time in the North. After this he served on HMS Blenheim (12/12/1857 - 21/1/1858) and HMS Hannibal (1/2/1858 - 19/3/1859). These short periods of service may have been the practical side of the apprenticeship. He then joined the Spanish Navy but, at the outbreak of the Italian War of Liberation in 1860, he joined Garibaldi's staff as a lieutenant. He fought with Garibaldi throughout the whole campaign, taking part in the Siege of Messina and other important battles. A contingent of volunteers went from Tyneside to join Garibaldi and my father seemed to think that his father had gone from here. But, apart from his apprenticeship here in Newcastle, he did not move up here to set up in business until after HM died and he was back in the Spanish Navy at the time HM was writing his diaries in 1865 and 1869. Aunt Madeleine told Sheila, our half-cousin in Australia, that his friends called him Gary. My father was named Thomas Garibaldi Farina. This almost led to internment during World War II as an enemy alien! Alfred was one of Tyneside's last remaining Redshirts when he died in 1914. As well as his adventurous and dangerous three years with Garibaldi, he showed courage and resource when in the Spanish Navy. He was decorated twice by Queen Isabella of Spain for heroism at sea, first with the Cross of Naval Merit and also with the Star of Isabella. I would love to have details of these exploits: the medals were sent to Uncle John in South Africa when he asked for them after my father died. In my possession is a book about Garibaldi's campaign in Italy, also a signed photograph of the latter. In 1997 my son, David, visited Garibaldi's house on the Island of Caprera just off the North-East coast of Sardinia. Alfred does not appear in Henry Moses' household at Rose Villa in 1861 as he was in Italy at the time. In March 1865, presumably while on leave, he went househunting for HM to Guildford, Ealing, Kensington and to Isleworth with his sister Rosa which "seemed likely to suit us". An agreement was signed at Richmond on 31/3/1865.... "very much pleased with the house". Both Alfred and HM went there to plant roses a few days later. On April 13th the carter from Isleworth came to see the furniture and brought patterns of paper for us to choose". They moved from Rose Villa to Isleworth on 29/6/1865, putting up at an inn called the London.....(?). (The second word is indecipherable in EA's tiny spidery writing - he wrote with a fine sketching pen). Alfred went to Southampton on July 2nd for "the Spanish Service". I have not yet traced where they lived in Islewood but it was near enough to the Park (Richmond or Syon House?) for HM, often with Alfred or Rosa, to walk there. Poor Rosa died in 1867 at San Sebastian and, as there is no diary again until 1869, I do not know whether the family was still at Isleworth. Rosa Catherine was born in Lambeth in 1840, so she was only 27 when she died. My great-grandmother Rosa died of cancer of the uterus on 2/12/1879 when they were already at Lincoln Villa, Cowley. Poor Rosa must have missed her daughter greatly and perhaps this hastened her death She was only 53. HM always referred to her as Mrs. Farina, and his diaries contain frequent mention of sums of money paid to her on what must have been a housekeeping basis. In 1851 she was described as 'annuitant' but there is no mention of this in the 1861 Census. Cowley must have been a very pleasant place in the 1860's. I have photographs of the Old House, then Lincoln Villa, also of the small flint village Church of St. Laurence, which they attended. The Rev. John Crozier Hillard was Rector there from 1851 to 1882 and is mentioned by HM. The Grand Union Canal runs almost directly behind what would have once been the garden of Lincoln Villa (now built on). I have an old postcard showing the Canal at Cowley Lock. It looks pleasantly rural, and, on a contemporary map (1866) which I have a photocopy of, there is a long garden behind Lincoln Villa, while the whole area appears to be orchards and market gardens. Sometime during his leaves from the "Spanish Service" Alfred met Clara Toosey whose father, the Rev. Toosey is listed in the local Directory for 1870 as the minister for the Catholic Apostolic Church, Montague Road, Uxbridge, but not on the 1871 Census. It was a Non-Conformist Church, and HM mentions that Alfred was friendly with the Rev. Toosey's son and that, on Feb. 11th 1869, they went to the Crystal Palace together. Another entry for March 13th says "Alfred went after dinner to Hendon to see a Match of Football." HM was unwell for much of 1869, when he was 88, and there are no entries between May 1st and Nov 26th when he wrote "... Mr. Toosey... came to administer the Holy Communion to me and Alfred". Mr Toosey was a Dean from Northern Ireland, and Clara was born there. Cousin Sheila had from her mother a story of Alfred taking Clara for a ride on top of an omnibus in London and her father saw them and rushed oil into the road, waving his umbrella and demanding that Alfred immediately bring his daughter down! Alfred must have left LincoIn Villa when HM died on Feb 28th 1870. On the l871 Census he was staying with the artist Edward Linley Sambourne at the latter's aunt's house, Guildford Villas, Cowley Road, Uxbridge. The house no longer exists. Edward Linley Samboume had a highly successful career as a cartoonist for Punch magazine and later lived in some splendour in a very fine house now open to the public. This house is known as Linley Samboume House and is in Stafford Terrace, London W8. It is famous for its fine Art Nouveau stained glass. There is no evidence that Alfred was ever a practising artist, but his interest in Art was lifelong, so I may have inherited this! Alfred had met HM when they were both apprenticed to Messrs. Penn. In l872 Alfred was in Newcastle, from where he was writing to Clara Toosey at 24 New Windsor Street, Uxbridge. They were married in the June quarter of 1872 in Uxbridge, presumably by her father. Their first home may have been 14 Ashfield Terrace in the West End of Newcastle as they were living there in 1875. This was a pleasant area adjacent to the town in the Parish of St. Paul's, but even pre-WW2 it was deteriorating and, in the 60's, much of the area was demolished; it is now built over with Council houses. Certainly Alfred would have been able to walk to his business at 33 Broad Chare, Quayside, where Farina & Bushell, Consulting Engineers and Marine Surveyors, was set up. By this time Alfred was 37 and Clara was 25. They were to have only 9 years together before she died giving birth to their sixth child on 7/6/1882, aged 33. Their children were: Rosa Gillian b. 6/l/1875 and d. 11/3/1951, Clara Kathleen b. ?/4/1876 and d. 29/7/86, Edith Cotterill b. 16/6/1878 and d. 18/9/1959, Charlotte Madeleine b.8/8/1879 and d. 1969, Alfred Charles Osbert (Charlie) b.5/11/1880 and d ?, Nora Mary b. 11/5/1882 and d. 7/4/1890 - this last poor child was born a month before Clara died and she was tragically burnt to death, by falling on the fire, when she was only 8 years old. By 1878 the rapidly expanding family had moved to 55 Westmorland Road. This was more usually known as Oakwood House and sometimes as Park Parade. It was a large double-fronted 3-storey house with no garden! I remember seeing it and have a photograph taken in 1960 before the Council demolished the property. The family must have played in the street and in Elswick Park with its boating pond, which was nearby. On the 1881 Census, they had 3 servants: a cook from Hexham, a servant from Sunderland, & a nursemaid from Backworth, who was only 15. When poor Clara died, a heavy responsibility fell on these servants: the eldest child Rosie, aged 7, was the onlv one who remembered her loving mother and who suffered most when Alfred married the following year. According to Sheila's account of what her mother told her "... they all loathed their stepmother, particularly Rosie ... who consequently behaved very badly at times". Her bitterness unfortunately was lifelong and when they all received a legacy, perhaps from their mother's family, she used hers to leave home and go to London. She drove an ambulance during the First World War and was engaged to a soldier who was killed and she never remarried. Her younger sister Madeleine and her husband, Dr.Plante, wanted Rosa to join them in Australia but she wouldn't leave London. They apparently sent her a little money from time to time as she was hard-up. They also sent her food parcels during the Second World War. Madeleline, who wrote to my father regularly, asked him to go and see Rosie and see if he could do anything for her, despite her animosity towards the "steps". But I think she rebuffed him, which was sad, though I believe he continued to write to her until she died in 1951. She had a flat at 47 Miles Buildings, Penfold Place, London. Clara Kathleen was the second child. She was born in April 1876 and died on 29/7/1876. Edith or Edna, married a submariner called Fisher, who was lost very early in the Great War, leaving her with two boys, one just a baby, called Hugh and Pat. As she had a very small pension, relations encouraged Edith to emigrate to Vancouver, Canada, where there was an excellent school for. the free education of the children of British officers killed in the War. The two boys were both very good golfers and Pat had a job as a pro at a millionaire's golf club in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He married and had a family and moved back to Vancouver when he retired. Hugh, the elder son, stayed in Vancouver, where he had a job in a big meat works. He married Betty and they had one son, Ian. During the War Hugh was sent on special training to Australia and ended up in Melbourne for a few weeks when he and cousin Sheila saw a lot of each other. They kept in touch but he was killed in a car accident on the Alaska Highway; he and Betty had just started out on a holiday up to Alaska and had a head-on collision with an old car driven by a drunken Indian. Betty was in hospital with injuries, mainly a smashed hand, which has never properly recovered. She writes sometimes to Sheila in Melbourne. We have had no connection with them and Edna herself died in 1959. Charlotte Madeleine was born on 8/8/1879. Sheila described her as "marvellous company", very fond of dancing and outings to the theatre and cinema. She met her husband, Guthrie Raynes Plante, in Edinburgh, where she used to go as often as possible - was she staying with the Cotterill cousins? He was from New Zealand and they married when he had been in General Practice in Blaydon upon Tyne at a house called Greenwell Rigg. He came from a big family which later moved and settled in Melbourne. He and Madeleine were married in 1907 and Basil was born in 1911. Though they wanted to live in England, they had to move to Australia in 1912 for the sake of Madeleine's health as she was threatened with TB and needed to be in a warm climate. She had a tubercular gland removed from her neck and they went, first, to a practice at Swan Hill, on the Murray River, about 250 miles from Melbourne. This is now a great tourist place but was very unpleasant at the time. Sheila was born there in 1917 and soon after they moved to Fitzroy, a suburb of Melbourne. Basil was a boarder at Geelong Grammar School about 40 miles from their home; Sheila went to the Presbyterian Ladies College. Dr.Plante died very tragically in 1931, at the age of 59, of a heart attack brought on by unremitting hard work. Madeleine was shattered by his sudden death. My father wrote to her regularly up to her death in 1969 and this correspondence is still carried on between Sheila, my sister and myself in latter years. In 1951 Sheila married Colin Downie, They are now living at 328 Hampton St., Hampton, Victoria. They have a son, Anthony, born in 1955, who is not married. Basil is married to Alice and lives in Brisbane. Sheila and Colin visited Britain in 1979 and stayed briefly in Bedford with my sister, where I met them for the first time. She has provided me with a lot of information about the first family. Alfred Charles Osbert was born on 5/11/1880 and was known as Charlie. At some stage, perhaps when they all got their legacy, he went to the USA with a friend to buy a ranch, but the latter went off with the money. Charlie apparently ended up in Toronto and started a laundry for ships coming into port possibly helped by his father's shipping connections. He married the daughter of the Chief of the Royal Canadian Police and became a very wealthy man. Hugh Fletcher told Sheila that he had seen the name Farine somewhere in Canada and had met a girl cousin from Toronto. Nothing more is known about Charlie. Nora Mary was born on 11/5/1882 and her mother Clara died the following month as I have mentioned. This poor child was burned to death when she fell on a fire at home on 7/4/1890. She was buried in her mother's very fine grave in Elswick Cemetery and I have a photograph of it. Her stepmother was censured after the accident. Madeleine told Sheila that the only time they saw their father when they were young, was when they were lined up before him each evening all freshly scrubbed; he patted them on the head, gave them each a farthing and then dismissed them back to the nursery on the top floor. When they were old enough they were all sent to boarding school in Durham, and were apparently happy there. On 3/11/1883, 17 months after Clara's death, Alfred married Minnie Eugenie Clark at St.Paul's Church, Ryehill. She was the daughter of James Clark- and his wife Mary Ann. Her father was an engineer and was born in Sunderland in 1834 - the same year as Alfred and they were probably business acquaintances. On the 1881 Census, James was described as deaf. Mary was then 42 and had been born in 1839 in Bedlington Northumberland. Her father, Thomas Turnbull, a widower, lived with them in their house at 94 Ryehill, a terrace of large, handsome houses off Westmorland Road. Thomas Turnbull was a retired smith, born at Whickham. Minnie was the Clark's eldest daughter, next was Lily aged 18, Ann was 11, Margaret was 9, then James who was 8 and Victor who was 6. They were all very short. Minnie was probably under 5 feet. They were all born in Newcastle and I remember most of them. Perhaps because of their small stature, the sisters were extremely bossy and egotistical. I have heard that their grandparents, the Clarks, were very kind to Clara's children. Of the great aunts, Lily married De Lisle Carey of Guernsey; she had a family and lived in Guernsey during the German Occupation in the Second World War. With her was her younger sister Peggy (Margaret) who had trained as a nurse and never married. Am was known as Aunt Theo, she was the second wife of John Bowes who had a stationery shop in Charlotte Square, Newcastle. They lived off Westmorland Road. They were childless though John Bowes had a daughter, Nora, from his first marriage. (She had a son, Freddy, by her first marriage, he died young.) James, who was 8 on the 1881 Census, died at sea in 1899. In 1899 he had married Aunt Ione and their sons. were Tom and my dear Uncle lack. The latter was a quite fantastic character and I always wished that he had been my father. He was in the Civil Service and worked throughout his life in Dublin where he was Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. He and his mother lived at 22 Palmerston Gardens, Rathmines in Dublin and he married Aunt Jean, who was from Kilmarnock. They were childless after the death of a baby girl. Uncle Jack wrote stories for me, an episode each week. It was always such a thrill to receive the familiar buff envelopes with his large, loopy writing. I used to provide the illustrations by return. The stories were mainly of Woggy the Dog, the Bashi Bazook, Snooker Todd, an invisible Sealyham, Tin Can Hydro about wasps called Jean and Willy. He also made games for us. The stories are in the possession of Sue, my eldest daughter. Jack Clark was exciting and very kind. He often paid for us to have holidays and, most notably, took us to Lamlash, Isle of Arran in 1938 and 1939. We also spent a month with him in Dublin in 1945. Jean had died in 1942 but Aunt Ione was still living with him. Jack came to visit us in Sunderland in the 50's so he met my children. I wrote to him but am unable to remember the year he died in the 60's. He and his mother had been grateful to Minnie, who had helped the family after her brother died. This was characteristic of her, as she was wildly extravagant. Clara's children all hated her, as did my own mother, and I disliked her and was rather frightened of her when I was a child. Minnie and Alfred had nine children, so he fathered 15 altogether! James Victor was born on 4/9/1884. I remember Uncle Victor visiting our house when I was a child - he was (Minnie's brother) also small and quiet unlike the aunts. Mary Peggy, known as Molly, was born on 11/1/1886 and died in Bromley, Kent on 29/3/1955. When she was young she went on the stage. She had rather gypsyish, dark looks and was very theatrical and 'affected'. She was the second wife of Sidney Boyle-Lawrence, who was the Court Correspondent of the Times, which encouraged her considerable delusions of grandeur. I suspect it was Molly who created the family mvths. Lily Caroline Clyde was born on 30/6/1887 and died in Bromley in 1977. She was short and blonde like her father Alfred (I have a photograph of him). Clyde, or Bingo as the family called her, was a nurse and then married John Trend. They lived in Bickley, Kent and had one son, David, who went away to Haylebury School, then was in submarines during the Second World War. I liked Clyde, who was quiet and gentle, but she made the mistake of giving her younger sister, Trishy, a home after Minnie died in 1939. This was Ione Patricia, born in 1893, who lived with her mother in Newcastle, then in Bromley where they moved to in the 1930's. She was selfish and egotistical and much disliked by John Trend. Theo Eugenie was born in 1888 and she also went on the stage and, like Molly, was very theatrical and rather alarming ! She married a quiet man called Frank Dale, whom I remember showed me the underground shops at one of the London tube stations. I think he was a journalist They had no children and lived at Deal, then at 38 Minister Road, Bromley. I do not remember when Frank died and I think Theo's death must have been in the 60's after my father's death in 1963. Minnie Alfreda, known as Pansy, was born in 1891 and died in Umtali in Africa in 1942. She had a daughter called Daphne but there has been no contact. Ione Patricia came next, born 11/6/1893. She remained unmarried. She and Clyde died within days of each other in 1977. They had lived in the same house in Church Row, Chislehurst with my cousin David and his wife Pinky. My father, Thomas Garibaldi, was born on 23/11/1894. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School which, at that time, was near their home in Westrnorland Road before they moved to Jesmond. He served in World War I in the 1st Tyneside Irish Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers and became a Captain. I remember his revolver lay on a cupboard shelf in my parents' bedroom. He was licensed to keep it but eventually handed it in during an amnesty at the time of Dunkirk. My father went through those terrible battles in Flanders, where so many men lost their lives in appalling conditions, which he never forgot. He constantly talked about those days throughout my childhood. My father may have joined the Tyneside Irish because his father had been a friend of Sir Joseph Cowen, who gave a large donation when the 1st Battalion was formed. In August 1914 my father joined up with the Newcastle Commercials and later transferred to the 1st Tyneside Irish. He served three months with the Officers Training Corps in the ranks of the 16th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers from Aug.-Nov. 1914. He was appointed Lieutenant on Oct. 16th 1914 and appointed Captain when he went to France on Nov. 20th 1915 following heavy casualties on the Somme. At 21 he was the youngest captains in the 24th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers (1st Tyneside Irish) when they left Salisbury Plain for France. Prior to leaving England he was at the Battalion's first training camp at Alnwick Park, then under canvas at Woolsington Park, Ponteland. They then moved to Sutton Veney, Salisbury Plain, under canvas and the command of Lt. Col. Meredith Howard. I have recently been told that my father was playing football the day before the Battle of the Somme on July 1st 1916. He tore a cartilage in his knee during the game and was invalided home to be operated on; during the Channel crossing the ship was bombed. In this strange way, he missed action in that terrible Battle when thousands of men were killed, and in the forefront of which were the courageous Tyneside Irish. My father returned to France and saw action at Ypres, Armentieres, Vimy Ridge, then was wounded by shrapnel in the back of his neck on June 30th 1917. He spent a period of convalescence at the beautiful home of Helen Currer Briggs at Windermere in the Lake District. This house, 'Broadleys', was designed in 1898 by C. F. Voysey for Arthur Currer Briggs, the son of a Yorkshire colliery owner. Mrs. Briggs became my godmother in 1928. Alfred died in 1914, when my father was 20. He apparently had wanted to be an architect but by the time he was demobbed he had been invalided out of the Army with a shrapnel wound in his head, which caused head and back pains thereafter. His mother and sister Trishy were dependent on him and he went into the coal exporting and shipbroking business with a Mr Whitfield, on the Quayside. My grandfather's good connections there were probably his introduction. On 28/7/1925 my father married Margaret Edna Aikman at Benwell Church. She was the only daughter of Capt. Alexander Coates Aikman and Jessie Ann Arabella (nee Smith) of 202 Wingrove Road, Fenham, Newcastle. I and my sister were born on 29/4/1928 and 5/4/1930 respectively. The next of Alfred and Minnie's large family was Verita Nanette who was born on 26/10/1896and died on 14/11/1896. The last child was Alfred John Oswald born on 22/3/1899. He also went to the Royal Grammar School and served in the AFC in the Great War. He spent his life working for the Rhodesian Railway, living most of the time at Bulawayo. In 1935 he married Molly Warner at Rockhamton and I was at the wedding. John was blonde like Clyde and their father - all the others were dark. John and Molly had three sons - Mchael, born in 1936, Martin, born in 1939 and Timothy, born in 1941. John was always known in the family as 'Little John' and my father was called 'Tim' by them, and only them. Molly is still (l 997) alive and living in Natal, South Africa. John died in South Africa in 1984. Alfred's firm of Farina & Bushell were firstly in offices at 33 Broad Chare, Quayside, then, later, at 63 Quayside. His business card describes them as 'Consulting Engineers & Naval Architects, Estimators, Surveyors & Arbitrators, agents for Sale & Purchase of Stearners, Sailing Vessels etc. Both buildings are still there: the former is now a smart law firm, with the New Law Courts opposite, the latter is a restaurant/wine bar. There is still an engineering firm called Bushell in Grey St. Alfred's death, on Jan 13th 1914, was marked by obituaries in local and national newspapers. According to an account of his well-attended funeral in Elswick Cemetery, in the Weekly Chronicle, he was "one of the kindliest and most courageous of men, combining the sunny disposition of a child, with the heart of a lion". Among local dignitaries who attended were representatives from business and commerce in the City, members of the Bewick Club of which he had been a member, and Freemasons from his own Percy Lodge as well as other Lodges. Sprigs of Acacia were dropped into the grave by Masons. As I mentioned before, the obituaries contained wild falsification of Alfred's family tree, amongst true facts such as his career in the Spanish Navy and decoration for bravery by the Queen of Spain, his service on the staff of Garibaldi and his successful career as a consulting marine engineer. Also mentioned was his relationship to Henry Moses. So, had Alfred fabricated his parentage, or was it done by his family after his death? I wish I had asked more questions. My grandmother moved from Oakwood House between 1917 and 1920 when they were at 5 Bentinck Villas, a Dobson built house in Bentinck Road, off the West Road. This is the house I remember visiting as a child, when my father used to take my sister and me for tea on Sundays, walking up from Wingrove Road. We used to have to curtsey to our tiny grandmother and play charades to entertain. I remember she slept on a high pile of mattresses. I thought she was formidable! The house was dark and I recall large engravings by Henry Moses in mahogany frames, which later were in our dining-room in Wingrove Road, but disappeared when my parents moved to Purley in 1948. We called this grandmother 'Glamickie' and, by the time she was living at Bentinck Villas, only Trichie was living with her. The other aunts all lived in the South, in Deal and Bromley, and, in the mid 30's they moved to Bromley themselves to College Rd, a small ten-aced house with a stuffed snake in a glass case on the hallstand which really alarmed me. We visited en famine at least once, and I went with my father to John and Molly's wedding in 1935. Before 'Glamickie' died in December 1939, she and Trichie had moved to a flat on Bromley Common. Our home at 202 Wingrove Road, Fenham had been built for my Aikman grandparents in 1925, the year my parents married. My Grandpa was a Master Mariner, as described elsewhere, and was at sea until he died of throat cancer at the early age of 60 in 1932. I have also described what a sweet Granny we had: she was very Scottish, very religious, kind and loving. She died in February 1939, of bowel cancer, which her mother had also died from in 1909. Granny came with us to Arran in 1938, one of our wonderful holidays which Uncle Jack paid for. We stayed in a terraced cottage, Hamilton Terrace, in Lamlash again, in 1939 on the eve of the War. Our father had two weeks holiday, but we went there for a month. That year the Trends and Trichie were also there - a long journey from Bromley! The Firth of Clyde was full of warships in readiness for the imminent outbreak of war, and David was waiting to be called up into the Navy. It was a wonderful holiday in spite of what must, for the adults, have been a very anxious time. It began for me a life-long love of Arran, to which I have continued to return many times since 1938 and 1939, and I find it all miraculously unchanged still. My grandchildren have become the fifth generation of our family to visit and love the island. On August 31st 1939 we were returning home from Arran when, on Kilmarnock Station, we heard loudspeakers announcing that all schoolchildren were to be evacuated to the country with their schools m the following day! Our trunk was 'in advance', which meant all our clothes would arrive after we did in Newcastle. Our parents were up all night making urgent preparations and, next morning, we were taken to town for haircuts and new underclothes. A neighbour took us all down to our school, the Central Newcastle High School in Jesmond, where we lined up in the playground with our gas-masks, haversacks and sandwiches for the journey to Keswick, which was to be our destination. Emotions were high among parents and teachers. My father had even forgotten to shave! I understood later that everyone expected the Germans to immediately gas and bomb all cities. We walked in crocodile to West Jesmond Station and boarded a special train there. The Royal Grammar School boys were going to Penrith and had boarded already at the Central Station. All the parents' desperate faces made me hesitate to be as excited as I felt! I also felt a completely new responsibility for my sister Margaret. The mass evacuation of all schoolchildren which was carried out on Sept. 1st still amazes me; that the Authorities could demand that children be sent away from families and homes to what was still unknown. I wrote an account, two years later, about my experience of the evacuation, which 1 still have. For us it was a wonderful three and a half years in Keswick, as our mother joined us within a week. We lived for six months in a series of dreary boarding houses, where owners were paid a billeting fee for evacuees. It was an appallingly cold winter too, as we moved between a total of six different places, feeling cold and comfortless. Later we shared a rented house with another mother and daughter and were able to have our dear spaniel, Woggy, with us. Later still we rented our lovely Toll Bar Cottage, which is about a mile up the hill out of Keswick. We had bikes and rode everywhere. Our mother was very happy there too. School was shared with Keswick School, in their buildings, but, until their new block was finished, we spent morning lessons at the School and, in the afternoons, went to a variety of venues such as the Parish Room, the Quaker Meeting House and the Masonic Hall. All the girls of our school were initially billeted with families, which, in many cases, proved unsatisfactory. Later Barrow House, on the Lake, became a boarding school for many of them but lessons were, by then, full time at the School. To girls from a large city this living in close proximity was a very beneficial experience and we became much closer friends, even to this day (1997). There was a reunion in 1988 at Barrow House - nearly 50 years on - which many of us went to by special bus. I often think of the happy years we spent in Keswick during the War, when so many people were enduring appalling hardship and loss. My sister and I had bikes there, which we needed to get to and from school, as there were no buses. But my bike opened up the wonderful and unspoilt Lake District to my friends and me. There was so little traffic because only farmers and doctors were allowed petrol. My best friend, Doreen Bates, lived in a billet not far from our cottage, so we went everywhere together on our bikes. She is now Doreen Mackenzie Smith and has lived in Bristol since her marriage in 1951 (at St.Paul's Church in Newcastle where Alfred and Minnie were married). When I was 13, after swimming in Derwent Water Lake, I contracted double pneumonia and was gravely ill. I was nursed at our cottage by Miss Fidler, a nurse, and I remember well hearing the doctor, who called daily, say to my mother "Well, I don't think she's for Kingdom Come today". I was treated with the relatively new drug M&B, which was one of the miraculous antibiotics. They were said to turn one blue! The Army Driving & Maintenance SchooL based at Portinscale, were stopped from coming past our cottage during my illness, because the changing gears of learner drivers on the steep hill outside was too noisy. During the anxious days of 1940, when we heard daily of the latest countries in Europe to be invaded, we were sometimes stopped, in Keswick, by tourists. They wanted to know where they were, as all signposts had been removed for security reasons. We didn't tell them they were in Keswick! What lovely times we had there! Doreen and I were Girl Guides, in the Kingfisher Patrol and I enjoyed going to Camp. I have often thought since of children in Occupied Europe who were in such terrible circumstances. When not walking with Woggy and Doreen or cycling, or looking at Keswick School boys! I was drawing, though I had also been doing this before the War - in fact for as long as I can remember. My father used to come up for weekends about once a month, but distance was growing between us all. In the Spring of 1943 we all went back to Newcastle to our home and School there. This was an awful adjustment to make. Newcastle got off very lightly as far as bombing was concerned, though Sunderland and South Shields were badly hit. Even after we returned there were air-raids, when we used to go into the pantry in the middle of the night. The sound of the German bombers was different to ours and familiar from hearing them flying over Keswick on the way to bomb Belfast or Glasgow. We had not had to carry gas-masks for some time, but strict blackout restrictions were very much enforced. Food rationing was very fair, but spartan: some weeks our ration of butter was 2ozs, the next week 1½ ozs, the sweetie ration was minuscule, and the points system for jam, biscuits etc., ran out before the end of the month. Coal was also very severely rationed but became in even shorter supply after the War ended. I kept detailed diaries of these years, including the stirring events we were living through. I remember being at Guide Camp near Alnwick in 1944, when every night the farmer would let us listen to the Radio News leading up to the Allied Armies marching into Paris. The D-Day invasion of Normandy before that had been tremendously exciting, also the slow progress and battles through Italy from Sicily. VE Day was the culmination of all this turn of the tide hope. But, before this, London and the South-East had been terribly bombed, in the latter stages by the notorious flying-bombs and V2 rockets. We were spared all that in Newcastle. (2001) Since I wrote the above family history, we have been reunited, postally, with our Farina first cousins in South Africa. We are very pleased to be in touch with them, as we had not heard from Aunt Molly for several years and suspected that she must have died. However, in August 2001, we received a very welcome letter from Tim's wife, Robin. Molly had died in June 1997and they had no address for us until Margaret wrote to them a few months ago. Tim and Robin now live in Johannesburg and have two daughters, Kate and Juliet. Mike and Anne left Zimbabwe and now live in Durban: their daughter Juanita lives near them, and their son Zane, along with his wife and baby, live in Pietermaritzburg. Martin and Billy live in Howick, where Molly lived. Their elder daughter Nicola lives and works in London (where we hope to meet her) and the younger, Alexa, has been travelling in America, but has now returned home. 1 am so pleased that Robin says they are very interested in the Farina family history: Tim is particularly so. Robin has given me some details about John, as follows, - He was born at 7Park Parade, Newcastle -upon Tyne, on.22.3.1899 and died on 8.6.1984 at Umtentweni, South Africa. He married Molly Yeoman Warner, on 23.4.1935, at Holy Trinity, Roehampton. She was born in Leeds on 17.2.1909. John went to the Royal Grammar School, as did our father '. John must have been one of the first intake to move to the newly built school in Eskdale Tce., Jesmond. I remember Jack Clark and visiting the school to see John's name on a board in the Hall - a sports award, I believe. During World War 1 he was commissioned, at the age of 18, as a Flight Sub-Lieut. In Airships, which became the RAF in 1918. He was awarded the DFC at 19 for disabling a German U-Boat. In 1920 he emigrated to Rhodesia and joined the Rhodesia Railways as a flying instructor on 'Link' trainers. He retired in 1954 and then farmed dairy and pigs in Bulawayo until 1968, when his health dictated that he should live at sea level, so he and Molly retired to Umtentwani in Natal. He -and Molly visited us in Sunderland, I think during the 1950's. Robin tells the story of how, as a young man,. John won a bet by travelling from Umtali to Waterloo Station, by train and boat, barefoot!
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