The Woodhouse Family.
Tracing the background of the Woodhouse family reveals more about their
connections than about the family itself. The family was of yeoman stock,
and stemmed from Norfolk, where a long time ago, the name was spelt Wodehouse.
The younger, or poorer members of the family, had drifted away to Liverpool,
others settled in Derbyshire, and my great-grandfather William owned a
farm at Hipperhome, near Derby, but he did not prosper. He lost his farm,
also his wife`s money, and died in straightened circumstances.
My grandfather, Arthur Slater Woodhouse
(1841-1912), was the only son of an only son, so my father had no Woodhouse
uncles or cousins. Grandfather was born at Kirk Ireton, near Derby, and
was named after his mother who was a Slater, but her first name is not
remembered. Her family came from Leeds, and a brother of hers was once
Mayor of Leeds. There were Slater cousins, but my father could not remember
anything more about them. Relations of theirs named Deane, still live
at Kirk Ireton.
Grandfather left his father`s farm at Hipperhome and went into the hotel
business at Hull. He married Mary Rachael Webster
(1847-1937), (my grannie Mary-Rae), and this is where the Websters come
in.
The Webster Family.
If we could have searched the parish records of Kirk Ireton, or Hipperhome,
we might have been able to trace the family further back. Similarly, cousin
Will Hemingway might have started his family tree earlier than 1767, and
this might have established the line of descent by which uncle Richard
Webster came to inherit Fairfax`s sword, the treasured heirloom, which
was stolen during one of the family moves in Odessa, South Russia.
Fairfax, according to the book: "Cromwell`s Generals" by Maurice Ashley,
was Thomas, 3rd Baron Fairfax, (1612-1671) scion of an old Scottish family,
a Roundhead Parliamentarian Leader in the Civil Wars. He was renowned
for his courage, as for instance, at Marston Moor, when he was unhorsed
and wounded, he tore the white hankerchief, (which distinguished Roundheads
from Cavaliers), from his hat, enabling him to rush through enemy lines
to his own side, which was eventually victorious.
At that battle in 1644, his father, Ferdinando, 2nd Baron Fairfax, was
the Parliamentary General who defeated Prince Rupert.
Charles I (1600-1645), was King of England from 1625. His attempts to
overrule Parliament led, in 1642, to the Civil War and to his own execution.
Fairfax would not have anything to do with the trial of the King. However,
for the sake of peace after the execution, he accepted the Commonwealth,
though at heart he retained Royalist sympathies. Being considered more
of a soldier than a politician, he was chosen as General, and in 1645
Parliament appointed him Captain-General, Commander in Chief. In 1650,
these powers were transferred to Cromwell, and Fairfax retired.
Fairfax married in 1637, Anne, daughter and co-heir of Horatio, Lord Vere
of Tilbury. They had two daughters, Elizabeth, who died in infancy, and
Mary, who married George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in 1657. Lord
Fairfax died on 12 November 1671, and was succeeded by his cousin. His
sword passed from one generation to another through the female line, eventually
reaching the Websters and thus coming into the possession of Uncle Richard,
my grannie Mary-Rae`s brother, who took it
with him when he made his home in South Russia.
My father`s recollections of his mother`s side of the family were much
clearer, for example, of his grandfather Richard
Webster (1804-1898), who was born near Hull, and of his grandmother
Sarah (1821-1907), who was born near Bradford,
and of her father, his great-grandfather John Clayton, also a Yorkshireman,
who died at Bradford in 1870, and of his great-grandmother Clayton coming
to visit them when he was a little boy, and his younger brother was only
a babe in arms. That must have been in 1869.
There was a story about Grandmother Sarah, that she eloped and grandfather
Richard galloped after her day and night, until he caught up with her
at Liverpool, just as she was about to embark on a ship bound for America,
but in earlier days all my efforts to get more details were met with raised
eyebrows and the reproof fom my elders: "My dear, we do not talk of such
things!" Later on, further attempts to get at the truth of this tale have
been countered with: "Surely, you are not going to include scandal in
your family history!!" So now I shall never know whether this episode
took place before or after the grandparents Richard and Sarah were married,
yet it is also interesting from the fact that the first railway line from
Liverpool to Manchester was built in 1829. When this episode was supposed
to have happened, therefore, some few years after that date, was there
already a rail connection to Bradford, or did he really gallop on horseback
all the way?
My grannie Mary-Rae, daughter of Richard and Sarah, was born on 5th January
1847, in the village of Chapel-Allerton, 3 miles from Leeds. Her father
had a tannery business in Leeds, and he was a great lover of plants and
animals. Their house at Chapel-Allerton was an old one, and they had flower
and fruit gardens, 3 greenhouses, and I quote from a letter grannie wrote
to me, dated 4th December 1933: "and a play field, a hay field, and a
wood field, a coach house, 2 dogs, 2 horses, for father always rode to
and from Leeds, a fox, a donkey for the children, guinea pigs and rabbits
for Richard, our eldest brother, and a lovely aviary in the greenhouse,
where father trained canaries, bullfinches, etc, to draw up their drinking
water, which was put in thimbles and fastened by short strings to their
perches", and she could remember seeing the birds pulling up the thimbles
and how father used to love to sit and watch them.
The tannery was destroyed in a flood, caused by a cloudburst; everything
was swept away. Richard Webster was a quaker; he would not sue those who
owed him money, and he was almost ruined.
His wife Sarah was suffering from Asthma. They moved to Jersey in the
Channel Islands, taking with them, their maid, Eliza Speddings.
Going to Russia.
Then, after the end of the Crimean War, a plausible gentleman persuaded
great Grandfather Richard Webster that a fortune was to be made in Russia,
from the salvage of the brass cannon left lying about on the battlefields
of Balaclava (the battle took place in 1854). Mr Webster advanced the
money to finance the enterprise and sent his son, (my great uncle-Richard),
to accompany the gentleman to Odessa. Uncle Richard waited about while
negotiations with the authorities for the business were supposed be going
on, until one day, the said gentleman absconded, taking the finances with
him, and leaving uncle Richard in Odessa, without even an overcoat. Some
time earlier, uncle Richard and his sisters had been to stay with friends
in Versailles, to learn French, and uncle Richard had also been a student
at Bonn, in Germany. Now stranded in Odessa, uncle Richard found his way
to the office of M. Allard, who had a workshop for repairing agricultural
machinery. As uncle Richard knew French, M. Allard engaged him on the
spot, and soon made him Chief Clerk. Where so many of the farmers were
German colonists, his knowledge of German proved equally useful, and he
quickly learned Russian, which he wrote and spoke like a native.
As soon as he was established, uncle Richard wrote to his fiancee, his
cousin Emma Webster to come to Odessa to marry him. He wrote to her in
March 1866, and said to her: "The very month tells you what to do" and
they were married in April.
Then he invited his sister Amelia; not long after her arrival in Odessa,
she married a Mr Brennan, but in a very short time, he died, and later
she married again. Our auntie Marie, then
aged 5, was bridesmaid at her wedding. Her second husband was William
Wagstaff, who was in the Consular Service and subsequently retired
in 1900, with a C.M.G. (the honour conferred on diplomats: Companion of
the Order of St. Michael and St. George), after being Consul-General at
Rio-de-Janeiro, and went to live in Eastbourne. He was a widower with
three daughters, Edith (Mrs. Brozinovich), Marie, who is not married,
and Lucy, (Mrs. Bett of Riga).
Meanwhile, M. Allard had extended his business, and set up a wool washery
and exporting office in Kherson, with uncle Richard there as manager,
dealing with shipping and transport, hiring barges and tugs, and the sailing
barges which carried cargo to the mouth of the river, the local name for
which, was "Shalanda". Each day uncle Richard would have to cross the
river to the works and warehouses on the other side, and his boatman Avksentiy
Ivanovich Kovalenko, rowed him across.
One day, Kovalenko said to him: "Look, I cannot read or write, but I judge
you an honest man. I have some money saved up, which I would like to invest,
but since I am illiterate, I cannot do business by myself. What do you
say to being my partner, if I put up the money and we buy a "Shalanda",
and you manage it for us ?" Uncle Richard agreed, and with the help of
M. Allard, from that beginning, grew a fleet of ships for cargo and passengers,
and the firm of Webster and Kovalenko expanded and flourished. When the
first revolution broke out in 1905, they possessed 2 passenger steamers
plying in the Black Sea ("Russalka and Turgeniev"), 1 ocean-going cargo
boat, ("Piotr Karpov"), 5 or 6 tugs, (named after various members of the
family), and 56 barges suitable for the Black Sea. The Company continued
to prosper until it came to an end in the Revolution of 1917.
Uncle Richard and aunt Emma had several children who died in Kherson,
and uncle`s brother Thomas, who came out to join them, also died of the
same "terrible fever", and they had three daughters: Amelia
Edith (Mrs. Theodore Platts), my godmother, Elsie, (Mrs. Robert Fleming),
and Marie, (our auntie Marie). who married
her cousin John Webster.
Arthur S and Mary-Rae Woodhouse.
Uncle Richard`s sister, Mary-Rae, had married Arthur
Slater Webster Woodhouse; his hotel business failed. Uncle Richard
was by then established at Kherson; he invited them to join him. Assured
by their doctor that it was quite safe to undertake the journey, they
sailed for South Russia in the Russian ship "Odessa", but ran into a severe
storm in the Mediterranean and a son was born prematurely at sea on 31
May 1867 off Philippeville on the coast of Algiers, and was given the
names of Arthur William Webster Woodhouse.
This was my father, who was always known in the family as Willie.
They continued on their voyage and anchored in the Bosphorous a few days
later. The Captain wanted to lie down in his cabin, but father persuaded
him to go ashore for a walk. And then, in grannie Mary-Rae`s words: "The
pilot of a French Messagerie boat lost his head and ran right into us
, cutting the "Odessa" down to the water`s edge, and sending two barges,
which were filled with sugar barrels, to the bottom. The men unloading
the sugar shrieked "Allah! Allah! and jumped into the water. Through the
portholes I saw the steamer coming alongside, sat up, and seized Willie
and was trying to get up when the steward rushed in to reassure me. In
the accident, Capt Chingra`s bunk in his cabin was cut in two, and he
would have been killed if he had not gone for that walk".
At last they reached their destination, the port of Odessa, and no sailor
would agree to carry the baby off the ship, down the steep plank - it
was not a proper gangway - but uncle Richard and aunt Emma were there
to meet them, and it was aunt Emma who carried Willie ashore. Then they
went to Kherson, but did not stay long. They returned to England, and
grandfather went back into the hotel business, keeping the Great Northern
Railway Hotel at Leeds. Richard Clayton (uncle Clayton) was born, then
Thomas, (uncle Tom), and another son, David Arthur, who died in infancy.
This hotel venture also failed, and again uncle Richard invited them to
come back to Russia. They returned to Kherson, and not long after, uncle
Richard, by now in the shipping business, appointed grandfather his agent
in Nicolaiev. Here they settled, and grandfather became a Trading Vice-Consul,
an appointment conferred on a local resident, usually a British subject,
in remote ports, all over the world, where the volumes of business does
not warrant the appointment by the Crown of a full-time career Consul
or Vice-Consul. As a British official, grandfather had dealings with all
the local authorities, and this comprised, not only the port and custom
officials, but also the local garrison commanders, including the Chief
of the Fortress of Ochakov, General Orlovsky, with whom, and his wife
Olga, grandfather and grannie Mary-Rae became friends. Such close friends,
indeed, that when their daughter was born, they named her Winifred Olga,
(auntie Winifred).
Many years later, General Orlovsky`s widow was living in St. Petersburg,
and in another apartment in the same house lived her widowed sister, Mme
Klimova, with her daughter, also a widow, who was called Maniusha. Her
full name was Marie Petrovna Voznesenskaya, and she had, in fact been
widowed twice. She had first been married immediately on leaving school
to a man considerably her senior, and having no children, she had adopted
a daughter. Her husband died; she married again. Her adopted daughter
died of meningitis, and within a few months, her second husband died,
shortly before her own daughter, Zinaida was born. I have mentioned her
school. This was the Smolny Institute, once renowned as one of the finest
educational establishments for girls in Russia, and subsequently rendered
infamous when the school buildings were taken over as Party Headquarters
after the Revolution, and in the classrooms was set up the organisation
for liquidating the old regime, presided over by Mme. Kollontay. The same
Kollontay who, in 1918, told Selina de Plaoutine, who was asking where
her husband had been sent when he was arrested: "Surely, Citiziness, you
cannot think that such as your husband could be allowed to stay alive!"
But to return to grandfather and grannie Mary-Rae. They stayed in Nicolaiev
many years, grandfather was accepted into the Consular Service proper,
and in 1896 was appointed British Consul in Riga, where he served until
he retired in 1911, and lived on until he died in 1912. Their sons were
sent to school in Jersey, where they stayed with their Webster grandparents.
Great-grandfather Richard lived to be 94, and must have been very disappointed,
because he always said he wanted to live to be 100. Great-grandmother
Sarah died in 1907, and some years later, when my brother George and I
were at school in Weymouth, we spent a summer holiday in Jersey, staying
with Eliza Speddings, who still addressed my father as "Master Willie".
In the fashion of their day, the parents had decided that Willie, the
eldest son, was to go into the regular Consular Service, through study
and taking examinations; that Clayton was to go into business; and Tom
into engineering. In after life, my father found office work and officialdom
extremely irksome, and he infinitely preferred to be doing something constructive
with his hands, or more active outdoor pursuits. He was a good swimmer
and skater, he loved sailing, he built an ice-yacht, and he would probably
have enjoyed being a civil engineer. Uncle Clayton, by temperament, would
have made an excellent diplomat. Uncle Tom always regretted that he was
not allowed to take up soldiering.
Willie inherited his grandfather Webster`s love of birds. He was fond
of recalling his boyhood days in Nicolaiev, and he used to say: "As for
taming birds, that was easy. Whenever I went into our yard at Popovaya
Balka, where we lived in Nicolaiev before I went to Odessa, I would be
surrounded by all our poultry, fowls, turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons
on my shoulders. They all knew me and would come at my call. I arranged
a special birds` nest and it was occupied by a starling family when spring
came on. In due course fledglings appeared, and I waited until one was
old enough, and took him out and carried him about in a coconut shell.
He became so tame, that I practically gave him his freedom. He slept on
top of my wardrobe and could go anywhere he liked. He was always ready
for his meals, which he had at our dining table, and used to get very
angry if we sat down without preparing plenty of mashed bread, eggs etc,
for him. He would follow me into the garden, and go for walks with me,
flying about freely, but coming to me if I ordered him; "Jacob, come back
here". I left him sadly, when I was appointed to Odessa. That was when
he entered the British Consulate-General at Odessa as clerk in 1886. The
following year he went as interpreter to Col Yates on the Afghan Boundary
Commission, this was the Anglo-Russian mission, which fixed the boundary
between Russia and Afghanistan, riding the line through the mountains
with their escort of Indian troops for the British, and Cossacks for the
Russians, and camping as they went. The task took several months to complete,
and he loved to remember his adventures, long days in the saddle, camp
fires at night, encounters with tribesmen, excursions to shoot game for
the pot, a thrilling open-air life.
He returned to Odessa and to his studies, passed his examinations, and
was appointed Vice-Consul at Batoum in 1891, and Vice-Consul at Odessa
in 1893, in which year he married Selina Rogers (1872-1951), daughter
of Henry Rogers of Odessa.
The Rogers Family.
When my brother, George and I were children, we distinguished between
our grandparents by calling them grandfather and grannie Woodhouse, and
grandpa and grandma Rogers.
Grandpa Henry Rogers was of yeoman stock from Chettle, near Blandford
in Dorset. In the churchyard of the little village church at Chettle,
can be seen the headstones of grandpa`s mother and father, and other members
of the Rogers family. If there was an opportunity to examine the parish
records, one might be able to confirm the legend that grandpa`s mother,
or maybe it was his grandmother, was a Torowell, belonging to a Huguenot
family of Bere Regis, a few miles south of Blandford, whose name was said
to have changed through the generations from Durberville or Turberville
to Turboville - Turoville - Torroville - Torowell.
The big house near the church at Chettle, once occupied by the Lords of
the Manor, has been converted into flats, and the park has disappeared.
The large, rambling farmhouse across the green, south of the church, where
the Rogers family once lived, looks as if it had not changed since I first
saw it 60 years ago.
But to return to grandfather and grannie Mary-Rae. They stayed in Nicolaiev
many years, grandfather was accepted into the Consular Service proper,
and in 1896 was appointed British Consul in Riga, where he served until
he retired in 1911, and lived on until he died in 1912. Their sons were
sent to school in Jersey, where they stayed with their Webster grandparents.
Great-grandfather Richard lived to be 94, and must have been very disappointed,
because he always said he wanted to live to be 100. Great-grandmother
Sarah died in 1907, and some years later, when my brother George and I
were at school in Weymouth, we spent a summer holiday in Jersey, staying
with Eliza Speddings, who still addressed my father as "Master Willie".
In the fashion of their day, the parents had decided that Willie, the
eldest son, was to go into the regular Consular Service, through study
and taking examinations; that Clayton was to go into business; and Tom
into engineering. In after life, my father found office work and officialdom
extremely irksome, and he infinitely preferred to be doing something constructive
with his hands, or more active outdoor pursuits. He was a good swimmer
and skater, he loved sailing, he built an ice-yacht, and he would probably
have enjoyed being a civil engineer. Uncle Clayton, by temperament, would
have made an excellent diplomat. Uncle Tom always regretted that he was
not allowed to take up soldiering.
Willie inherited his grandfather Webster`s love of birds. He was fond
of recalling his boyhood days in Nicolaiev, and he used to say: "As for
taming birds, that was easy. Whenever I went into our yard at Popovaya
Balka, where we lived in Nicolaiev before I went to Odessa, I would be
surrounded by all our poultry, fowls, turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons
on my shoulders. They all knew me and would come at my call. I arranged
a special birds` nest and it was occupied by a starling family when spring
came on. In due course fledglings appeared, and I waited until one was
old enough, and took him out and carried him about in a coconut shell.
He became so tame, that I practically gave him his freedom. He slept on
top of my wardrobe and could go anywhere he liked. He was always ready
for his meals, which he had at our dining table, and used to get very
angry if we sat down without preparing plenty of mashed bread, eggs etc,
for him. He would follow me into the garden, and go for walks with me,
flying about freely, but coming to me if I ordered him; "Jacob, come back
here". I left him sadly, when I was appointed to Odessa. That was when
he entered the British Consulate-General at Odessa as clerk in 1886. The
following year he went as interpreter to Col Yates on the Afghan Boundary
Commission, this was the Anglo-Russian mission, which fixed the boundary
between Russia and Afghanistan, riding the line through the mountains
with their escort of Indian troops for the British, and Cossacks for the
Russians, and camping as they went. The task took several months to complete,
and he loved to remember his adventures, long days in the saddle, camp
fires at night, encounters with tribesmen, excursions to shoot game for
the pot, a thrilling open-air life.
He returned to Odessa and to his studies, passed his examinations, and
was appointed Vice-Consul at Batoum in 1891, and Vice-Consul at Odessa
in 1893, in which year he married Selina Rogers (1872-1951), daughter
of Henry Rogers of Odessa.
The Rogers Family.
When my brother, George and I were children, we distinguished between
our grandparents by calling them grandfather and grannie Woodhouse, and
grandpa and grandma Rogers.
Grandpa Henry Rogers was of yeoman stock from Chettle, near Blandford
in Dorset. In the churchyard of the little village church at Chettle,
can be seen the headstones of grandpa`s mother and father, and other members
of the Rogers family. If there was an opportunity to examine the parish
records, one might be able to confirm the legend that grandpa`s mother,
or maybe it was his grandmother, was a Torowell, belonging to a Huguenot
family of Bere Regis, a few miles south of Blandford, whose name was said
to have changed through the generations from Durberville or Turberville
to Turboville - Turoville - Torroville - Torowell.
The big house near the church at Chettle, once occupied by the Lords of
the Manor, has been converted into flats, and the park has disappeared.
The large, rambling farmhouse across the green, south of the church, where
the Rogers family once lived, looks as if it had not changed since I first
saw it 60 years ago.
I went to Chettle again about 5 years ago.
Grandpa was one of a large family, which included also Charles, Robert,
Anna, Christine, (auntie Kitty), Elizabeth (aunt Eliza), and two others
from his father`s second marriage: Clarance (who was named after his mother
Clara), and Emmeline. His father was a prosperous farmer, and only uncle
Robert took up farming. Charles and grandpa Henry were intended for other
careers, and Charles was particularly interested in machinery.
The two brothers went to the Great Exhibition in Paris in 1867, there
they met Herr Hoffher of Vienna, who had a factory for agricultural machinery,
afterwards he also had a second factory at Budapest. He invited the two
young Englishmen to see his factory at Vienna, and he entertained them
at his home. He had a large family of six or seven children, and his wife
was Emilia, daughter of Abrahan Becker, who was the son of the Pastor
Becker, who had gone to Odessa with his flock from a village in Alsace.
Staying with the Hoffhers to help with the large family, was Emilia`s
younger sister Louisa, (Louisa Becker 1841-1937), whose vivacity and charm
immediately captivated Henry Rogers. This was so serious, that her sister
and brother-in-law became alarmed at the unwelcome attentions of a young
Englishman of no particular standing or profession, not at all a suitable
suitor, that they packed Louisa off, back to Odessa, without delay. Henry
was undaunted, and set off at once in pursuit.
Romantically, it is said that he travelled all the way by post-chaise.
What is certainly true, is that he spoke French and German, but no word
of Russian. He reached Odessa and immediately set about finding Louisa,
whose address he did not know.
The story goes, that on his very first morning he went to a coffee house,
where he got into conversation with a charmingly spoken older gentleman,
to whom he told his story. This gentleman listened sympathetically, promised
his help, and invited Henry home to dinner, without divulging his name.
At dinner, who should be there with the family, but the gentleman`s daughter,
Louisa. In effect, Herr Becker had been so impressed with the young man`s
personality, and that he had come all that way to find Louisa, that he
consented to the match, and helped Henry to set up in business. Abraham
Becker was a prosperous businessman; he built the first steam bakery in
Odessa, and he also built the Reform church on the Khersonskaya Street,
where grandpa and grandma afterwards had an apartment. Grandpa`s business
was importing agricultural machinery to Russia and exporting grain and
cattle-cake. One of my earliest recollections of visits to Odessa is the
smell of linseed from the samples of oil-cake in grandpa`s office.
Grandpa`s brother Charles stayed in Vienna, then he fell ill and died
there. Uncle Robert had a farm at West Almer, near Blandford, and his
wife Emma, modelled her appearance on that of Queen Victoria; they had
no children. After the big house and farm at Chettle were given up, aunts
Anna, Eliza, and Kitty lived together in 1904, when I first knew them,
in a house called "Roselea" in Wimborne , and the house is still standing
unchanged, except that Aunt Eliza`s beautiful rosebed has been replaced
by a garage. Of grandpa`s half-brother and sister, Emmeline died, and
uncle Clarance went into banking, and was manager of the National Provincial
Bank at Liverpool in 1905, where we visited him and his family of three
daughters, Hilda, Gwen, and Dolly, when we were on our way to Boston.
After uncle Clarance retired, we completely lost touch.
Grandpa Rogers became one of the leading members of the British community
in Odessa, universally popular and respected. He was a founder of the
English Cricket Club, and a first class billiards player, whom few could
beat. In later years, one and all knew him as "Daddy Rogers". Grandma
was not so popular, at least, not with the wives. She looked striking,
even in middle age; she dressed in the latest fashion, her dark hair beautifully
done, ( a hairdresser came to do it every day), with fair complexion and
sparkling eyes, she was always gay and had a train of admirers wherever
she went - perhaps they had reason to be jealous.
Grandpa and Grandma Rogers had five children: Selina, my mother; Lucy,
who died young; Robert (uncle Bertie); William Henry (uncle Willie); and
Emily. Uncle Bertie married Marie Wey, (Auntie Mie), daughter of the Swiss
Consul at Odessa; they had a daughter, Erica, who died in infancy. Uncle
Bertie took over the business when Grandpa died in 1915, but everything
collapsed in the Revolution, and uncle Bertie did not manage to save anything
out of the wreck....They went to England in 1917 and he tried all sorts
of jobs without making any success, and he did not long survive. Auntie
Mie is working for the Red Cross, somewhere in Central Europe. Grandma
had refused to leave and she stayed in Odessa until the last of the British
subjects were evacuated to Constantinople in 1919. She remained in her
apartment, looked after by a faithful old servant. One day, when there
was a house-to-house search by the Revolutionary Militia, looking for
arms, and hidden members of the hated Bourgeoise, (and incidentally for
anything they could pick up in the way of loot), a group of young thugs
came in and found her ill in bed. They demanded that she get up and go
with them to their station.
"What for?"
"For interrogation."
"You can question me here", said grandma. "There is no need to make me
get up for that, and if you are going to shoot me, you might as well do
that here too. It would save you, and me, a lot of trouble. Go ahead,
- shoot".
This was too much, even for the thugs. They slunk away, shamefaced, and
left her alone.
Uncle Willie married Elinor (aunt Nellie), born Freeman, widow of Captain
Ashby, and had a daughter, Elinor Louise, (Brownie), who married Cecil
Were and has three children: Cecily, (Mrs. Richard Comyn), Shirley, (Mrs
Godfrey Pond), and Timothy. Uncle Willie joined the Merchant Navy, and
in time, became Commander in the Royal Navy Reserve. At the end of World
War I he was the Allies Commander of the port of Constantinople, and Grandma
joined him there when she was evacuated from Odessa.
Uncle Willie inherited grandma`s gaiety, and he had the most infectious
laugh I ever heard. When he came to see us, the house was full of fun.
As a child, I was enthralled by the yarns he told of his adventures before
the mast, perhaps they were tall stories, - be that as it may, - when
his ship was in port at Nicolaiev, or Odessa, those were red letter days
for us. Nor was uncle Bertie lacking in high spirits in his younger days.
On one occasion they were both staying with us at Nicolaiev in the winter,
and they went out in the ice-boat, sailing on the river. There was hard
frost, so they decided to sail to the other side across the channel where
the ice-breaker had been. The river at this point is about 1,000 yards
wide, the ice-breaker went as far as the pier, a little way below the
place where the pontoon bridge spanned the river in the summer to the
village of Varvarovka, it was simply replaced in the winter by a track
over the ice for sledges. The thing could be done, if there was enough
wind speed, provided one could skim over the channel and the skates of
the ice-boat did not lodge in a crack between the floes. But they did
get stuck, and the ice-boat sank. They were rescued by villagers from
Varvarovka. But the anxiety at home can be imagined, - the brothers had
been seen sailing away from the yacht club, and they had not returned.
Then came a telephone message in the local dialect: "The young master
has drowned. They will arrive as soon as horses are ready". No details,
no further information. Another tense couple of hours passed, and at last
they turned up. They were dressed in borrowed peasant clothes, and both
were singing lustily. The villagers, who had fished them out of the river,
had applied the best remedy they knew; a good rub-down with vodka on the
outside and plenty of it inside!!! I was only a small child, but I can
remember the excitement and the celebration that followed!
Aunt Emily Rogers and the Macpherson Family.
Aunt Emily married Kenneth Macpherson of St. Petersburg. This brings
in another link with Russian history as well as with contemporary events.
They had four children: Mary, (Mrs. Harry Routledge), who has two sons,
James and Melvin; Lucy, ( Mrs. John Read); William (Bill), who lives with
his family in Scotland; and Andrew. Andrew was on the staff of Rajah Brooke
in Sarawak, when that country was overrun by the Japanese in World War
II. He was with a party that had attempted to get through the jungle,
and was never heard of again. Right to the end of the war, aunt Emily
went on hoping, but no trace of them was ever found, and it had to be
presumed that they had all been killed. He had just been married, and
had sent his wife away, with the other women and children, in a ship bound
for South Africa, but the ship was torpedoed by the Japanese, and nobody
was saved.
Kenneth Macpherson was the son of David Macpherson and the grandson of
Murdoch George Macpherson of the Cluny Macpherson Clan, who was born at
Perth in 1813, and died at St. Petersburg in 1879. Murdoch had studied
engineering at Glasgow, and owned a small shipbuilding yard on the Clyde.
When the Emperor Nicholas I of Russia (1796-1855), decided that he wanted
a yacht, Murdoch submitted a tender, which was accepted, and when the
yacht was ready Murdoch took it out to Russia himself. Nicholas was very
pleased with it, and offered Murdoch the post of Imperial Engineer to
all the Imperial yachts. Murdoch disposed of his yard on the Clyde and
accepted the post. The Emperor had four yachts with their full complement
of Russian engineers, but from that time, Murdoch was in charge of the
engine room, in whichever yacht the Emperor was using. After 13 years
of this service, Murdoch founded the Baltic Iron Works and Shipbuilding
Yard in St. Petersburg, in partnership with an Englishman, in about 1850-1852),
and among the ships built there, was the Imperial Yacht "Livadia" for
the Black Sea, and after she was lost, the "Livadia II.
In 1841, Murdoch Macpherson married Julia Elizabeth Maxwell of the Nithsdale
Maxwells, who was then aged 17, and had come to Russia with her parents
some years earlier. They had 15 children, and 5 sons and 5 daughters survived.
Of these, David was the father of another large family, which included
Kenneth, who married aunt Emily, and Arthur Macpherson who became a prominent
figure in St. Petersburg society. He prospered as a member of the Stock
Exchange, and was an active patron of the River Yacht Club, the Rowing
Club, and the Krestovsky Tennis Club which was built largely by his efforts.
His elder son Arthur was a leading tennis player. When the 1914-1918 war
broke out, his younger son Bobby, came to England to enlist, and was appointed
( as 2nd Lt. R.D. Macpherson) to the staff of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener
as interpreter to the Military Mission, led by Kitchener, which was going
to Russia. The Mission sailed on board H.M.S. Hampshire on 4 June 1916.
The ship was torpedoed by the Germans in the North Sea, and there were
no survivors.
When aunt Emily was married, my brother George and I were page and bridesmaid
at her wedding. Uncle Kenneth was in insurance, and they went to Hankow
in China, where their daughter Mary was born. The other children were
born after they returned to St. Petersburg, and in about 1910, aunt Emily
brought them to England to be educated. She settled in Berkhampstead,
and when George and I also came to school in England, we spent all our
holidays there with aunt Emily. Early in 1914, uncle Kenneth took up a
post in Hamburg and moved his family there, only to be caught by the outbreak
of war. Aunt Emily was repatriated with the four young children and lost
all her belongings except for a couple of suitcases. Kenneth was interned
at Ruhleben, the racecourse near Berlin, which was made into a prison
camp for civilian internees. The four and a half years of incarceration
gravely undermined his health, and he did not long survive his release
at the end of the war. Aunt Emily went back to Berkhampstead, this time
to a tiny house; she went to work, and managed to finish putting all four
children through school. When they grew up and left home, she was left
alone for a while, then she lived with her younger daughter, and she died
in 1960.
I am indebted to the late Mrs. Charles Hill, born Edna Maxwell of St.
Petersburg, for the information about the Macpherson family obtained by
her from the book by her cousin Georgina, daughter of Murdoch George Macpherson,
entitled " Upheaval ! Reminiscences of Russia before and after the Revolution",
privately published by the Church Army Press, Cowley, Oxford, after the
author`s escape from Russia in 1920.
Uncle Clayton Woodhouse.
Richard Clayton Woodhouse (1869- 1947),
was born at Leeds and like his brother Willie (my father), was educated
in Jersey. He was intended for a business career, and his mother`s brother,
uncle Richard Webster - as he did for so many other members of the family
- gave him a start in Odessa by employing him in his shipping office.
He married Henrietta Stapleberg (aunt Enia).
The Stapleberg family owned a paint factory at Odessa, with a house and
grounds adjoining it. Uncle Clayton and aunt Enia lived nearby. They had
a son Alec, who died aged about 5.
In the office of the Stapleburg factory was a Frenchman named Lorrain,
from Marseilles, a widower with a daughter, Margot, of about the same
age as Alec, also living nearby. Enia was attracted to the motherless
Margot, and became so devoted to her that when M. Lorrain left Odessa
to return to Marseilles, Enia went with him.
Left alone, Uncle Clayton threw up his job in Odessa, and for a time he
travelled about all over Russia, and Siberia, as interpreter to an American
businessman, then he went to stay with his mother (grannie Mary-Rae) at
Kaiserhof, near Riga. It was now 1914, and on the outbreak of war he joined
the Red Cross. As the Baltic states were being overrun by the Germans,
grannie Mary-Rae got away to England and went to live with her sister
and brother-in-law (aunt Amelia and uncle William
Wagstaff) at Eastbourne. Uncle Clayton then came to St. Petersburg,
which was now called Petrograd, and was immediately pressed into service
by his brother Willie at the British Consulate. The British Consul at
Riga (grandfather`s successor, Mr Bosanquet), and his staff left before
the Germans took the place, and also came to Petrograd. Several of them,
likewise, came to work at the Consulate, which was now thronged with crowds
of refugees and distressed British subjects, all wanting help and advice.
Passports, visas, accomodation, repatriation, all had to be arranged for
these people. In Petrograd alone, there were several thousand British
subjects to be sent home, and as many from other parts of Russia, as well
as the thousands of French people, whose only way back to France was via
Scandinavia and England. A special Passport Control office was set up,
but the actual visas had to be issued by the British Consulate. We all
got callouses on the palms of our hands from using the visa stamp on all
those passports.
After the Revolution in 1917, when the British Ambassador left Petrograd,
which was now called Leningrad, and went to Moscow, Father as Consul-General
was left in charge at Leningrad, and the Consulate was removed to the
building of the British Embassy. Uncle Clayton stayed on. He was arrested
when the Embassy was raided by the Bolsheviks. He was actually at the
door of the office safe, in the act of putting some money away ,when the
shots that killed Captain Cromie were fired on the stairs, and the raiders
burst into the Chancery shouting : " Hands up". So he had to put up his
hands, holding fistfuls of money !!
Not only all the staff, but also some visitors who happened to be there
at the time, were arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress.
The full story of what happened was written by one of the staff, Mr. George
Dobson, the Pro-Consul, a former correspondent of the Times, and will
be told in his account of their imprisonment. Uncle Clayton was released
together with my father and his staff in the exchange of political prisoners,
and returned to England.
After the war, he went back to Riga, started an agency business, but was
unfortunate in his choice of partners, and lost most of his investment.
Then he moved to Reval, (now called Tallinn) in Estonia, and started again.
He was getting along quite comforably, when World War II broke out. Once
again he had to escape before the advancing German armies. He got across
to Sweden where my father was now living in retirement at Gothenburg,
and the brothers were together again for a while, but uncle Clayton insisted
that he must work and took a job as a caretaker of a country house at
Skredsvik near Bohuslan, and he died suddenly in April 1947.
Uncle Clayton had not married again. It was several years after his marriage
broke up before he obtained a divorce from Enia, and then she married
M. Lorrain, after whose death Margot devoted herself to Enia. But uncle
Clayton`s plans, when he was obtaining his divorce to marry the lady of
his second choice came to nothing. In the end he was all alone.
Footnote.
The Staplebergs were lifelong friends of our family, and from the time
when we children used to run about and play in their lovely big garden
in Odessa, I have kept in touch with aunt Enia`s niece Olichka to the
pres ent day. Olichka married a German named Willy Forst; between the
wars , they lived in Berlin where Willy was obliged to take a job under
the Nazis, whom he hated. When I travelled, so often between Danzig and
London, I always broke my journey to visit them. Once, it was on some
kind of a holiday, and they had to hang out the Nazi flag from their balcony.
At dusk, the maid came out to ask whether she should take in the flag,
and Willy answered: "Ach, lass das Fetzen hangen !" Let the rag hang!
This showed what he thought of the Swastika, but Olichka was frightened
in case the maid should report what he had said, in which case he certainly
lose his job, if not worse. This was after the Reichstag fire, and it
was treason to express an opinion like that.
Uncle Tom Woodhouse.
Thomas Woodhouse (1870-1923), the youngest brother, was born at Halifax,
and like his brothers, educated in Jersey, spending his holidays with
the Webster grandparents. He went to the Davies Boarding School at St.
Laurance in Jersey, where a fellow pupil was Sydney Turner, who later
founded the Stuart Turner Engineering Works at Henley-on Thames. On leaving
school, uncle Tom was apprenticed to Napiers Shipbuilding Co. at Glasgow,
where he also enrolled in a Lanarkshire Regiment as a volunteer cadet.
He was transferred to Napiers Shipyard in London and continued his studies
at the University in the Mile End Road, at the same time transferring
to the London Scottish Regiment as a cadet. He was very musical, and whilst
staying in the district of Poplar, he played the organ in a local church.
It was at about this time that his parents insisted on his continuing
his studies, instead of joining the Army, as he himself wished to do.
He was sent to Zurich in Switzerland for further studies, and on completing
the course, he came to Odessa.
Here, uncle Richard Webster, as he did for every member of the family
who came to Odessa, gave him a start, sending him to Kherson as engineer
in charge of the tug boats and other vessels belonging to the shipping
firm of Webster and Kovalenko. Then he went to Riga as engineer in charge
of the Coates (or Chadwick) Mill at Sassenhof, and there he married Grace
Turner (auntie Gracie) of Jersey, sister of his former school friend,
to whom he had been engaged for some time. She had only come to Riga on
a visit to his parents, but remained to get married. They lived in Riga
for a while, then at Sassenhof, where their daughter Marjory was born,
and in 1899 he went to the Nobel Oil Wells at Baku in the Caucasus, where
his family joined him. After 3 or 4 years, they returned to Odessa, and
uncle Tom was chief Engineer at the Jute Works, which he helped to guard
against looting in the Revolution of 1905. When the crew of the battleship
"Potemkin" mutinied and bombarded the town of Odessa, a squad of Cossacks
were quartered in the grounds of the Jute works, to the joy of the children
who were given rides on the horses, but general conditions got too bad,
and uncle Tom had to send his wife and daughter away. They went by sea,
and reached England after a very long and uncomfortable journey, with
many delays in various ports in the Mediterranean.
Uncle Tom remained in Odessa at the Jute Works until 1910, then he went
to Riga where his father (grandfather Woodhouse) enrolled him as Vice-Consul,
and he served until grandfather retired, remaining on under grandfather`s
successor. Early in 1914 the British Vice-Consulate at Archangel fell
vacant. As this was in the Consular District of St. Petersburg, and thus
in my father`s "province", he offered the post to uncle Tom, who went
there in April of that year. Auntie Gracie and Marjory paid us a visit
in St. Petersburg on their way to joining him in Archangel, so they were
there when World War I broke out on 4th August 1914. Uncle Tom was the
only British official to deal with the dozens of British merchant ships
in the White Sea, and all the members of their crews, who needed help
to get away, since the Russian authorities were very anxious to impound
the vessels. He did a tremendous task all by himself, before an assistant
was sent to help him, and then a Consul was appointed over him, but by
the middle of 1916, the Murmansk Railway was in operation and Kem was
established as another important White Sea port. Uncle Tom was transferred
to Kem, and with special recommendation of Admiral Kemp, among others,
in recognition of the splendid work he had done at Archangel, he was awarded
the King`s Commission as a full member of the Consular Service.
In April 1918, after the outbreak of the second Revolution in Russia,
uncle Tom was again obliged to send his wife and daughter away to England.
He went with them to Murmansk, leaving one night, in the only transport
available, a baggage wagon in which they travelled 4 days and 5 nights,
and in which they had to stay, until a barracks was put at the disposal
of the British refugees by Admiral Kemp, (then in H.M.S. Glory). They
were greatly assisted by various British officers, in particular by Paymaster
Richard Rodney Hamer of H.M.S. Cochrane, who was especially kind in providing
them with extra rations. As it happens, no relation of my son-in-law John
Richard Hamer, but a strange coincidence of names ! There is also another
Hamer mentioned in the Webster family tree, but again, no relation.
In Murmansk, they were joined by our auntie Marie and uncle John Webster,
her husband, from Odessa. The party of British refugees from Odessa had
also included George Austen Neame, who was later to be my mother`s third
husband. Their journey by rail had taken several
weeks, and it was two months before they finally reached England. They
started in a railway carriage, which was labelled as British, but when
they stopped at stations, the men had to stand at the doors with revolvers,
to prevent the seething crowds from getting in. Most of the towns they
passed through were almost starving, the people guessed that the British
party had food. Then they were transferred to a cattle truck, with the
men sleeping on the floor and the women on the shelves above. Occasionally
they heard the sound of firing, and were all told to lie on the floor.
On the way, they picked up the crew of a British ship, which had been
seized by the Bolsheviks. The sailors brought their rations, everybody
contributed, and they cooked on a primus stove. Auntie Marie had luckily
brought a large pudding basin, and it proved very versatile: it was used
to bathe the baby, (fortunately, there was only one baby in the party),
and when not in use for storing food, it was in demand by the men for
shaving, or it was used for cooking, as for instance, one day when they
all contributed their ration of tinned soup, and the basin was warming
up on the primus stove, the railway engine suddenly gave a tremendous
jerk, precipitating the precious contents of the basin all over the floor.
The incident is remembered, because it was such a serious loss !
At last the refugees embarked on a ship for England. Mr. Neame stayed
in Murmansk, and joined the British forces which landed in North Russia,
and served with Intelligence units, up and down the Murmansk railway,
until the end of the campaign. Uncle Tom returned to Kem, where he remained
to assist the British forces until he returned to England in 1919. After
a brief holiday, he was appointed to Omsk in Siberia, travelling there
via Montreal, Vancouver, and Vladivostock. He was unable to stay long
at his post, as he was caught up in the retreat of the White Russian forces
in Siberia. He managed to get back to Vladivostock, and returned to England
by sea, via Japan, in 1923. He went on a holiday visit to his brother
Willie in Gothenburg, but was suddenly taken ill. After a spell in hospital
he returned to his family in England. He died a week later, on 27th November
1923.
Odessa and Nicolaiev.
By the time Willie Woodhouse and Selina
Rogers were married in 1893, Odessa had become a fine town, with a busy
port. It had an opera house, theatres, parks, and open-air restaurants,
French-style cafes, and an excellent climate. An interesting feature is
that, originally, it was largely built of the rock upon which it stood,
the early builders simply quarrying down for the stone they required,
with the result that beneath the town was a network of something like
300 miles of galleries or catacombs, from which the stone was extracted.
Later, workmen digging out a site for a new structure, would come upon
these galleries. Seen from street level, they looked like the openings
of caves. Another feature I remember is that some of the streets were
paved with square-cut cobbles of granite brought from Aberdeen, which
were sometimes laid in a pattern , as one might lay a parquet floor. In
the days before tyres with inner tubes, when the children always had to
sit on the little seat with their backs to the horses, it was much smoother
driving over the patterns, than it was over the rough cobblestones, which
paved most of the streets. Perhaps that is why the patterns still stay
in my memory.
After father`s appointment as Vice-Consul at Odessa in 1893, he served
there on a number of occasions as Acting Consul-General. My brother George
William Arthur Woodhouse was born at Odessa on 29th May 1894, and in 1895,
father was transferred, as Vice-Consul at Nicolaiev, thus succeeding his
father who was appointed Consul at Riga. I was born at Nicolaiev in 1896,
and given the names of Ella Winifred Edith.
Nicolaiev had no special stone features, or beautiful avenues of acacias
like Odessa, but of course, there was the great wide river, and the town`s
position at the confluence of the two rivers, the Bug and the Ingul. Crossing
the river was the pontoon bridge to Varvarovka. It had an upright plank
in the middle, separating the two single lines of traffic, so that one
could not overtake the slow carts plodding along in front, and the lanes
were so narrow, that it was impossible to turn the carriage round and
go back. If one got onto the bridge, one had to go across.
The most important thing about Nicolaiev to my brother and me, naturally,
was our house, and after that, the yacht club. The house was on a corner,
with spacious rooms all on one floor - it was too big and solid to be
described as a bungalow. Behind the house was the garden with shrubs and
trees, of which the best to climb was the walnut, a particularly nice
tree because it had two branches which overlapped, so that one of us could
sit on the lower branch and hold a nut in position, while the other bounced
on the upper branch and cracked the nut. Opening on to the garden was
a large veranda, where we had meals in the summer when it was too hot.
We had a swing, trapeze, and climbing rope in the garden, and in our playroom,
which was called the nursery, was another trapeze. At the side of the
house was the yard with stables and out-houses, but we did not keep horses,
we had four dogs: Crusoe, the mongrel, part sheep-dog, but mostly indefinite,
who was the best watch-dog; Nero, the old pointer; Rover, the fox-terrier,
and Scamp, the young pointer whom father used to take when he went shooting.
The dogs did not come into the house, but lived in kennels. At the back
of the yard was an annexe with the wash-house downstairs, and above it
lived the washerwoman Anyuta with her little girl Nyura, who was allowed
to play with us sometimes. Many years later, Anyuta and Nyura came to
us in St. Petersburg as cook and housemaid. There were three of four other
servants, of whom Vassili, the manservant never changed, and a succession
of governesses. In winter, father and Vassili would stamp down the snow
in the garden and water it, so we had our own skating rink.
Father was a founder-member of the yacht club. We used to go there every
afternoon in the summer, always hoping that we might be taken sailing,
but if the grown-ups were too busy for us, there were plenty of other
children to play with and room to run about. For me, there was always
the fascination of gathering the pretty shells, of which there were myriads,
on the river beach. In winter, a special place in front of the club house
would be kept clear and smooth for skating, and there was the whole river
for ice-boating. My picture of the yacht club would not be complete without
recalling the thrill, when my brother was old enough, about 7 or 8, to
take me out alone in a little dinghy, with permission to row out as far
as the end of the jetty. We felt like adventurers out alone on the great
waters, and we were quite unaware that the club bos`n was lurking somewhere
in a boat, keeping watch over us.
One year, a new club house was built, with various offices on the ground
floor , lounges above, and two porches, one on either side, each having
a stairway to the look-out on the roof, from which one had a grand-stand
view when there were yacht races. We were very proud of the new club house,
and one day I was deputed to show a visitor around. Taking him in through
one of the porches, I explained that this was the entrance in, then I
took him all over the building and brought him down to the other door.
"And what`s this?" he asked.
"This", I said, "Is the entrance out."
And I was never allowed to forget it.
Oddly enough, we were never encouraged to bathe or swim. The river water
was not considered suitable. I can remember my parents swimming only once,
when we went with a large party in a big yacht, and sailed a long way,
dropping anchor in a secluded bay. The men went ashore, to bathe from
the beach, including my brother. The ladies went swimming from the yacht,
leaving me alone on board, and I was absolutely terrified when I saw my
mother go over the side and swim away. I could`nt think how she would
ever get back.
Almost as soon as my brother was born, it was decided that he should go
into the Royal Navy, and he was entered for Osborne. In 1904, we came
to England for a visit, and left George at Weymouth College as a boarder.
He spent his holidays with the Rogers aunts in Wimborne. In 1905, after
the first Russian Revolution, father was transferred, and we all went
with him to Boston, Mass. My only impression of that revolution is the
sound of shots being fired somewhere in the distance, the excited talk
among the grown-ups, which I could not understand, and the shutters being
closed on all the windows for several days. Far more vivid, is the last
night at home before we left the house to board the boat for Odessa. Homes
had been found among our friends for all the dogs, but they were still
with us and that night they were allowed in to say good-bye. All four
dogs rushed in, then they ran about through all the rooms and came back
to the dining room where we were at table having supper, all packed ready
to go. And then all four dogs crowded around mother, and sat up and howled.
They knew we were going.
Boston, Mass.
Things were very different in Boston. We had an apartment in Alston,
on the outskirts of Brookline, and we had no servants. For my parents
there was no longer the gay social life they had known in Nicolaiev, with
a wide circle of friends among the Consular Corps and the engineers, many
of them Belgians, from the Shipbuilding Yards, and the Russian officers
of the Black Sea Fleet, as well as local residents, and, of course frequent
visits to Odessa. All that which was, in retrospect, one long round of
entertainment. In Boston, there were only occasional formal functions.
My brother went to a day school and I stayed at home. Mother did try to
have an "at home" day on Tuesdays, but it was very difficult without a
maid.
The tea would be prepared beforehand, but it would have to wait until
George got home from school, when he had to carry the tray into the drawing
room, and I followed with the cakes. We did not stay in Boston long enough
to make any close friends; in just over a year father was promoted as
Consul and we went to St. Pierre Miquelon. Father had to go on ahead,
leaving mother to finish the packing and bring George and me. We sailed
from Boston in a very small ship to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and had our
first experience of being in a complete blanket of fog at sea, within
sound of other ships` fog-horns somewhere near, and visibility only a
few yards. Then on by train to St. John, New Brunswick, through seemingly
endless forests and catching a glimpse of at least one beaver dam, and
so to the docks to find the "St. Pierre", which was to take us to St.
Pierre. At the quayside, she looked even smaller than the ship from Boston,
and there was nobody about, only one man lounging at the top of the gangway,
a burly, unkempt figure, with a wild shock of black hair and beard, the
picture of a brigand or pirate. My brother was dumbfounded, I was frightened,
but mother reckoned he would be flattered either way and she asked him
sweetly: "C`est vous Monsieur le Capitaine?"
And she did not show that she was startled when he answered: "Oui, Madame".
St. Pierre Miquelon.
The town of St. Pierre was on Petit Miquelon, one of a group of small
islands in sight of the coast of Newfoundland, and the last of the French
colonies in North America. It had a French Governor, "Monsieur l`Administrateur",
whose previous post had been Dahomey. In those days its chief importance
was as a port for the great fleet of fishing boats that came from St.
Malo, and it was father`s introduction to international fishery disputes.
One of the islands had a population entirely Basque, and they used to
come over to play their national game of Pelota, which the St. Pierrais
called "Zaspiaque Bat",. The "St Pierre", brought mail about once a fortnight,
occasionally a schooner would come from the Prince Edward island with
fresh vegetables, but there was meat and dairy produce to be had, and
always fish. Also, if you wanted your fish extra fresh, you could just
go down to the rocks off the point below Cap a l`Aigle and catch "Tommy
Cod". But St. Pierre was by no means cut off from the world. It was a
station on the Transatlantic cable route and the engineers there issued
a daily bulletin of the latest world news. It was also visited by British
and French naval flotillas, with the excitement for my brother and me
of seeing the warships, and perhaps going on board, and the flurry at
home of entertaining the Admiral from The "Chasselouolaubas" or the Captain
of H.M/S. Brilliant. And when father put on full uniform to pay his courtesy
call to the visiting warship, my brother walked before him to the jetty,
carrying the Consular Flag, which was then hoisted in the pinnace, and
the warship fired a salute as the British Consul came alongside.
Otherwise, it was not a busy place ashore. There was no traffic to speak
of in the streets; a few pairs of oxen to draw heavy loads, sometimes
a box mounted on wheels and pulled by a dog - that was how our milk was
delivered, and in the whole town there was only one horse and gig. Their
owner was considered to be enormously rich. The only way of getting about
was to walk. Social life was very limited, there were not many other Consuls,
and only a few officials; they kept each other going, with a round of
dinner parties. There was no yachting, or rowing, or bathing, no suitable
beach anywhere within reach, except the stretch near the harbour where
the dories landed their catch and the women gutted the cod, which was
then laid out on the shingle to dry. The smell can be imagined.
Sometimes father would go fishing, or to one of the other islands and
take George, but there was no place for a little girl on such expeditions.
On one occasion they went on a trip to a trout stream near Lamaline, on
the coast of Newfoundland, going across in a fishing boat. When they were
coming back, the boat was at the jetty, but there was no gang-plank. One
simply stepped over to the gunnel and so to the deck. Father walked ahead,
George followed, missed his footing and down he went between the boat
and the jetty. He claimed afterwards that he was so surprised that he
opened his eyes and saw the keel of the boat. Still holding on to his
fishing rod, he bobbed up again, like a cork. Perhaps there was enough
bouyancy in the creel on his back, and this helped. Two men were standing
on the jetty. Quick as a flash one flung himself down, the other held
on to his legs, and the first man reached down , grabbed George and pulled
him out. Father had already taken a couple of strides on the deck when
he heard the splash, turned round and saw the incredibly swift action
of those two men.
On Sunday afternoons there was always a football match, played on the
only bit of fairly level ground to be found near the town. The big matches
were generally St. Pierre v. Le Monde, and drew quite a crowd to watch
the local team play against a rather mixed lot of visitors to the island,
which included as one of Le Monde leading players, a young French Abbe,
who hitched up his soutane with a belt and tied on a white hankerchief
to simulate the white top which was the uniform of the side. The local
side wore dark tops, not necessarily all alike. It was felt that Monseigneur
the Bishop was very broadminded in allowing one of his young men to run
about a playing field like that. My brother often took part as a linesman.
In winter time the only activity was skating in a huge, barn-like building,
specially built for an ice-rink. It had sort of shutters at ground level
and a supply of warm water. The rink would be cleared after the afternoon
session, flooded with warm water, the shutters opened, and in a couple
of hours the evening session would start with fresh ice as smooth as glass.
It was usually too stormy, with too much wind and snow for skating in
the open air. The Governor wanted to share in the exercise, but he had
never learnt to skate, and it would be unseemly for any of the local people
to see their Monsieur l`Administrateur falling about, unsteady on his
feet, so father and George undertook to teach him. To one side of the
town was a range of little hills, through which flowed a stream, falling
in a series of pools down to the sea, known as the Sept Etangs. Very picturesque
in summer, with banks of wild flowers, mostly forget-me-nots. As soon
as winter set in, we would go up to one of these pools, armed with a long
pole which father and George held between them while their pupil hung
on to the middle. In a very few lessons he was able to face the crowd
at the rink.
Those "Seven ponds", were the scene of another adventure. Mother was arranging
a dinner party and wanted some flowers for the table. The only way to
get them was to go out and pick them, so we set off with father for a
walk. I suspect that Mother also thought it was a good way to get the
children out of the house. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon, and we went
quite a long way into the hills, where there were no paths at all. Suddenly
the sun disappeared and the fog came rolling in from the sea. In a few
minutes all sense of direction was gone; we were completely lost. We had
even lost the stream which formed the ponds. Father had a tiny pocket
compass on his watch chain; the only thing to do was to steer by that,
which meant trying to follow a straight line and going up and down, up
and down over the hills until we came to some familiar landmark. It must
have taken us a couple of hours to find the road which led back to town,
and it was very exhausting, but I still clutched my bunch of flowers,
and we got rather a mixed reception when we finally got home, because
mother was both furious with us for being so late and relieved that we
were safe. A sudden fog like that could be very dangerous to shipping.
During our stay, a steamer was wrecked at Langdale, the next island. She
ploughed right up on to the dunes, and landed high and dry. Father had
a great deal of work in connection with insurance and salvage and looking
after her crew. George was taken to visit the wreck, and came back with
a basket of wild strawberries picked on the dunes, where they grew in
profusion. We had no dunes like that on Miquelon, anywhere within walking
distance; only cliffs and slippery rocks.
As soon as we reached St. Pierre, we had to take lessons in French, and
we went every day to Madamemoiselle Videmment, whole initial "E" made
her name translate to "evidently", which we thought was charming, but
not so her lessons. Then George had to have a tutor, and Monsieur l`Abbe
Frapart came to coach him in the afternoons. George`s room had a wonderful
view over the roadstead, the entrance to the harbour, the Basque village
on the Ile aux Chiens opposite, and the fishing boats and dories always
coming and going. Monsieur l`Abbe would look up and find George`s attention
wandering from his stuffy lessons, to the fascinating world outside and
he would say: "Mon pauvre Georges", and I thought it was cruel to expect
anybody to concentrate in front of a view like that. From George`s room
we could see the mail steamer coming in, and watch for the big schooner
which brought the vegetables, or count the red sails coming round the
point., or, most exciting of all, see the dorymen driving a shoal of capelin
inshore. This was a tiny fish like a baby sardine, much prized as bait
for cod, and when a shoal was driven in like that, the water was simply
thick with fish. Anybody could go down to the beach with a bucket or basket,
and scoop out as much as they could carry. Our two maids were local girls,
and they liked to do that. Yes, we had a cook and a housemaid at St. Pierre.
And a retriever, Rex, but there was not much for him to do , and in any
case, he was supposed to be gun-shy.
The time came for my brother to go to the Admiralty in London, to appear
before the Selection Board for the Royal Naval College at Osborne. It
was still winter in February 1907, when Mother, George, and I, sailed
in the "St. Pierre" for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on another memorable voyage.
The trip normally took three days, but we ran into a snowstorm locally
known as "un poudrin", very fine particles of swirling snow which stuck
to everything, coating every bit of the ship, every rope and spar, inches
thick with snow frozen to ice, which might well have made her top-heavy.
We were six days late into Halifax, by which time we were no longer expected,
because a few years earlier, the mail-boat from St. Pierre, in similar
conditions, had failed to get through. On our journey, it was also very
rough, impossible to get up, so we stayed in our bunks and we did not
really mind, when the steward said the food had given out, but we were
thirsty and the water had gone brackish. We were offered some of the sour
red wine provided for the crew; it was horrid. Then one of the passengers
presented us with a bottle of his champagne. It tasted like nectar.
We came into Halifax in the wake of an ice-breaker early next morning,
and there was quite literally nothing left to eat in the galley except
a knuckle end of ham, from which the steward picked some scraps for George
and me, while the passenger who had given us the champagne the day before,
stood by complaining loudly, that there was not even any coffee to drink
because the water was so bad.
We reached London in due course, and George went to the Admiralty for
his examination. It was a competitive exam, and it was only then, we learnt
that he did not really stand much chance of being selected, since there
were 280 candidates for 60 vacancies, due to that being the year the Prince
of Wales, (later King Edward VIII, and now the Duke of Windsor), was going
to Osborne. But nobody had any idea that George would be disqualified
immediately because he was colourblind.
Not long after this shocking disappointment, Father joined us in England
on his way to his next post. He was appointed Consul at the Faroe Islands
for two main reasons. One was his first-hand experience at St. Pierre
of the conditions and problems of a fishing community; the second was
the State visit on 24th July 1907 of King Frederick VII of Denmark to
Thorshavn, on his way to the independence celebrations at Rejkjavik in
Iceland. My brother was sent back to the Weymouth College, Mother had
a special dress made for the impending royal reception, Father supervised
the packing of all kinds of extra supplies - the house awaiting us at
Thorshavn was only sketchily furnished according to the inventory - and
we sailed from Leith, near Edinburgh.
Thorshavn.
The Faroe islands are rocky and rather bleak, with towering cliffs and
many waterfalls. In 1907, Thorshavn was only a small town, clustered round
a more or less sheltered bay. As I remember it, the weather was never
hot or even warm; it was either raining, misty, or windy. Many of the
houses have grass growing on the roof, the turves being laid, partly for
warmth and partly as weight to keep the roof on. In outlying houses, one
might see cables or hawsers passed over the house, and fastened to the
rock on either side to keep the roof from blowing away. One thing was
very striking; There were no poor people to be seen in Thorshavn. An interesting
custom was that if you went out, you locked the door behind you and hung
the key up outside; this prevented the door from blowing open and maybe
admitting some stray sheep, and it also showed that you were not in.
Sheep, fish, and whales provided the livelihood of the islanders. Thus
the only meat to be had was mutton, and everything else, including chickens
and eggs, tasted of fish. We kept some hens and fed them on a special
diet, but the eggs tasted of fish all the same. It was years before I
could face a boiled egg again !! The mailboat from Leith came once in
six weeks, and used to bring us a supply of beef, but if it was delayed
by the weather, the beef was more than likely to be well past its prime.
The difficult language spoken by the islanders was an obstacle to establishing
any kind of contact. The people talked in monotonous voices, with expressionless
faces, reserved, usually unsmiling. We had two maids who spoke a little
English. The only time I remember their being animated , was when they
were describing a whale-catch. But they must have been very kindly, because
they would come sometimes, bringing gifts, and they would be quite offended
if Mother tried to offer any payment. Quite unlike the wives of the farmers
and fishermen of St. Pierre, who used to bring their produce for sale
and were only too pleased to make a little extra money. They had also
enjoyed talking to mother because she spoke French and laughed with them.
More than once they told her: "Tu es une de nous!"
The wives at Thorshavn never brought anything for sale. There were a few
shops, but we never saw a peddler, nobody like our Chinaman at St. Pierre,
who brought his pack to the house many times, and after being rebuked
for coming in with his hat on, would take it off, and bow as soon as he
opened the garden gate. Only after he had paid us several visits, it was
discovered that what he really wanted was to go to "Mong-te-ho" ( by which
he meant Montreal) and when father helped to get his papers in order,
he brought us a "clissmas plesent" of bulbs, which he planted himself,
in a bowl filled with pebbles and water. He said they were China Lillies,
but they blossomed into a species of narcissus which filled the whole
house with their perfume. No such callers came our way at Thorshavn. There
was also little social activity, with only a small Consular Corps, which
included several Honorary or Trading Consuls. One in particular definitely
regarded his Consular duties as a side-line, since his visiting card bore
the title "Apotheker-Vice-Konsul".
The main task of the British Consul in the Faroe Islands was dealing with
the fishery disputes. British trawlermen, mostly from Grimsby or Aberdeen,
were always being accused of violating the 3 mile-limit, which was then
in force. When a trawler sighted the patrol boat, the men would make furious
haste to get the trawl bolts unshackled before the patrol boat came alongside,
and then the Consul would have to attend the hearing in court, at which
the skipper always claimed that he had been quite innocently sailing through
to the further fishing grounds, and the authorities urged the imposing
of fines and or, confiscating the gear. Now, as I write this, the fishery
limit is being extended to 12 miles, and quite recently there was a report
in the papers, of two skippers being fined £1,250 each for fishing inside
the limit, the catch and gear of both trawlers being confiscated. After
57 years, the disputes still continue.
The highlight of our stay, of course, was the official visit of the King
of Denmark. He arrived by warship, and came ashore in a launch, with all
the notables there to greet him in a special enclosure at the quayside.
Everybody in uniform, including father, or frock-coat and top hat, but
the most resplendent figure was the Amtsmann. I am not sure if he was
the chief official of all the islands, or only the town. He wore a bright
red tunic with huge gold and silver epaulettes, and a cocked hat surmounted
by a great cascade of white feathers, whereas the King wore the dark and
rather plain undress uniform of an Admiral, with a minimum of gold braid
and no decorations. The islanders said afterwards that there was no doubt
which was the most important figure.
The King walked past the assembled guests. I was in the front row and
duly dropped a curtsey as he <<<<<<<<<< something missing here ???? >>>>>>>>>>>>>
William Woodhouse. Consul General. (31.5.1867 - 6.1.1961)
Then he went off on some official duty, and later there was the grand
reception, at which mother wore her specially made dress. That night the
town was illuminated, that is to say, a few extra lamps and lanterns were
put up along the main street, and people did not draw their curtains,
but our house certainly made the best show. It was a two-storey house,
built on rising ground overlooking the town, and mother had the idea of
putting rows and rows of night-lights in all the windows. The effect was
quite splendid, and was visible from a long way off. It was said that
the glittering house could be seen from ships out in the bay.
The next day there was an excursion, to which we were invited, including
me, for the King to see the bird-watchers. We went in a steamer to a neighbouring
island, and the King walked about the deck, talking to various people,
and he stopped to speak to us, and said a few words to me and patted me
on the head - I was thrilled. At the island, we were taken to a vantage
point from which one could see a great high cliff rising straight up from
the sea, with sea-birds - they must have been gannets, - on every ledge
and cranny on the cliff face, and more birds like a cloud, whirling and
swooping about. The wild-fowlers carried a long pole with a net at one
end held in a sort of U-shaped frame, something like a stout butterfly-net.
The men were seated in a sling at the end of a rope, leaving their hands
free, and then let down over the edge of the cliff, one at a time. There,
dangling in space, they netted birds on the wing, extracted them from
the net, wrung their necks, and tied them on to their belts. It was a
demonstration of skill at an extremely dangerous sport; the courageous
exponents were much admired. This was not the nesting season when we were
told, the gathering of eiderdown in this manner is even more dangerous,
because the best down is that which the eiderducks pluck from their breasts
to line their nests, and the gatherers rob the nests and must therefore
cling to the face of the cliff while the birds peck at them in self-defence.
That is why real eiderdown was always most expensive and is now almost
legendary. The eiderdown quilt of today probably comes from the domestic
goose.
At the end of this exciting performance we were brought back to Thorshavn,
and the King gave a dinner on board his warship to which only men were
invited.. As the King was travelling alone, it would not have been seemly
to invite the ladies without the Queen to be the proper hostess. At the
end of the dinner, however, decorative little boxes of chocolates, surmounted
with pictures of Frederick VII and his queen and beribboned in the Danish
colours, were passed round, with the King`s compliments, for the men to
take home to their wives as souvenirs. Father came home with two of these
boxes. He said the King remembered speaking to the little English girl,
and had sent another little box, for me.
The King went on to Iceland, and we went back to dullness, and the only
thing that happened in the next couple of months, before we left the islands,
was the whale-catch, which our maids described with such animation. In
the season, they said, look-outs are posted, and when a school of whales
is seen, signals are sent out to summon every able-bodied man. They set
out in rowing boats which are loaded with pebbles by the women and children,
and form a line of boats around the school of whales, shouting, beating
the water with oars, and throwing the stones to make splashes, driving
the whales into the nearest shallow bay. Then they jump on to the backs
of the monsters and finish them off with a knife thrust in the vulnerable
spot, just at the back of the head.
"It is beautiful", said our maids, "The whole bay turns red!".
The whales are dragged on to the beach, and the meat carefully weighed,
so that every man, woman, and child on the islands gets a share. A larger
portion for the fishermen actually taking part in the hunt and the wives
who actively helped, lesser shares for children and old people, and portions
for other adults. That included us as residents, and it was unheard of
that we should even think of declining to accept. Our maids were quite
indignant.
It was a little off-putting to see great lumps of red meat about the size
of a grand piano on the quay-side. We did not actually see the hunt, as
it took place at another island, but signs of it were everywhere. Thrifty
housewives cut their meat into strips, and pegged it out on the clothes-line
to dry, after which it was salted away for the winter. In the astonishingly
clear air of the islands there were no flies, the meat dried without going
bad. Our cook persuaded us that fresh whale prepared the Faroese way,
was delicious, and we must try it. Smothered in onions, it was tender
and something like hamburgers, but so dark, it looked black in the middle,
and the onions failed to disguise the most unpleasant smell. We could
not be induced to try it again. Cook was very disappointed. We went back
to mutton or fish, and beef once in six months. But not for long. Father
had been promised another post.
Between Thorshavn and St. Petersburg.
It was decided that mother and I should leave early. Mother wanted to
go to Odessa for a visit. My only recollection of our stay in London is
that after the clear air of the Faroe islands, I felt stifled; There was
simply nothing to breathe in the streets filled with the smell of those
new-fangled motor cars. We went on via Cologne, where there was time between
trains, to go for a walk and see the Cathedral; very vast and very dark.
Then on to Vienna to meet the Hoffher relations, mother`s cousins, of
whom there was quite a crowd, five or six of them being married, and all
having families, except Rudolf or Rudi, who was managing the Hoffher factory
at Budapest and came over to Vienna especially to meet us. We stayed at
an hotel, and it must have been Sacher`s. I am not certain of this, but
I cannot imagine that Mother would have stayed anywhere, except at the
best and most famous hotel in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Rudi arranged a party at the opera, and either because I could not be
left alone at the hotel, or because Rudi said there was room for me in
the box, I was taken to my first Grand Opera, "Madame Butterfly", at the
truly beautiful Opera House on the Ringstrasse. I was completely enthralled.
I did not speak German then, and Rudi kept joking and asking questions,
to which I could not reply, and they all laughed and said: "Sie versteht
nicht" - she does not understand; they were quite satisfied. And I never
let on that I knew quite well why Madame Butterfly was heartbroken when
the handsome Naval officer went away, and then came back with another
girl.
We resumed our journey to Odessa, and here was new excitement. A few hours
out of Vienna I had already gone to bed in our compartment in the sleeping-car,
when the conductor came to tell everybody to get up and dressed, because
there had been a train crash on the line, and we would have to walk past
it to the train waiting on the other side of the wreck. Our train crawled,
stopped, and crawled for a long time, only black night was to be seen
through the windows, the corridor filled with excited people, everybody
talking to everybody else, and a man in a hard felt hat was eating a sandwich.
He must have had extraordinary jaw muscles - every bite he took, made
his hat go up and down ! This was so fascinating to watch, that I forgot
to be frightened. Our train halted; a crowd of peasants, most of them
dressed in rough sheepskin coats, and many carrying flares, helped us,
and our luggage, across to the other train, past the derailed goods train.
The other passengers were transferred to our train. The peasants had looked
so wild, and the whole thing seemd so sinister in the middle of the night,
that it was quite a surprise to find another sleeping-car compartment
just like the one we had left, and moreover, our luggage all intact. The
only result was that we were hours late, and missed our connection at
the frontier.
Father was transferred to St. Petersburg and went to take up his post
in November 1907. Mother and I spent the winter with Grandpa and Grandma
Rogers at Odessa. Before we went to Boston, mother had gone every year,
and sometimes father also, to some watering-place to drink the waters
and take the curative mineral baths. Father had preferred Karlsbad; Mother
liked Franzensbad. In 1908 she decided to take a cure first, before going
to St. Petersburg to join father, and she persuaded Grandma to go with
her to Franzensbad. Mother`s sister Emily was spending the summer at Weisser
Hirsch, near Dresden, with her four children and a nurse for the youngest,
Lucy, who was still a babe in arms. I was to stay with aunt Emily , while
mother was taking her cure. That winter in Odessa I had a governess, and
had been learning to speak German.
It was fun with aunt Emily and the children; she took us on excursions
to interesting places, and delightful walks in the park. Her three children
were all fair, and the baby was striking with bright red hair. We used
to amuse ourselves, by making a crown of green leaves and putting it on
the baby, which made her hair look like red gold. Aunt Emily and the tribe
of children made quite a show. One day in the park a lady and gentleman
stopped to say a few words to aunt Emily about her brood, and walked on
smiling. A couple of ladies who had been hovering in the background came
up in a state of great flutter: "Did`nt we know who that was ? Nobody
showed proper deference, nobody bowed or curtsied ! That, indeed, that
was the King and Queen of Saxony !"
"Oh, really." said aunt Emily, and the ladies were most disappointed that
she was not in the transports of delight. She accepted the admiration
of her children as no more than her due. In due course, mother and grandma
came to take me back to Odessa.
St. Petersburg.
In the autumn we joined father in St. Petersburg. For father and mother
there was more social activity, for me, a new series of governesses. Our
Ambassador, Sir Arthur Nicolson, had a daughter about my age. Lady Nicolson
organised a dancing class mainly composed of "diplomatic" children; the
Embassy had a fine ballroom, and various reception rooms on the floor
above the Chancery offices, and the Ambassador`s study, all on quite a
grand scale. At Christmas time, Lady Nicolson gave a big children`s party.
Mother had not been very well; early in January she set off to take another
cure, this time at Vichy. A day or two later, I fell ill with typhoid
fever; this was about three weeks after the christmas party, and it appeared
that quite a few of the children who had been there, had all got the same
thing, and the suspected cause of infection was the ice-cream. Father
telegraphed for mother to come back, but she had not gone straight to
Vichy, so it was some time before his message reached her. Meanwhile,
father nursed me himself with the greatest devotion, day and night. The
illness was severe and developed complications. Then mother came back
and I still kept calling for father, but mother took charge and gradually
I got better. Lady Nicolson had been very concerned about me, because
all the other children had recovered long before I did, and as soon as
I could go out, she sent her daughter Gwen, with her governess, to take
me for drives. The Embassy sleigh was most comfortable, with a bearskin
rug over one`s knees, the coachman in a handsome brown livery and fur-trimmed
hat, and a fine pair of horses. The finishing touch to such an outfit
was always provided by a net spread over the horses, edged with pompoms
or tassels, the same colour as the coachman`s livery, to keep the snow
kicked up by the horses away from the passengers; and , silver bells on
the harness. A sleigh-ride like this, was a delight.
Things returned to normal. Mother and father went out a great deal and
entertained at home. Mother was forever making new dresses for special
occasions, and always saying how hard she had to work. We had two or three
maids and a manservant, Prokofy. Not as nice as our Vassily in Nicolaiev,
incidentall, but remarkable nevertheless, because he stayed with us for
several years and was then succeeded, one after the other, by three of
his brothers. Mother did not go back to Vichy that year; she often complained
that she was not well, and she always complained that father did not give
her enough money.
All this time, my brother was at the Weymouth College, spending holidays
with the Rogers aunts at Wimborne. That summer he was coming home for
the holidays, and we all went on a visit to Odessa. In grandma`s apartment
there was a long corridor, divided halfway by a curtain. George was striding
along this passage one day, when he heard a step on the other side of
the curtain. He pulled up short to stop himself from colliding with whoever
it was, slipped, and fell. He was unable to rise by himself In a short
while, his knee was badly swollen. Doctors were called, treatments applied,
the swelling subsided; he could walk again, but could not bend the knee
at all. The doctor said it would heal in time. We went on a visit to the
Woodhouse grandparents at Riga, and also to stay a few days with father`s
sister and her family at Annahutte. Then back to St. Petersburg and more
consultations with doctors. George could not go back to school crippled
with a stiff leg. At last a doctor suggested an X-ray, and it was only
then, so many weeks after the accident, that the cause of the trouble
was found to be a broken knee-cap. It was mended by surgery, after which
he spent many weeks in a wheel-chair, with his whole leg encased in plaster.
He made a good recovery, and exercise was recommended. We went for walks
every day; he would lean on my arm, although he was much taller than I
was, I would try to match his stride and walk in step, and we would walk
for miles. It was decided that he should go back to school after Easter,
and that I was to go to school to, to a little boarding school quite close
to the college at Weymouth. At about this time, aunt Emily Macpherson
brought her four children to go to school in England and settled at Berkhampstead.
George and I were to spend our holidays with her.
Weymouth.
The memory of my school days is so vivid that the temptation to describe
them at length is very great. Until then, I had been taught to speak French
and German; Russian had, as it were, learnt itself. I had been taught
how to enter a drawing-room full of people, dropping a curtsey at the
door to the assembled company; and how to pass round the cakes prettily
at drawing-room tea, and how to retire with another bobbed curtsey at
the door when I was dismissed; and how to arrange the fruit and flowers
for a dinner party; and how to mend silk stockings and lace; and that
was about the extent of my tuition. The discipline of boarding school
was strange indeed. With his damaged knee, however, my brother was not
allowed to play football, so special permission was granted for him to
take me out for walks every Saturday. The town of Weymouth was out of
bounds, but we were allowed to go anywhere along the beach, or inland,
and we would walk for two or three hours. I lived from Saturday to Saturday;
George was a tower of strength. We travelled alone to and from Berkhampstead
in the holidays, which meant taking a cab, called a "Growler", from one
station to another, George looking after me and handling the travel money.
His age then was about 15.
The first summer, aunt Emily took us all to the seaside at Littlehampton
on the south coast, then father and mother came over and we went for a
visit to Jersey, to stay with Eliza Speddings. Father enjoyed taking us
for walks to see all the places he had known as a boy, but mother did
not like that. Scrambling over the rocks, gathering limpets for Mrs. Speddings
to cook for tea, the Channel Islands way, was not for her. She spent all
the time indoors, sewing. She did not have any fun at all.
Mother and father returned to St. Petersburg, George and I went back to
school. One day, some monthe later, my headmistress called me out of class
and said I was excused lessons, as my brother was coming to take me out
because he had something important to tell me. He tried to break it to
me gently but it bowled me over, just thesame. Neither at the college,
nor at my school did we have access to newspapers, but a day-boy had found
a notice in a daily paper about divorce proceedings between Consul and
Mrs. Woodhouse, and had shown it to George, asking if it referred to his
father and mother. George had taken it to his headmaster, who confirmed
that he had heard about it from father, and arranged that George should
come and tell me. Later I learnt that father and mother had insisted we
were not to be told, even aunt Emily had been sworn to secrecy. But how
mother could have imagined that it was better to keep us in ignorance,
or that we should not find out in some such manner, I have never been
able to understand. One of the things that hurt most at the time, was
that mother had renounced all claim to George and me. She started writing
letters about how happy she was, and how much she loved us, but how much
better it was for us to be with father because her "Mishenka", Mikhail
Sergeievich Plaoutine, did not like children.
Somehow we went on with our schooling. In time, I passed an examination
which was equivalent in those days to a school-leaving certificate, and
George finished his course at the Weymouth college. George was to go to
St. Petersburg, to join the Consulate and study for entering the service.
I was to have another year at school. I begged not to return to Weymouth
without him, and was sent to another little dame school at Limpsfield
in Surrey, for "finishing", and I don`t think I learnt anything there
at all. In the spring of 1913, father wrote that he had married again.
Ever since he had been at St. Petersburg, he had called from time to time
to see grannie Mary Rae`s old friend, the widow of General Orlovsky from
Ochakov. He had gone to see her again, after the break with mother, and
one day he had met her recently widowed niece Marie Petrovna. They had
consoled each other, and he had married her. He was bringing her to England
for his honeymoon. I was to leave school at Easter, and go back to St.
Petersburg with them. She had a little daughter, 6 year old Zinaida.
St. Petersburg 1913.
We went first to her apartment whilst our new place was being got ready,
and George had a sort of bachelor establishment at the Consulate, where
he had one of the current brothers of our manservant Prokofy, whom I have
already mentioned, to look after him. George came home to us for meals,
and the office hours in those days were not strenuous: 10 a.m.to 2 p.m.
This was supposed to give George adequate time to study. But in fact,
we started to lead a very gay life. Marie Petrovna, whom we now called
Maniusha, took a house in the country, a "dacha" at Levashovo, just this
side of the Finnish frontier, about half an hour by rail from town, so
that father and George could commute. We found ourselves in the midst
of a very congenial crowd of "dachniki", summer residents, as the summer
residents who lived in a dacha were called, with between 20 and 30 young
people like ourselves. Several of the dachas had tennis courts, there
was a lake for swimming, and pine-woods all around. We would play tennis
every evening until it was too dark to see, which might well be near 11
o`clock, in the white nights of these latitudes. Or the crowd would gather
for a walk in the woods and we would go along singing folk songs or marching
songs, Russian fashion, with somebody singing the verse and the rest giving
a full-throated chorus. Once or twice a week there would be a dance at
somebody`s dacha, arranged simply by pushing back the furniture on the
veranda, and turning on the gramophone. The Russian dances themselves,
were very gay and it was great fun to do the intricate steps of the national
dances like the Polish mazurka or the Caucasian lesghinka. The waltz was
always danced with figures, with a "dirigeur", and in our crowd, it was
usually George. In spite of his damaged knee, he was an excellent dancer,
remarkably graceful, and with a perfect sense of rhythm. He really enjoyed
it, and under his leadership any dance was sure to be lively.
By the way, among the dacha residents at Levashovo was the family of Faberge,
the famous court jewellers, but they did not belong to our crowd. Young
Faberge, the son, was newly married, and that summer there was a new baby,
so they did not come into our tennis-playing company at all. We thought
they were much too old!1 Their dacha was not at all ostantatious, not
like their very opulent shop in the town, with its plate glass windows
set in massive supports of dark red-brown marble, (or maybe granite),
of a peculiar design which I always thought gave them the appearance of
great barrels of treasure. It was a fabulous shop, of course, but to my
mind the shop of the "Uralskiye Kamni" - the stones from the Urals - was
infinitely more fascinating. There they had jewellery, trinkets, carvings,
and every imaginable article that could be fashioned from precious, or
semi-precious stones, from aquamarine , or carved amethyst, quartz, or
malachite, or the dark blue, flecked with gold, of lapis lazuli.
That summer at Levashovo, we had picnics, too. The boys hired horses and
funny little two-wheeled carts, rather like half a carriage with just
room for two people. The girls provided the hampers of food, and we would
set off, 10 or 15 couples, to some picturesque spot on the borders of
Finland. Father had laid down several rules which we dared not break:
nobody but George was ever to bring me home; wherever we went, unless
by very special permission, we had to be in by 11 o`clock: and no matter
what time we got home, we had to be up for breakfast at 9. When we returned
to town, the 11 o`clock rule was waived, but the other rules were never
changed. In time, father added another rule: George and I were not to
go to more than three balls a week.
The household at home consisted of father and Maniusha, Maniusha`s mother,
Zina and her governess, and myself. George lived at the Consulate, with
the office servant, the current brother of Prokofy, to look after him,
until the Consulate was moved to an apartment in the Theatre Square opposite
the famous Marinsky Theatre, when he came to live at home. We had a cook
and two housemaids, and on special occasions, Prokofy`s brother would
be dressed in a livery jacket or tunic and wear gloves, to help serve
at table.
Our circle of friends increased; we received countless invitations, and,
as the son and daughter of the Consul, we were invited to all kinds of
official balls, such as, for instance, at the Naval Academy or the Corps
des Pages. One outstanding function was the ball at the Cadet Corps, where
the director was General Kvadri, a cousin of Maniusha. We were the only
English present, George was the only man in evening dress, since everybody
else was in uniform, the General made a special reference to us in his
speech of welcome to the several hundred guests, and after supper he led
off the ceremonial Mazurka with me as partner!! One other thing about
the dances might be mentioned: it was only because my brother was my escort
that I was allowed to go without a chaperone.
Dances and parties always started late. The invitations might be for 9.
or 9.30, but if one arrived much before 10.30 or 11.00, one would be among
the first. In fact, it was quite in order to go to the opera or the ballet,
and then on to the dance, which usually meant that one did not get home
until 4 or 5 a.m. Hence father`s rule about not more than three balls
a week, and hence also the vivid recollection of that other rule about
9 o`clock breakfast.
Father and Maniusha hated official functions, many of which, they were
obliged to attend, but they always came home early, and Maniusha would
find any, and every excuse, not to go. George and I, on the other hand,
were only too glad to go out. We were so apt to forget, when we were at
home, that Maniusha`s English was not yet fluent. It was a strain for
her when we talked English together, and a strain for us, because it did
not seem natural to talk in Russian with father. George was supposed to
study for his Consular exams in his spare time. To try and earn some pocket-money
I gave English lessons, but detested the job, for which I had no qualification,
since my own schooling had been so sketchy. I studied Russian instead,
and enrolled at the Imperial Institute for the Encouragement of Art, the
pompous name of the art school, which I greatly enjoyed, especially when
I was accepted for the sculpture class. I made new friends, and the student`s
pass enabled us to visit all the art galleries and exhibitions. George
and I were members of our church choir, and after practice, the whole
choir was often invited to tea with the matron of the girls home, ( a
branch of the Girls Friendly Society), which was housed in the church
building. She was an elderly ex-governess, and father had obtained the
post for her. Her invariable greeting was: "Good evening, Miss Woodhouse,
and how is the dear Consul ?".
On Monday evenings was Maniusha`s AT HOME, and she arranged everything
with very Russian and lavish hospitality. The table would be set in the
dining room with a cold buffet, and stacks of plates, as one never knew
exactly how many guests to expect. The elders would arrive early and play
bridge in father`s study, the others would gather in the drawing room
and play the piano, or the gramophone. Very early on, however, all our
friends were caught in the craze for tha Argentine tango, and we would
all be eagerly teaching each other the different steps. George and I learnt
quite a routine which we danced together at private parties. The tango
was not allowed at public balls. It was not considered proper. For one
thing, you could really only dance it with your own partner, and for a
lady to dance a whole dance from beginning to end with only one partner,
was simply not done. The girls sat around the ballroom with their chaperones
as a rule. The man would ask a girl to dance, they would take a couple
of turns round the room, she would say thank you, and he would bring her
back to her chair. He might invite her again, and again, but if she went
on dancing with only one partner, she was no Lady. "Il y a des choses
qu`on ne fait pas !" And it was the duty of the Master of Ceremonies,
the "Dirigeur", to look after the wallflowers.
So we danced the winter through, though we also went skating when it was
not too cold, or to the ice-hills. Since St. Petersburg is very flat,
there were artificial hills built of wood, at opposite ends of the two
ice runways, with steps to a platform at the top, and a steep slide. One
knelt, or sat on a little individual sled, going down in all sorts of
ways, singly, or in formation (simulating a toboggan), racing, or spinning
on the straight, then climbing up the steps on the opposite hill, and
going down the other run. There was usually an attendant to work the pulley,
hauling the sleds up to the platform: the sliders had nothing to do but
enjoy themselves. Then we would go to the clubhouse for tea, followed
by a sleigh-ride round the islands on the way home. The best hills were
those at the Tennis Club and the Yacht Club, not far from the park known
as the "Ostrova ", (meaning islands), which was formed of a group of pretty
little islands joined by bridges. It was also very popular for a drive
around midnight in the summer, when, from a point overlooking the bay,
one could watch the sunset, and rise within the hour, across the water.
In winter, it could certainly be very cold. The Neva river froze over
with ice several feet thick, electric tram lines were laid across the
river and there were several places for other traffic to cross instead
of going round by the bridges. The night-watchman and policemen on point
duty would have braziers in the street to keep themselves warm. One had
to marvel at the endurance of the horses, but there were always plenty
of sleighs available. When we went out, well wrapped in furs, we simply
told the hall porter to call a sleigh, and he would let out a stentorian
"Iz-voz-CHIK", and two or threee would drive up. George would ask: "Which
of you has the best horse?" and then bargain over the fare. The driver
usually asked for double the accepted rate unless the price was agreed
beforehand.
Our mode of life was not popular at home. Always going out was considered
very frivolous, as no doubt it was, but the feeling of constraint only
made us the more anxious to go out. We did not want to be serious. We
wanted to enjoy ourselves; a quiet, often glum evening at home was not
our idea of fun. Yet, if father and Maniusha disapproved of our frivolity,
it was nothing compared to the criticism we received from mother. She
was married again by now; we went to see her from time to time. She would
write, or telephone, begging us to come, and would receive us with open
arms, but the conversation always ended the same way: She criticised everything
about us, where we went, what we did, the way I dressed, how I did my
hair. This was supposed to be for our own good, but it tried us sorely,
especially the things she said about father - she never forgave him for
marrying again! Her attitude was beyond our understanding. The difficult
situation was made worse for me by my aversion to her husband. He was
sarcastic and supercililous; the dislike was probably mutual. George was
kinder, less resentful than I was, but equally distressed, and the deplorable
result was that we avoided such visits as much as we could.
With the coming of 1914, it was decided to take a dacha at the seaside,
and Maniusha chose Merekull, a little resort near Narva in Estonia, on
the Baltic. We moved at the end of May, father and George remained in
town, coming out for the week-ends. In June came the offic
