by Knight, Lynn
LEMON SHERBET AND DOLLY BLUE
Lemon Sherbet
and
Dolly Blue
The Story of an Accidental Family
LYNN KNIGHT
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2011
by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Lynn Knight 2011
The moral right of Lynn Knight to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 184887 416 9
eBook ISBN: 978 0 85789 574 5
Printed in Great Britain
Atlantic Books
An Imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd
Ormond House
26–27 Boswell Street
London
WCIN 3JZ
www.atlantic-books.co.uk
For my brother
who shares this history with me
Contents
Cast of Characters
Drawing of Wheeldon Mill
List of Illustrations
Prologue
PART ONE
1 I Deliver My Son
2 Brasso and Dolly Blue
PART TWO
3 Pick Me
4 Eva Nash, 1909
5 Turn and Turn-about
6 A Garden Party and a Wedding Invitation
7 Goodbyes, 1914–16
8 Oh Dear! What a Dreadful War
9 Tea for Two
10 Modern Times
11 Motherless Mites
PART THREE
12 Cora
13 Nobody’s Sweetheart
14 Afternoon Visiting
15 Back to the Racecourse
16 Oh Romany, I See the Camp Fires Burning
17 Woolworth’s Gems and Saturday Treats
18 Chocolate Fudge for Alice Faye
19 Fast Cars and Darker Stories
20 Wartime Snow and Ice 303
21 Shoot Straight, Lady
22 Silver Shoes
23 Endings and Beginnings
24 Beginnings and Endings
Sources
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Cast of Characters
THE FAMILY
Richard Dorance Nash, Dick – my great-grandfather
Betsy Nash (née Ward) – my great-grandma
Annie Dorrans Nash – my grandma
Willie Thompson – my grandfather
(Doris) Eva Nash – Annie’s sister, my great-aunt
Cora Thompson – my mum
THE FAMILIES ‘BEHIND’ THE FAMILY
Thomas and Sarah Walker – fairground people
Richard Darnce* – their son, who becomes Richard Dorance Nash on adoption
Joseph and Mary Nash – Richard’s adoptive parents; my great-great-grandparents
William Nash – Joseph and Mary’s son (also the name given to Richard’s nephew and his young son, both of whom visit the corner shop)
Thomas Martin – collier, Eva’s father
Emily Ball – Eva’s mother
Nellie Martin – daughter
Kitty Martin /Ball – daughter
Margaret Martin /Ball – daughter
Annie Martin /Ball – youngest daughter, who becomes (Doris) Eva Nash on adoption
Jessie Mee – Cora’s birth mother
Mrs Sedgwick – her employer
Frances M. Wood (née Mee) – Jessie’s married sister
Jessie’s baby – my mum – becomes Cora Thompson on adoption
FAMILY CONNECTIONS AND SUNDAY VISITORS
Annie Wardle (née Ward) – Betsy’s oldest sister, a former ladies’ maid
George Walter Hardcastle – friend of family; sweet on Annie
Annie Wardle’s son Jack – killed, First World War
Annie Wardle’s son Charlie – invalided out, First World War
Edie Wardle – Charlie’s wife
Liza – Betsy’s youngest and favourite sister
SOME FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS AT WHEELDON MILL
Florrie Stokes – neighbour and mother of Annie’s friend Ethel Ethel Stokes – Florrie’s daughter, Annie’s lifelong friend and childhood defender
Rolly Cook – Ethel’s second husband (also the name of Ethel’s son)
Nora Parks – collier’s wife
Edna Parks – one of Nora’s daughters, marries Clem Stokes
Kathleen Driver – soaps the stairs
Clara Tissington – neighbour (lives higher up the hill)
Zoe Graham – publican’s daughter, Annie’s childhood friend Carrie Rice – Eva’s lifelong friend
Mildred Taylor – collier’s wife, has pony-driver sons
Jimmy Frith – neighbour; shell-shocked, First World War
Maud Cartwright – back-door visitor to corner shop
Pearl Cartwright – Maud’s daughter; Saturday visitor to corner shop
Clem Stokes – one of Ethel’s brothers; injured First World War, marries Edna Parks
Georgie, Katie and Punka Stokes – some of Clem and Edna’s children
Charles/Charlie Parks – Edna Stokes’ brother and lodger
(SOME OF) WILLIE’S FAMILY
Jim Thompson – Willie’s brother and employer; Mayor of Chesterfield 1939–40
Edith Thompson – his wife
Bernard and Ida Thompson – Willie’s brother and wife; Ida works in Derbyshire’s outfitter’s, Whittington Moor
NEIGHBOURS RACECOURSE ROAD
Mrs Blake – trusted next-door neighbour
Grace and Tommy Blake – two of Mrs Blake’s children; Cora’s playmates
* See Chapter 23 for a discussion of the variants in the spelling of my great-grandfather’s name
MOST NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED
List of Illustrations
p.10 Spoof Race Card, Chesterfield Races, November 1863.
p.19 My great-grandfather’s adoption document.
p.31 Memoriam Card for Mary Elizabeth, my great-grandparents’ first child.
p.32 My great-grandparents, Betsy and Dick, with my grandma, Annie.
p.35 The construction of Linacre’s third reservoir. Dick, the foreman, is standing in the centre, arms folded.
p.36 A studio portrait of Betsy.
p.39 Wheeldon Mill circa 1908.
p.49 Advertisement for ‘Dolly Blue, Dolly Tints, Dolly Fast Dyes’.
p.58 Annie, grammar-school girl.
p.67 Chesterfield Industrial School, photographed by Nadin, a Chesterfield photographer.
p.70 List of Christmas presents received for the children of the Chesterfield Children’s Homes, 29 December 1903.
p.80 Annie and my great-aunt, Eva, shortly after Eva joined the family.
p.80 Annie and Eva on the Christmas card my great-grandparents sent to celebrate Eva’s first Christmas with them.
p.85 A studio portrait of Eva a few years after her adoption.
p.93 Young men outside the corner shop shortly before the First World War brought death to the neighbourhood.
p.99 Annie (seated, far left
) with some of her fellow pupil-teachers – though not George – and staff, Netherthorpe Grammar School. Headmaster, Miall Spencer, is also sitting on the front row.
p.104 Jim Thompson and party in 1915, celebrating his political success. Thompson’s cake shop (with awning) is on the left.
p.105 The second silent postcard with which Willie wooed Annie, featuring Thompson’s bakery cart.
p.109 Wartime advertisement for Sunlight Soap, Derbyshire Times, 4 November 1916.
p.111 My grandparents shortly before their marriage.
p.111 One of the First World War cards George sent to Eva from the French Front.
p.112 Newly-married Annie.
p.125 ‘Conquer or Die’, another of George’s wartime cards.
p.132 Sheik’s sons, photographed by Willie.
p.133 Willie (right) and fellow combatant in the Middle East.
p.137 The silk handkerchief Annie embroidered.
p.138 The swan pen-wipe.
p.141 The musical box from one of Dick’s ‘big house’ sales.
p.147 Annie and Willie in the bakehouse yard behind the cake shop.
p.151 Betsy and Eva on the doorstep of the corner shop towards the close of a long, hard day.
p.154 Autumn fashions on sale at Swallow’s, September 1923.
p.155 Cover of Fancy Needlework Illustrated, circa 1923.
p.158 Dick, resting his arm on the engine, in his Sheepbridge days.
p.164 Dick in the wood with his chickens.
p.179 Drawing of Tower Cressy by Frank Emanuel.
p.185 Classified advertisements for domestic servants, The Lady, 7 July 1927.
p.190 Willie’s photograph of Tower Cressy.
p.191 Clara Andrew and babies in the garden at Tower Cressy.
p.192 NCAA instructions given to Annie and Willie.
p.197 Annie with my mum.
p.200 My mum’s second-birthday photograph, with her teddy bear and a cake baked by Willie.
p.204 My mum doing a dance for her dad (a ‘donkey stone’ is on the window ledge).
p.212 Eva.
p.219 ‘Come Out of the kitchen!’ Advertisement for the Parkinson New Suburbia Gas Cooker, circa 1930s.
p.222 A daytrip to the seaside: Betsy and Annie with my mum.
p.227 My mum’s fourth-birthday photograph.
p.232 My mum with her doll’s pram and Sooty the cat in the back garden at Racecourse Road (Willie’s sturdy gate is to the right).
p.239 Joan Mason.
p.241 My mum (right) with a fellow pupil of the Joan Mason Dancing School, performing a minuet.
p.250 Dick with his friend Mr Woolley in the wood.
p.257 Front cover of Coronation Issue, Daily Sketch, 15 May 1937.
p.265 Bookends – a childhood gift for my mum.
p.270 My mum’s pocket mirror in its Mickey Mouse case.
p.273 Dick on the occasion of his ‘exaltation’ to the RAOB Roll of Honour.
p.285 My mum ‘advertising’ Thompson’s Grade A Bread.
p.294 My mum (right) with her next-door neighbour playmate and Tissie and Scottie.
p.308 Willie circa 1920s.
p.314 ‘Shoot Straight, Lady’. Ministry of Food advice for the woman at home.
p.317 Annie’s summons for showing a light.
p.320 A patriotic postcard of Chesterfield.
p.325 My mum tap-dancing on the board her Uncle Jim had specially made so she could perform for his guests at a Mayoral garden party.
p.334 Programme for ‘Dance Parade of 1943’ performed by the Iliffe School of Dancing.
p.337 ‘Salute the Soldier’ finale photograph from ‘This is the Army’ stage show, Chesterfield Regal, 1944.
p.342 The ceramic decoration from my mum’s fourteenth-birthday cake.
p.346 My great-aunt and grandma in the early 1950s.
LEMON SHERBET AND DOLLY BLUE
‘I’m adopted, because mummy and daddy have no children. I think that’s better fun, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ replied Herbert, after consideration; ‘anybody could be born.’
From ‘The Tommy Crans’, Elizabeth Bowen
Prologue
There is no childhood photograph of my great-grandfather. His parents gave him away when they left for America. They did not even tell Dick when his birthday was, and so were hardly likely to pose for a family group (and I doubt they had the sixpence to spare). There is a photograph of my great-aunt, Eva, however, and she’s standing in the garden shortly after she was brought home to the corner shop. And there are several pictures of my mum, a babe in arms, soon after she joined the family. All the women wanted to be photographed with Cora.
It is said that you can’t choose your relatives, but some of my family did. Dick, Eva and Cora were all adopted, and adopted in three distinct ways. I know of no other family like this one. Perhaps it was their precarious beginnings and their sense of how slippery facts can be that made them enthusiastic storytellers. I grew up hearing their stories and have been longing to pass them on, but I’ve also wanted to uncover some of the mysteries and silences behind them. In exploring a family stitched together by adoption, there is much I have needed to discover for myself. I’ve also been longing to recreate a place which was a rich part of my family’s life and the tales told to me during childhood. I never knew my great-grandma’s corner shop, but I’ve heard its stories so many times I feel I know the ching of its bell.
My great-grandparents died before I was born, but I spent a lot of time with my grandma and great-aunt, Annie and Eva. I had my own shop too, courtesy of a game we played in their pantry. Buttons were my ready currency (and, on other days, the buttons themselves entertained me: Annie saying, ‘Oh, those jet buttons were Mam’s. I remember…’ and heading into another story). Annie and Eva bought imaginary chocolate and ice cream, as well as soap powder and pegs, and quarters of cough drops (red buttons) and, Eva’s particular favourites, Pontefract cakes (large, black). To lend authenticity to our game, Eva approached the pantry with her shopping bag, but she had not forgotten her days on the other side of the counter and showed me how to twist newspaper into the narrow cones in which I sold the imitation sweets.
The real corner shop stood in a tu’penny-ha’penny district, hardly a district as such, on the edge of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, the county where, in the words of native-born Violet Markham, ‘north meets south and the Pennines swoop down to gather up the flat and placid midlands into a stern embrace of rock and moor’. Administratively, Chesterfield is defined as the East Midlands, but it is North Derbyshire, twelve miles south of Sheffield (‘the true North-country’, according to J.B. Priestley) and its characteristics (and humour) have always seemed northern to me. Today, the town is famed for the Crooked Spire on its parish church, St Mary and All Saints. Some say the devil sat on it; others that, on observing the rare sight of a virgin marrying within, the spire leaned down to take a closer look and could not straighten up again.
You could see the tip of the Crooked Spire when you stood outside my great-grandma’s shop. Those first photographs of my mum were taken on the shop’s doorstep, which overlooked the pub and had a clear view of the branch-line railway station below. Shank’s pony was the more usual transport for those in the immediate vicinity, but Betsy’s shop was a good place to pause and see who might arrive on the next train. It functioned as a kind of drop-in centre too: people came to talk as well as shop.
The shop’s main window, reserved for sweets, held the large glass-stoppered jars of dolly-mixtures, humbugs and a dazzle of Quality Street in coloured foils, but individual chocolate bars were kept behind the counter, beyond the reach of thieving hands. In the sunny window to the side, where advertisements curled and faded, a cardboard Vim declared that modern women had been released from household drudgery, though everyone round about took that for the nonsense it was.
By the time I knew my great-aunt Eva, she was the spirited adventurer. Being with her was sometimes like being with an old
er child, a wholly reliable protector, but someone who knew about fun. My grandma, Annie, was more reserved, but hers was the lap I snuggled into, her big doughy arms wrapped about me while we read the same books she’d read to my mum. My grandma read to me each Sunday, the two of us sinking into her leatherette chair, the Jacobean-print curtains behind us screening us from the afternoon sun.
They were great keepers of things, Annie and Eva (keepers of secrets too, I’ve since discovered): clothes and jewellery, beaded purses, handbags – my visits in later years were like feasting in a vintage shop. They also kept family documents and papers; newspaper cuttings in biscuit tins; handwritten recipes; notebooks. That vital documents were saved should not surprise me, but in a family shaped in such an unusual way, it feels remarkable that they were. All kinds of material survives, whether by happenstance or intention; the cuttings in my grandma’s commonplace book, for example, helped me understand more about the young woman she was in the years before I was born.
My mum picked up the habit of keeping record: notebooks, childhood poems, drawings; the minutiae of her young life. She also learned the habit of telling stories – her tales of her grandparents and the corner shop expanded those told me by Annie and Eva. She had her own fund of stories too, some involving the dance dresses of her youth – pink sateen with ric-tac braid, or yellow with a sequined heart in emerald green – which became the dressing-up clothes of my childhood.
One of my favourite excursions when I was young was lunch with my mum at Woodhead’s Café, all dark wood panels, chrome and pistachio green, its decor barely changed since the 1930s. Here, provincial ladies lunched on creamed carrots and shepherd’s pie, as provincial ladies had lunched for many years, the sound of an EPNS teaspoon scraping the last of a strawberry ice the only disruption to their quiet afternoon. In London the 1960s were happening, but London was a million miles away.
By the time I was a teenager, we’d shrugged off Woodhead’s and the High Street and headed, instead, for Sheffield and its shops, scudding along leafy lanes in Mum’s powder-blue Mini, talking ten-to-the-dozen all the while. We’ve talked (and laughed) a lot in recent years, sitting at her dining table, sifting through old photographs and papers, reluctant to interrupt our conversation to get up and peel potatoes at the sink.