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There is really nothing in this letter that is of interest to the Stokey family. But I enjoy Margaret Jackson's letters, and I figure Kathleen did too, because she saved them.
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Jan. 30th 1934
33. Marlborough Avenue
Reading.
England
My dear Kathleen,
The news of your terribly sad time last year has just reached me through Miss Brightwell and I feel that I must send my deep and loving sympathy. It is almost 21 years since my own Father left us, and many are the times when I badly need his beloved company, so I do know what you are passing through. How grateful one is for all the happy memories of a dear Father - the best heritage anyone can have. I think I only met your Father once, but the impression remains with me yet of a strong and vivid personality. Just 24 years ago since you + I said our goodbyes, you for U.S.A. and I for Aberdeen: there is an idea in my mind that just about then your father had a sharp illness which gave you all much anxiety.
Your young folks must be at a most interesting stage - sometime I would love to hear about them. Some years ago I’m afraid I was a rotten correspondent + let you down badly, so it would serve me right if you never wrote to me again. But that was when I was so groggy + now at last I’m fit again + hoping to be forgiven for my sins of omission.
These holidays I’ve been spending a few days with the Tandys - it was 11 years since I’d been able to go a visit there on my own + the thrill of being able to cross London by bus again was almost worth all the mucky years! However it looks as if I’d enjoy life now: as a great old friend of ours said the other day, “Margaret dear what a happy old age you’ll be able to enjoy after missing so much!
Tandys house is really just as ever - same old rose brocade in drawing room + all those masses of furniture + dozens of ornaments!!! The upstairs music room is if anything fuller as Mr. Tandy is retired now + does even more electric experimenting - you can just get in at the door + getting to the windows is like an obstacle race. Mrs. Tandy has heart attacks and various other attacks but is really wonderful, and as they treat themselves to about 2 cruises a year she is very well when she is well. In fact cruising seems to suit her + when they get home after she feels so full of beans that she overdoes everything.
I met Katie Spray (Judd) - absolutely white + very big + fine - the mother of 3 children:- of whom the eldest is 6 ft 7 ¾ ins in his socks and only 16 years!!! at present he is a bean post but they hope he may grow sideways now. Mrs. Victor Stevenson was asking for you + Ruth - as also was Katie Judd. Barbara Stevenson is married to Jack Corsan + has one little girl. Gladys Corsan is living in Germany - her husband Ewan Smith having an engineering job there. I saw a photo of her 4 children + would have known them anywhere as belonging to Gladys.
Elsie Bishop (Milne) sent me a long letter the other day + as she said Tina had seen Miss Brightwell I suddenly thought I’d ask Miss B for your address. Elsie has 5 young people + has her hands very full - the older ones at the left school + starting in the world stage.
Winnie Johnson is in Reading still and we meet often at the Music Club.
Olga Hughes came over for a long chat when we were in Somerset last summer - she was staying 3 miles away. They have had a dreadfully sad time ever since last February - Ursula, the youngest, who was a successful + charming musical comedy actress was badly burned in an accident in her theatre dressing room. She lay between life + death for weeks + then the only chance was amputation of one leg above the knee - almost at the thigh. After that she gradually rallied + now she is convalescent and hoping soon to experiment with an artificial limb. You can imagine that life must have seemed pretty grim to her - and very gruelling for all of them to have to stand by.
The accident was in all the English papers + from Olga’s 1st letter after it there seemed no hope. Ursula has put up a marvellous fight and now is beginning to feel that there still may be a career for her. Olga says it has broken up their Mother badly + they all see a big change in her during the year.
Gwendolen came home from U.S.A. to see Ursula in the late summer but didn’t stay long - she isn’t fond of England!
Mother and I spent Christmas at Purley (Surrey) with Forbes, Olive + Robert. And on Boxing Day Forbes had an urge to take us over to Bow to explore old haunts. We went via Blackwall Tunnel + up through Bromley by Bow to Bow Rd. It was an oozy day with a grey mist + I can’t think how we every lived in such a dingy spot! But we found our old house + the Coborn + the Coopers, + even met Dave Macrae (son of old Dr Macrae) living in his same old house. So it was no dream.
Mother will be 76 this week and is busting with excitement because of her new house that is to be built. She has always hated this one + spent so much time looking at every empty house she could see that Forbes decided last year he would plan a wee place + have it built for us. The land is just outside the borough + near Lindsay + Irene. Lindsay is the only one living in Reading so we might as well be within easy reach of him. As far as school is concerned the distance will be about the same as now, only I shall enter the grounds from the further end. It is to be a semi bungalow - 2 bedrooms upstairs for a spare room + for me - + 1 downstairs for Mother + also bathroom downstairs. It will be sunny + high + dry + at the back will look over the school grounds. The garden will be rather bigger than we can cope with + will probably left wild at the bottom end. We shan’t get in till June at the earliest as nothing is done yet but the back fence, + the plans are waiting for the County Council’s sweet approval.
This address will always find us - but later on I’ll send you the new one.
All the boys are well + happy. Tom + Phyl at Mill Hill School in London - they have no family. Will + Doris still in Melbourne - 4 children David 11, Barbara 8, Rosamund 5, Marjorie 3. Lindsay + Irene here - no family so far! but hope we may arrive near them in time to welcome a little one. Jim + Joan in Glasgow - no family in spite of 2 hard disappointments.
The Australian youngsters seem musical - Barbara played the nursery rhymes for her class to sing at her school concert, + Doris thinks Marjorie shows much promise already.
Forbes’ only child Robert has always assumed an air of superiority to anything musical - but Olive has just discovered that he is now in his School Chapel Choir (Abingdon) + his class music report at Christmas was quite a shock! However he has inherited all his Daddy’s electric interests + isn’t likely to do anything else in life. Forbes changed jobs last May as he suddenly got a chance of the London County Council Divisional Engineer work - he was convinced that it was work he would love and he resigned from Merz + McLellan. He just adores it + feels that everything he has ever done was preparing him for this. He sees Mary Milne now + then - she went into L.C.C. work last July after being Matron of St Marys Hospital Paddington. She seems to do Nursing + Welfare Supervision + organizing + Forbes says she has a very fine job for which she is exceptionally well suited.
When Mother isn’t talking about the possible new grandchild she is planning what she is going to move into her new garden. I’m so glad for her to have these new interests and hope we shall get it all safely through. She is very energetic and needs something always to keep her going + work it off on.
Now this must do - there are plenty things waiting to be done, and 4 pages are enough for you to read at one sitting. I’m putting this into one for Ruth as your present address is unknown to me - I’ll leave it open for Ruth to read as some of the news of Tandys etc may interest her.
Very much love my dear for old times sake + my loving thoughts for your sorrow.
Yours affectionately
Margaret
At school we have a nephew of Miss Scarr - a very clever + delightful boy. It was Miss Scarr who told me Miss Brightwell corresponded with Ruth.
33. Marlborough Avenue
Reading.
England
My dear Kathleen,
The news of your terribly sad time last year has just reached me through Miss Brightwell and I feel that I must send my deep and loving sympathy. It is almost 21 years since my own Father left us, and many are the times when I badly need his beloved company, so I do know what you are passing through. How grateful one is for all the happy memories of a dear Father - the best heritage anyone can have. I think I only met your Father once, but the impression remains with me yet of a strong and vivid personality. Just 24 years ago since you + I said our goodbyes, you for U.S.A. and I for Aberdeen: there is an idea in my mind that just about then your father had a sharp illness which gave you all much anxiety.
Your young folks must be at a most interesting stage - sometime I would love to hear about them. Some years ago I’m afraid I was a rotten correspondent + let you down badly, so it would serve me right if you never wrote to me again. But that was when I was so groggy + now at last I’m fit again + hoping to be forgiven for my sins of omission.
These holidays I’ve been spending a few days with the Tandys - it was 11 years since I’d been able to go a visit there on my own + the thrill of being able to cross London by bus again was almost worth all the mucky years! However it looks as if I’d enjoy life now: as a great old friend of ours said the other day, “Margaret dear what a happy old age you’ll be able to enjoy after missing so much!
Tandys house is really just as ever - same old rose brocade in drawing room + all those masses of furniture + dozens of ornaments!!! The upstairs music room is if anything fuller as Mr. Tandy is retired now + does even more electric experimenting - you can just get in at the door + getting to the windows is like an obstacle race. Mrs. Tandy has heart attacks and various other attacks but is really wonderful, and as they treat themselves to about 2 cruises a year she is very well when she is well. In fact cruising seems to suit her + when they get home after she feels so full of beans that she overdoes everything.
I met Katie Spray (Judd) - absolutely white + very big + fine - the mother of 3 children:- of whom the eldest is 6 ft 7 ¾ ins in his socks and only 16 years!!! at present he is a bean post but they hope he may grow sideways now. Mrs. Victor Stevenson was asking for you + Ruth - as also was Katie Judd. Barbara Stevenson is married to Jack Corsan + has one little girl. Gladys Corsan is living in Germany - her husband Ewan Smith having an engineering job there. I saw a photo of her 4 children + would have known them anywhere as belonging to Gladys.
Elsie Bishop (Milne) sent me a long letter the other day + as she said Tina had seen Miss Brightwell I suddenly thought I’d ask Miss B for your address. Elsie has 5 young people + has her hands very full - the older ones at the left school + starting in the world stage.
Winnie Johnson is in Reading still and we meet often at the Music Club.
Olga Hughes came over for a long chat when we were in Somerset last summer - she was staying 3 miles away. They have had a dreadfully sad time ever since last February - Ursula, the youngest, who was a successful + charming musical comedy actress was badly burned in an accident in her theatre dressing room. She lay between life + death for weeks + then the only chance was amputation of one leg above the knee - almost at the thigh. After that she gradually rallied + now she is convalescent and hoping soon to experiment with an artificial limb. You can imagine that life must have seemed pretty grim to her - and very gruelling for all of them to have to stand by.
The accident was in all the English papers + from Olga’s 1st letter after it there seemed no hope. Ursula has put up a marvellous fight and now is beginning to feel that there still may be a career for her. Olga says it has broken up their Mother badly + they all see a big change in her during the year.
Gwendolen came home from U.S.A. to see Ursula in the late summer but didn’t stay long - she isn’t fond of England!
Mother and I spent Christmas at Purley (Surrey) with Forbes, Olive + Robert. And on Boxing Day Forbes had an urge to take us over to Bow to explore old haunts. We went via Blackwall Tunnel + up through Bromley by Bow to Bow Rd. It was an oozy day with a grey mist + I can’t think how we every lived in such a dingy spot! But we found our old house + the Coborn + the Coopers, + even met Dave Macrae (son of old Dr Macrae) living in his same old house. So it was no dream.
Mother will be 76 this week and is busting with excitement because of her new house that is to be built. She has always hated this one + spent so much time looking at every empty house she could see that Forbes decided last year he would plan a wee place + have it built for us. The land is just outside the borough + near Lindsay + Irene. Lindsay is the only one living in Reading so we might as well be within easy reach of him. As far as school is concerned the distance will be about the same as now, only I shall enter the grounds from the further end. It is to be a semi bungalow - 2 bedrooms upstairs for a spare room + for me - + 1 downstairs for Mother + also bathroom downstairs. It will be sunny + high + dry + at the back will look over the school grounds. The garden will be rather bigger than we can cope with + will probably left wild at the bottom end. We shan’t get in till June at the earliest as nothing is done yet but the back fence, + the plans are waiting for the County Council’s sweet approval.
This address will always find us - but later on I’ll send you the new one.
All the boys are well + happy. Tom + Phyl at Mill Hill School in London - they have no family. Will + Doris still in Melbourne - 4 children David 11, Barbara 8, Rosamund 5, Marjorie 3. Lindsay + Irene here - no family so far! but hope we may arrive near them in time to welcome a little one. Jim + Joan in Glasgow - no family in spite of 2 hard disappointments.
The Australian youngsters seem musical - Barbara played the nursery rhymes for her class to sing at her school concert, + Doris thinks Marjorie shows much promise already.
Forbes’ only child Robert has always assumed an air of superiority to anything musical - but Olive has just discovered that he is now in his School Chapel Choir (Abingdon) + his class music report at Christmas was quite a shock! However he has inherited all his Daddy’s electric interests + isn’t likely to do anything else in life. Forbes changed jobs last May as he suddenly got a chance of the London County Council Divisional Engineer work - he was convinced that it was work he would love and he resigned from Merz + McLellan. He just adores it + feels that everything he has ever done was preparing him for this. He sees Mary Milne now + then - she went into L.C.C. work last July after being Matron of St Marys Hospital Paddington. She seems to do Nursing + Welfare Supervision + organizing + Forbes says she has a very fine job for which she is exceptionally well suited.
When Mother isn’t talking about the possible new grandchild she is planning what she is going to move into her new garden. I’m so glad for her to have these new interests and hope we shall get it all safely through. She is very energetic and needs something always to keep her going + work it off on.
Now this must do - there are plenty things waiting to be done, and 4 pages are enough for you to read at one sitting. I’m putting this into one for Ruth as your present address is unknown to me - I’ll leave it open for Ruth to read as some of the news of Tandys etc may interest her.
Very much love my dear for old times sake + my loving thoughts for your sorrow.
Yours affectionately
Margaret
At school we have a nephew of Miss Scarr - a very clever + delightful boy. It was Miss Scarr who told me Miss Brightwell corresponded with Ruth.
audio---images---comment---transcript---~NOTES~---links---site navigation
1.
The news of your terribly sad time last year has just reached me through Miss Brightwell and I feel that I must send my deep and loving sympathy.
As Margaret explains later in the letter, Miss Brightwell is in correspondence with Kathleen's sister, Ruth Farmer. The "terribly sad time" refers to the illness in 1933 of Kathleen's father, lasting several months and ending with his death in September 1933.
2.
It is almost 21 years since my own Father left us, and many are the times when I badly need his beloved company, so I do know what you are passing through.
We have a letter from Margaret from when her father died in 1913, which I haven't uploaded yet.
3.
I think I only met your Father once, but the impression remains with me yet of a strong and vivid personality.
This echoes what Kathleen said in a letter to Will just after her father died:You see so many times I have resorted to Father when other things failed but that is all done with now.
4.
These holidays I’ve been spending a few days with the Tandys - it was 11 years since I’d been able to go a visit there on my own + the thrill of being able to cross London by bus again was almost worth all the mucky years! However it looks as if I’d enjoy life now: as a great old friend of ours said the other day, “Margaret dear what a happy old age you’ll be able to enjoy after missing so much!
Mrs. Tandy was a teacher (music, I think) of both Kathleen and Margaret. We've got a letter from her to Kathleen that I haven't uploaded. It's not as much fun as Margaret's letters, but there is one thing of interest about it: Mrs. Tandy had serious eyesight problems; I assume she was legally blind except that I doubt there was a legal definition of blindness back then. So she couldn't write letters until she acquired a typewriter and, Margaret reported with admiration, memorized the location of the keys on the typewriter keyboard.
Margaret's "mucky years" had ended with some unspecified but clearly successful operation.
5.
Gladys Corsan is living in Germany - her husband Ewan Smith having an engineering job there. I saw a photo of her 4 children + would have known them anywhere as belonging to Gladys.
That interested me - imagine being a British person working in Nazi Germany! - so I googled and found a little: He was Ewen Ross Smith and she was Ada Gladys Corsan, married April 17, 1915, when he was a 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Engineers. I’m imagining a nice romantic wartime wedding.
There’s a 1934 US patent application from him for “Apparatus for the forming of thick paper articles, such as barrels, tubs, plates, and the like“'. No date of death found for him. She died in 1965.
Incidentally, I shall always wonder if Gladys Corsan Smith is the Gladys who called Kathleen "Gasolene" - see:
6.
I suddenly thought I’d ask Miss B for your address.
Dear me. We have a letter from Margaret from December 1931. Kathleen's address hadn't changed since then, and neither had Ruth's. So I guess Margaret just lost the address.
7.
Winnie Johnson is in Reading still and we meet often at the Music Club.
We have a letter or two from Winnie to Kathleen that I haven't uploaded.
8.
Olga Hughes came over for a long chat when we were in Somerset last summer - she was staying 3 miles away. They have had a dreadfully sad time ever since last February - Ursula, the youngest, who was a successful + charming musical comedy actress was badly burned in an accident in her theatre dressing room.
I found an Ursula Hughes on IMDB - one movie. Her dates are 1898-1990, so if I got the right one, then she lived to a ripe old age.
9.
We hear lots about Margaret's brothers in various letters. There are:
The news of your terribly sad time last year has just reached me through Miss Brightwell and I feel that I must send my deep and loving sympathy.
As Margaret explains later in the letter, Miss Brightwell is in correspondence with Kathleen's sister, Ruth Farmer. The "terribly sad time" refers to the illness in 1933 of Kathleen's father, lasting several months and ending with his death in September 1933.
2.
It is almost 21 years since my own Father left us, and many are the times when I badly need his beloved company, so I do know what you are passing through.
We have a letter from Margaret from when her father died in 1913, which I haven't uploaded yet.
3.
I think I only met your Father once, but the impression remains with me yet of a strong and vivid personality.
This echoes what Kathleen said in a letter to Will just after her father died:You see so many times I have resorted to Father when other things failed but that is all done with now.
4.
These holidays I’ve been spending a few days with the Tandys - it was 11 years since I’d been able to go a visit there on my own + the thrill of being able to cross London by bus again was almost worth all the mucky years! However it looks as if I’d enjoy life now: as a great old friend of ours said the other day, “Margaret dear what a happy old age you’ll be able to enjoy after missing so much!
Mrs. Tandy was a teacher (music, I think) of both Kathleen and Margaret. We've got a letter from her to Kathleen that I haven't uploaded. It's not as much fun as Margaret's letters, but there is one thing of interest about it: Mrs. Tandy had serious eyesight problems; I assume she was legally blind except that I doubt there was a legal definition of blindness back then. So she couldn't write letters until she acquired a typewriter and, Margaret reported with admiration, memorized the location of the keys on the typewriter keyboard.
Margaret's "mucky years" had ended with some unspecified but clearly successful operation.
5.
Gladys Corsan is living in Germany - her husband Ewan Smith having an engineering job there. I saw a photo of her 4 children + would have known them anywhere as belonging to Gladys.
That interested me - imagine being a British person working in Nazi Germany! - so I googled and found a little: He was Ewen Ross Smith and she was Ada Gladys Corsan, married April 17, 1915, when he was a 2nd Lieutenant, Royal Engineers. I’m imagining a nice romantic wartime wedding.
There’s a 1934 US patent application from him for “Apparatus for the forming of thick paper articles, such as barrels, tubs, plates, and the like“'. No date of death found for him. She died in 1965.
Incidentally, I shall always wonder if Gladys Corsan Smith is the Gladys who called Kathleen "Gasolene" - see:
6.
I suddenly thought I’d ask Miss B for your address.
Dear me. We have a letter from Margaret from December 1931. Kathleen's address hadn't changed since then, and neither had Ruth's. So I guess Margaret just lost the address.
7.
Winnie Johnson is in Reading still and we meet often at the Music Club.
We have a letter or two from Winnie to Kathleen that I haven't uploaded.
8.
Olga Hughes came over for a long chat when we were in Somerset last summer - she was staying 3 miles away. They have had a dreadfully sad time ever since last February - Ursula, the youngest, who was a successful + charming musical comedy actress was badly burned in an accident in her theatre dressing room.
I found an Ursula Hughes on IMDB - one movie. Her dates are 1898-1990, so if I got the right one, then she lived to a ripe old age.
9.
We hear lots about Margaret's brothers in various letters. There are:
- Forbes Jackson - wife Olive, son Robert.
- Tom Jackson - wife Phyl.
- Will Jackson, currently but not permanently in Australia - wife Doris, children David, Barbara, Rosamund, and Marjorie.
- Lindsay Jackson in Reading - wife Irene.
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