Ancestry and True Tales

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WASH LANE CLACTON-on-Sea Residential Care Home and others at THE SEAS EDGES … … …


Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and meaningful New Year 2012/2013 …
… from the Pyrenees France …

SIMPLE GIFTS enclosed - In memory of my youngest Auntie  :   ESTHER nee Gordon Mrs POTTER who was very happy with you by THE SEAS EDGES …  but had to go to Heaven this last June 2012 - she had been looking forward to her 100th birthday with you all … I would speak with her on the telephone and in letters … her son Richard died last Christmas day and her health began to run down

I send some Continental chocolates  (cut in half to protect teeth)   in a 1930s style box :  some amongst you may remember that we used to keep the nice chocolate boxes for putting best silk stockings and handkerchiefs in … or letters from friends … 1920s/1930s onwards …

… Also a big good quality paper reproduction of a painting by her father George Ernest Gordon, born 1868 he began at 17 years in The Lancers without permission from his father who was angry but could not get him released :  1891 now married to Mary Helena Carroll Williams he joined the Mounted Police  … He painted for pleasure - gave them to the family and friends for birthdays … he paints sites he knew, & the tiny figures are people he knew.  

This one is called GOING TO CHURCH BY MOONLIGHT IN THE SNOW - it maybe countryside near Birmingham - his eldest son Arthur married Nellie MAXTED a farming family from that countryside - or it may be Epping Forest near to Woodford Green.  It was to be given to me when I married … so `in my bottom drawer`   Georges-Andre Colonel MALRAUX writes me age 12 years a story 1945 from this painting … he is on Grandpa`s big bike and coming down the hill in the snow he stops and talks with these figures coming to Church … meets them next day … and returns all his life from his work in France and about the world …  

GEG father of ESTHER grew up in Greenwich where his father JFG of Edinburgh was Mine Host of the beautiful Trafalgar Tavern that great building on the Waterfront -   … George went with his 5 brothers to the Doctor Bell Academy on the Heath on ponies - two sisters Edith & Alice had a Governess at home & disagreed with their Father - they wanted to go to school  - Their elder brother FHG had painting lessons from a fashionable Art Master but young George sat beside his brother watching how to paint ... George loved animals and nature.   (  Elder brother Henry Frederick Gordon has a mention in the 1st Detective Story 1920 THE CASK … the family knew the author who worked for the Railways … hence the superb use of timing of trains and cross channel connections to France after The Great War 1914-1920 - it is still a very good exciting read  nowadays .    

I am going to write on a little about life in Clacton-on-sea 1920s and into the 2nd World Wartime into the mid-20th century - it may be of interest and have more people record their lives - At your age, Residents of WASH LANE by the Seas Edges, you have experiences of value to pass on …  

AUNTIE ESTHER Mary Miss GORDON (Mrs F. Potter)  was the last of 16 children - her parents lost 5 in 1904-1905 in a Scarletina outbreak in Highgate London … To help get over the shock my Grandpa now in the Mounted Police painted evenings all the more and my Granny Mary Helena ( nee Murphy-Carroll- O`Brien Miss Williams ) was made to sing all the more in Catholic Church Choirs - A young man who lodged for free in a bed in hay in the Gordon loft at Highgate would smuggle her out (Police Force was not to know)  in evening frock to sing on London Music Hall stages in between acts & she was very good !  And it helped him & others get bookings if it was known `Darling Mary` would sing :   he was later known as Bud Flanagan  (Allen had not yet joined him) …

…  I heard from Bud in the 1940s that singing kept `darling Mary` and indeed all of them sane - he had known the dead children when he was grateful to get free lodging in the hay & he was given a job of getting the Gordon Family Breakfast and thus feeding himself well for the day - he always cooked big juicy sausages  !  The deaths of the children Elizabeth Gordon at 13 years already a fine pianist, Edward 8 a real boy and Anne a serious 9 years old - their deaths were followed by 2 others younger … Mary Helena Miss Williams could no longer make fine fashionable hats as she had been taught to do in her 8 years training at MILLICENTS of Manchester - this included drawing & Art studies, the French language & conversation :  At 21 years of age she married at Manchester &  the present from her Firm was to pay for the wedding finery and she could make it - she designed `The Polka Dot Wedding` in white and cerise - she had her own hat label `Mary Helena Carroll` … she may have hats on the Titanic !  

The future mother of ESTHER was helped by good friends in her terrible bereavement and MADE to sing - coming from Ireland age 9 years she had already begun to sing in Catholic choirs.      

At this time, 1900s, the famous British singer MARY GARDEN rehearsed with English musicians in London - The future mother of ESTHER Mary Helena Gordon (born 1870 12/13 Sackville Street Dublin) studied and rehearsed the new style Opera PELLEAS & MELISANDE  ( Pell & Mell ! )   by Claude DEBUSSY and she was to sing it in Paris IF Mary Garden had caught an influenza epidemic .  PELL and MELL is the new movement in music to get away from the Myths & heroics of Richard Wagner and explore the feelings more delicately of human beings …  

1930s-1940s in CLACTON, Deptford, the Continent, West Greenland, North & South America,  I grew up with music of past and present and future in the families on both sides … music was everywhere in East Anglia and when we travelled abroad … The Clacton Salvation Army Band played at weekend evenings under the town centre great TREE :   Esther`s father G.E. Gordon has a Booth blood line from Scotland - Miss Bramble Booth did not die until her 90s in the late 20th century.

1939 - 1940s … the husband of ESTHER,  Frederick Potter away at War had his father Mr. R. POTTER owner of the Clacton GAZETTE , the printing works, and Secretary of the LIFEBOAT SOCIETY hurrying about Clacton town like a 20 years old  … At over 70 years of age old Grand Daddy Potter was working 7 days a week all the 2nd World War …  Our families and friends were happy that he no longer insisted on GOING OUT with the LIFEBOAT in Wartime night emergencies !!!

In the 1930s -1940s at Clacton schools Auntie Esther or her sister Miss Winifred Gordon, their brother Harry Gordon & their parents could come to our Christmas Plays and Entertainments.   My first school 1934 was the Old Road QUAKER SCHOOL, and the teacher 80 years old = I in my pram at first from 14 months of age.

…  I was looked after in Class by two teenage girls whose parents had sung at the GLASTONBURY OPERA (called the Poor Mans Opera) of Rutland Boughton the composer  - which lasted until the late 1920s - famous singers came for free - I think Paul Robson sang here with Heddle Nash …    

But being in the Clacton QUAKER School thus I spoke first in 17th-18th centuries Quaker-Nonconformist - The old Quaker Pastor had people come from London to hear him Speak and he wore a stove-pipe hat I remember .  

1952 November my accent is still noted a little when I went to work in COLCHESTER MUSEUMS age 19 years … Mr Poulter Deputy Curator was very proud of it = and exhibited me to visiting Archaeologists  for them to hear something of the ancient East Anglia speech … there were still a few others with this speech towards Harwich … It is quite musical in a sense that it rises and falls and one almost drapes and drifts it about the air around you :  

Of course these early speakers from the Continent were having to learn a new language … 16th-18th centuries English … I had to make a little speech in the Argentine in 1936 but there was no difficulty understanding me in a nation with Welsh, Irish, Scottish immigrants … I was to say thank you for a Train - the President and his family asked me what did I want for Christmas … I did not say I wanted a TOY train … I got a real one in green with my name on the side … it did good mountain work but was worn out by 1960 … but the nameplate was found !    )
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1935-1936 I had 8 months travelling with the RANSOM-WEDDELL-FROBISHER families and being put daytime in Schools in nearly every South American nation including an INCA School as we have Roman Catholic relatives of Portugal-INCA of great learning . Then 1936 June back to CLACTON - and talk of another WAR definitely coming.    I now went to The Convent of Order of Poor St Clares on the CLACTON seafront end of Granville Road … they were kindly jolly intelligent teacher nuns … 1939 WAR in September - 1940 we to Salisbury Plains - Auntie ESTHER joining us for a few months to 1941 …  

… WAR AGAIN - September 1939 onwards my young father FJR was very useful to the British Army as he had been in the British Army earlier 1928-1933 and spoke 12 languages very well … INCLUDING JAPANESE and CHINESE … he also knew enough of several more languages ` to get around `  :    ( my first months 1933 had me often in Colchester barracks in pram or crib  =  The Aunts Nellie nee Maxsted, Winifred and Esther Gordon called me  `daughter of the Regiment` )
 
 …. my father 22 when I am born,  Frederick John RANSOM, is called by Auntie ESTHER   “  like a young fair haired Knight - beautiful manners, very clever and he seemed to know every part of the world - he had to travel a lot looking after property for his Greenland Aunt that she and her family RANSOM of Montrose Scotland had abroad - there was a film made about Russia … and the Knights reminded me of him … the properties were all devoted to PHILANTHROPY … they all lived very sparingly … no display of wealth ”   -

( N.B.    The 10th century Anglo-Saxon motto of the RANSOM family is   SATTEUS LAETUS   =  which translates from the Latin to   “ I AM SATISFIED WITH SUFFICIENT ”     They held homesteads from Roman Britain Londinium,  Dunwich Suffolk,  up to Norfolk, went SEA TRADING for centuries into the Mediterranean and farmed along the SEAS EDGES of East Anglia … After the discovery of America they began to drift over there … In 1400 our 2 Ransom brothers are in ASIA … & have permission from Admiral ZHENG HE` to fly his personal Flag and `for Services in Trade may deal in a little porcelain ourselves …`  4 Asian marriages are made our direct RANSOM line but we always hold coastal lands `heimat` along the East Coast of Britain  and come and go in safety … the family has a flair for getting on with other human beings … we do not fight in wars of religion or power … yet sometimes `a Statement has to be made` … :

I began issuing my father`s work with relatives   “ THE  RANSOM Ancestry and its HISTORIES ”    in 2011 for his CENTENARY - Parts 1 - 4 are now around the world again and well received …   ( he FJR  was killed in 1969 and parts of his lifelong work destroyed =   I have received immense help from many nations to do this work of restoration :  )
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… 1942 January - 2nd WORLD WAR :   Holland-on-Sea to WASH LANE Jaywich the seashores are with barbed wire - but there is a beach at Jaywich where the HOME GUARD can step on and walk the beaches to check for floating mines :   Open is a Town school and the headmaster the well known 1st World War Captain-Commodore Learoy -  Lewellyn Road - he a founder of the Cyril Sharpe House of Folk music - his famous child student is Ernest Dove who as a boy soprano made a record for HMV called `OH FOR THE WINGS OF A DOVE` (sold millions of records worldwide)  …

… Clacton and district Wartime Teachers were Dr Armstrong of Cambridge University who teaches us and several schools Geography combined with History - Young Dr Andrews BA Oxon in 1943 CRASHED HIS LANCASTER BOMBER and came to teach us Science combined with maths … Another teacher is of the Art Workers Guild … many others  come from retirement to help in the War effort.

… 1943 Aunt Esther comes into the school to help with the younger children one year … Then there is the retired Dr and Mrs Read  ( both with degrees - a friend Baltimore wrote the `European History`  book we use ) … We knit or sew some afternoons winter 1942/43 when without heating in school - but are given a good dinner cooked by the town Grannies and mothers - vegetables grown by the grandpas …

… Mrs Dr Read, in her 70s,  decides we wear our overcoats and pixie hats in class and while we knit or embroider she will read to us RICHARD II the play by Shakespeare … she says  `It is a play about families and about this England our pleasant green land … `

…  Auntie ESTHER is a part of this wartime Clacton life from 1943 - women and big children are all helping with the men`s jobs while they are away at War  … In school there are two children their father the 2nd cousin of the composer Humperdinck and in 1945 they and parents and friends organised a performance of Hansel and Gretel by their relative … These two children would play lovely Medieval songs on flute and oboe for some Morning Assemblies … afterwards each Class had 10 minutes discussing the morning newspapers and War and Home news …    

… 1944 we all go up to the The Pathfields School where the music teacher was young Mr SALT composer, graduate of Royal College of Music … Armstrong comes dashing in to teach us geography-history - he teaches schools from Colchester/Clacton to Suffolk, Dovercourt/and Suffolk The Boys Oratory.  He knew Lawrence of Arabia a little.   Young Salt (a Pacifist RCMs)  said 1944 first term  “ the British Empire colours the world PINK in your atlases but we are going to go OUTSIDE the Empire to study music … ”     

… We got the history of the music of the globe in that year 1944 past-present-future … He would play on the Piano RIDE of the VALKYRIE when the new Headmistress rode in on her bike mornings - she Miss Laura Laurence of Newnham College Cambridge was very stern and specialised in English and Drama :  knowing I was a from great sea families, and had as in-law Mr R. Potter of the LIFEBOAT she had me learn ANCIENT MARINER : I preferred ancient poets or 20th century ones !   

1945 October back I go to Convent of Poor Saint Clares next to the Clacton Seafront - they are the nicest and most enlightened and understanding of Nuns teaching us … Our family call on Reverend Mother Benedict (Irish-Italian)  some mornings in her Convent Study there is a glass of good sherry offered to old ladies - it is sent via Portugal by the Vatican …
 
… ( Perhaps it came in the wartime to Wash Lane The Jaywick …  which had a reputation for Smugglers in the 18th century ! … A  `Packet boat` also came from France … bringing letters and things …   

The future mother of ESTHER and her families Murphy-Carroll-O`Brien Dublin and Southern Ireland had all known a young man they called ` young Pacelli `  since the 1900s -   (  and my Ransom family out of West Greenland and PERU knew the Popes since the great Humanist Pope Benedict of the mid-18th century … )    Sometimes `young Pacelli` makes a telephone call to the Priests House round the corner to Mary Helena Gordon … or her two sisters at `Stella Maris` 10 Granville Road.  

…  Pacelli/ Pope Pius 12 1939  put his old friend from Rome to be Chief Priest when the new great Catholic Church went up next the St Clares Convent - Open in 1929 it had parties come to view this beautiful church - 2 widow ladies gave 20 thousand pounds to build it in 1920 - it took another 9 thousand - they did not mind but simply said     “ We want something like we have seen in ROME …  ”     - Their families did not mind and let them go on spending …   

… So great curving expensive glass altar steps in blues gold and crystal clear were ordered from the famous Loire Valley Glass works - the ceiling the biggest wooden one built since Medieval times was of a hard black Brazilian wood shipped in  - an ancient font was sent from Southern Italy …  and Pacelli had the VAT (Vatican)  PAY entirely for a great new Pulpit with steps … as a gift !   

It is not generally known that Pacelli/ later Pius 12 had a little school in Rome and moved it inside the VAT (Vatican) immediately he became Pope 1939 and protected a lot of children many Jewish - one girl stayed to 19 years she was so happy and began to teach the younger children …  before joining her family in America ...  

1942 a young Polish man came down by Train to Clacton - I went to tea at Montfort Lodge the Priests House with Granny and a few other Town Elders - He spoke on his Mission - “ … to reveal to the West the atrocities of Hitler who himself had now become so insane & powerful and was shaping THUGS with his speeches ... ”   

… This was brave young JAN KARSKI   (there is a Video-DVD by him made at the end of the 20th century … films and books made before this on his life are not accurate - He taught Political Science in a USA University after the War and kept out of the limelight … But in his 80s he decided he would speak ON CAMERA … note the gestures of his hands - this is what I remembered about him in 1942 at Clacton -on-Sea  )  

1941/42 he had just escaped across Europe from Poland & was now talking to top Government figures, including President Roosevelt,  trying to make the WEST recognise a Holocaust was going on … and if Hitler won the War Britain would get this bestial brutality system too !!!    :  

1942 we had a Benediction Service after tea -  JAN KARSKI so amazed at the beauty of the Clacton Church of Our Lady …   ` inside like something in ancient Rome` …  But his immediate Mission was to talk with Mary Gordon  ( the mother of ESTHER  - and brothers and sister Miss Winifred ATS ) -  She,  my Grandmother Mary Helena Gordon promised young JAN KARSKI she would write immediately to her Southern Irish cousins  (who knew Pacelli from the 19OOs)   and ask them to go over to Rome quickly and try talk with `young Pacelli` now Pope …  and see if anything could be done about the persecution of Jews … She told young Mr KARSKI that he  should  “  TRY and TALK DIRECTLY TO PACELLI himself  ”   - He now Pope since 1939 `   :    But skulduggery was going on in some circles of the WEST -  And it was certainly not the new Pope Pius 12 who was sympathetic to the maniac Hitler :   …
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1949 age 16 years old I went to Colchester Arts & Crafts & Technical College North Hill   (Auntie ESTHER Potter now had 3 children Richard 1939, Jennifer 1941, and Kathryn 1950 )  The 2 years Course was to have us students as right hand to the Boss - we would be young women able to travel abroad on National & Government business - we were taken to The Houses of Parliament, and Fleet Street to chat with the newspaper Editors - it was hoped to extend the Course to 3 years … this did not happen …

1949 … Aunt ESTHER and friends insisted I must have grown up clothes - so I was taken shopping to London for young clothes - I remember a blue swirling wool frock and a lavender raincoat - but sometimes we still clung to our school girl clothes - it was easier than looking after smart clothes all the time :   The Course as well as teaching us Political History, Social graces of the Business and Government world , setting out printing layouts for publications,  world political and economic history , thankfully taught us TOUCH TYPING  (and shorthand)   

( THUS YOU GET THIS LONG LETTER  !     I, like the Potter families,  had families steeped in SEAS history - 1951 I went to ask the old much travelled scholarly Mr Poulter Deputy Curator if I could be employed in the COLCHESTER & Essex MUSEUMS which studied ROMAN BRITAIN and the ROMAN REPUBLIC THEN EMPIRE -   I became `our girl of CAMULODUNUM COLONIA VICTRICENSIS = Colchester.   Also playfully addressed as   `British Maid of all Roman Britain work`  …  and looked up references to the Ancient Iron Age =  ( see a Play by Shakespeare called CYMBELINE )   and Roman Britain, found things,  and wrote letters for the Curators that they sketched out  -

…  At Colchester we studied The Iron Age and 1st and 2nd centuries Roman Britain - I was Keeper of the Keys and dashed about the great Castle fetching things for visiting scholars - manned the book stall, typed, sorted ancient coins, Iron Age to Roman BRITAIN to Medieval pottery sherds and was allowed to stick simple pots together as a treat.   Sometimes took a Party of Tourists to tour the Castle in busy Summertime if Mr Chapman our Chief Guide was overwhelmed by Visitors  … he had been in ENSA somewhat in the War and could tell a good tale of Castle & Colchester Roman Britain histories exciting to new visitors  …

…   Great names in archaeology came in and winter months Graham Greene novelist scribbled in nooks and crannies - nobody recognizing him - the Castle was unheated and mist hung in the Great  Hall in winter - the 5 Guides and I loved it like that - they all retired Army men - we had sources of heating from one electric fire or paraffin stoves … THE CASTLE HAD GREAT ATMOSPHERE … friendly ghosts were everywhere and 2,000 years of TIME was in our control = our work having us move about the centuries -      

… but I NEVER learned to draw and paint like Grandpa George Ernest GORDON born 1868 the father of Auntie ESTHER … she was 19 when I was born & could remember when her father in 1930 did an enormous painting to cover the east wall of the tiny sitting room at `Crail`  the last house of her parents in the  Skelmersdale Road, Clacton

This big painting was of a nice happy cow looking over a farm gate with trees and green grass and a big rising sun :    to me this small home always felt an enormous place because of this painting and other paintings of Grandpa :   Clacton Sunday mornings after church 1930s there would be coffee and sherry with friends who had fought in the Great War (1st World War) and mention of  victims of the TITANIC disaster 1912 - a few names were mentioned of people known to them who had died on the great ship  … everyone crossed themselves in memory …   

WWW INTERNET :  Ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com. & other sites - I have put photos of some of the paintings by the father of ESTHER & family histories - including biography of the grandmother of ESTHER  ( the mother of her mother)   who died from an influenza epidemic Manchester 1879 = Teresa Murphy Carroll CLASSICIST - studied Plato and Harmony  - she had 5 daughters and a son and married John O`Brien Williams Superior Silversmith of Dublin and Wales …

… Because TMC had her mother die at her birth 1838, she a former Miss Teresa Murphy who had just married into Carroll farmers & raised good horses   (  = a Carroll branch had a Castle in Olden times = Murphy Superior blacksmiths and shipping agents)   her Murphy family took the young Teresa M. Carroll on their shipping lines about the world … she saw great Cities in Ruins and that shaped her education … THE GREEK and ROMAN Classical worlds were seen in her childhood - However 1870s she could not get even part-time employment in the new Manchester and Liverpool Universities because she was a married woman !   The Murphy families mid 1870s begged she and family return to Dublin  - but she had bought an old Manchester Merchant House they all adored and were restoring  - she felt that WOMEN had to be admitted to the University Teaching posts before long :  

…   The two unmarried daughters of the dead Teresa CLASSICIST,  the Misses Williams retired to 10 Granville Road Clacton in 1923 and did not die until 1960 & 1970 in their 90s   ( In the 1890s Bessie Martha and Annie Agnes an Artist working in stone, trained in marble by Professor Manzoni of the Granville Marble Works Liverpool and Professor of Anatomy Liverpool University …  and terracotta & ceramics when she joins him to assist at the Della Robbia Works, Birkenhead, of Harold Rathbone - my great-aunt Miss Annie Agnes Williams does well in watercolour and oils too  … But elder sister Bessie Martha began a Poor Seamens REFUGE and Educational and Relief Centre for the poor - a MISSION at Walton Liverpool with help from some local families who had to keep their contribution to Welfare hidden  -

… At that time late 19th century many people were made aware of horrendous  Social conditions in Great Britain by many humanists of learning … and a very popular mid 19th century investigative  novel called  `NORTH SOUTH`  by Mrs Gaskell … Annie and young friends gave much support … one autumn they had help from Farmers to bring them free straw to stuff mattresses for the very poor crammed into cellars in foul winter weather - a factory gave free the mattress fabric `ticking`  :  yet good people must go quietly about this work and not arouse the well-to-doo unenlightened …    

1930s - 1940s - 1950s …  At CLACTON by THE SEAS EDGES these Aunts to ESTHER, my great-aunts, were very important to us … Aunt Annie would read a passage of the Bible each day and a passage from the Ancient Roman philosopher-scientist-poet LUCRETIUS `On Nature`   … Annie Agnes artist sculptor would also read with gusto those INGOLDSBY LEGENDS of the early 19th century by the Reverend country gentleman with such a sense of humour about history and its MORALS  - These daughters of TERESA CARROLL CLASSIST Mrs John Williams,  had terrific regular correspondence with their Irish families - who came to call when I was a child … Both Murphy Shipping and Uncle Sir John Edmond O`Brien lost sons in the 2nd World War fighting with Britain :

Young ANDRE MALRAUX 1937 came to Clacton for 6 weeks of Summer, & full of emotion to step upon the 9th to 19th century lands of a British line from his mother Bertha/Berthe, she not long dead … And he met Mary Helena Gordon and found `an intellectual equal` and she could tell him much about human nature and Irish freedom matters, Empires, and good people and very bad people.   He had come from blood soaked SPAIN 1936 heading `Air Power` somewhat, as much as was possible,  in its Civil War …  BUT … the young MAN of LETTERS  was not to know that my father and Ransom family could not greet him but had to dash to SPAIN to help a young relative who was being threatened by a Scotland gang called Premier Earls of Gross Britain THE LINDSAYBUGGARHS to use the Scotland and British Police name for them … they always claiming to be impoverished Nobles THUS claiming every hairpin of families and their in-laws out to 9th or12 digits & CULLING so easily :  
…  Reason for my being asked not to speak upon our Aunt Margareth nee Ransom Mrs Grote having little planes everywhere about the world for the HOMES educating orphans to 18 or 22 years in many languages and all civilized subjects (sciences/agriculture/ technology/all religions/arts/music/and 3 to 4 languages or more…)  …  1937 the BRITISH GOVERNMENT LORDS and Scotland NOBLES and newcomers in Palaces and Marble Halls disagree violently with peaceful EDUCATION outside the BRITISH EMPIRE for nations A-Z …

Of course, this young MALRAUX,  MAN of LETTERS, of a passionate belief in civilized behaviour to ALL HUMAN BEINGS could begin to lengthen the Spanish Civil War if he felt his CAUSE JUST & could learn of our many many planes : WE DO NOT FIGHT but sometimes a STATEMENT has to be MADE  -  Young Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX, very impassioned about Human Rights as the young can be, had to be told NOTHING of why the RANSOM families were not able to meet him -

… Young Harry Gordon brother of ESTHER was told to keep quiet - & KEEP ME QUIET TOO … for I am to live with them in the house by Marine Parade Clacton, the house of the grandpa of Unity age 10 years who will be staying in Paris with her father and friends … her mother our Hostess in the house on the corner, with a garden full of things we can eat and which he will be happy gathering for our picnics our suppers … before we all go dancing at the Blue Lagoon on the Pier … and many other evening events … the happiest holiday of our lives it is agree in 1970 …    

Young Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX unwound in this little SEAS EDGES town of Clacton and afternoon and early evening talks with Mary Helena Gordon , sadly just widowed …  and many people he met in all walks of life helped him over a crises  … People he meets are told to keep quiet about RANSOM absence and the Philanthropy Estate having airplanes around the globe !  … or they say he will dash for SPAIN & continue the WAR …  If he could get hold of 20 or 30 or more of our Estate airplanes who knows what would have happened …
certainly more loss of life on either side    ( Our Ransom-Grote planes are all kept in very good condition and used to maintain the Philanthropy Estate of Grote Homes and RANSOM and families … )    (this happy 1937 Summer is being translated into French by a Welsh English-Spanish French friend … ) …

1937 SUMMER I would go with `Georges/Andre` in the dawns  ( ROSE FINGERED DAWN of the Greek poem HOMER, my father young Fred and many others in the families are my teachers … )  to collect the newspapers still HOT come down by London trains … then to the seafront we hurry … a tea wagon is  by the Bandstand and War Memorial … We like to see come over the seascape horizon the apt named Rosy Fingered Dawn the child of early morning - described by that Greek poet HOMER well over 2,000 years ago …  There were often already early Holiday Risers propped along the sea walls with newspapers … the talk was serious at first about another COMING WAR … Serious because the GREAT WAR had only ended in 1919 - 18 years ago … here were men and women who had experienced the horror of the savage lst World War :  and the sinking of the TITANIC  - felt by many to be An ACT of GOD, a warning about greed …   

So this young Frenchman of Letters was with us that CLACTON 1937 Summer and in September I allowed for 5 days accompany he and “ A YOUNG LADY Miss Josette Clotis ” to tour the ancient lands of his mother … The young lady is  heartily approved of by the Clacton town and outlying district - as his future bride it is hoped …  :    

… And thus beginning in LINCOLN Cathedral we set off each morning by taxi or bus or rail and stepped upon his Ancestral lands all the way from Castle Rising to Saxmundham … he with books and Records & 19th century photographs - a lot of his ancestral farm sites had disappeared in Norfolk and Suffolk in many centuries of coastal erosion … but he carefully trod his way by tufts of grass to the seas edges where an early family homestead had been … and places to draw a ship in for winter months November to March …  

…  ( I without meaning to gave some Ransom histories away but he thought I listened to Story Books & slept at night with my door open hearing the grown-ups in things I did no understand … JO the young lady noted my information in her exercise book for she wrote stories and had them published in France.   After the 2nd World War Andre and Josette had a Catholic marriage granted by the Vatican = she was killed in 1944 falling on a railway line in France - leaving two sons 4 years and a few months old … he away in the War : …

1945 May and the real end of the 2nd World War … there arrives THE WIDOWER Colonel Malraux to Clacton-on-Sea by the SEAS EDGES … he no longer that boyish figure of 1937, but now a mature `A MAN of LETTERS` came to find solace and common sense as he had found in this little seashore town that happy SUMMER 1937 - His old Continental friends Professor Robert WINNCLEMANN and his Shropshire wife had retired here 1943/1944 …  but Mary Gordon was dead last year, June 1944.   He was grieved ... And said `your grandmother Greetah was still a young woman` … he spoke more to Auntie ESTHER … to her sister Miss Winifred Gordon … he had met their sister Teresa  (my mother in 1933)   in December 1924 at Deauville and Paris …  

1945 Summer = Georges Colonel Andre MALRAUX came to know Mary Gordon her spinster sisters very well and found immense intellectual common sense.  Annie born 1882 instructed him to   `remember the dead and be HAPPY that they had lived - it was best to remember the happiness they gave while they lived - Do not forget them but keep the good messages from their lives in your memory …`  She took him to Highgate to see the graves of the 5 children her sister Mary and husband George Gordon had lost 1904-1905 and showed him photos and spoke on visits and picnics and gatherings at Christmas and what they had been like, and what they might achieve … had they not gone to Heaven early …   My great-aunts, aunts of ESTHER, gave him a Supper in June 1945   ( I call it the Sea Mists Supper as that early evening the sea mists came into the town and the roads and     walked past `Stella Maris` where
 the supper was beginning and the white damp mist was about my knees … as if good souls of the families had come to join the supper and bring good counselling to him …  )   And after this supper, and making him sing with our Church Choir the FULL 1610 MASS of Claudio Monteverdi in July 1945 he could stand his full height again and lead his dead with him into life ahead :     he will make a career helping General de Gaulle … he will become a Minister of France … yet after 1960/1961 begin to understand and say `IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE … it should have been otherwise … ` …   

 - Georges-Andre MALRAUX loved Clacton town and the villages and small towns about Essex and Suffolk … he said so often that here he found THE GOSPELS ACTED OUT … He refers to the mother of ESTHER,  and her two sisters,  as   “ my intellectual equals ”   -  He is describing the daughters of Teresa Carroll CLASSICIST in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to much younger generations ... He addresses my elder great aunt as `Aunt Bessie Martha` … she comes up to London to an old friends tea-party once a fortnight in the 1950s and Andre Malraux accompanies her to the Oblate Saint Charles for retired bishops and priests - it is just round the corner from his London home and Mission No 50 Lancaster Gate Square …  


ESTHER has her young brother Harry Gordon of Thorpe-le-Soken  the most skilled car mechanic in Essex and Suffolk  say in late autumn   “ Andre … he writes books that men like ” …  1937 Esther is busy with her coming wedding in London and Miss Winnie with her Manchester Cousins at Saint Anne`s beach that summer … they do not meet Andre until May 1945 …  
 
… ( Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX was always known to the families and older friends in Clacton as `Andre dear` … His mother having a blood-line from the HISTON family of Castle Rising 9th century AD !    They were in these early centuries pre-1066 William the Conqueror, fishing  in The Wash the richest fishing grounds of Medieval Europe - & had some trading across the Channel & round into the Mediterranean perhaps,  & lived & farmed where they could pull a ship in for winter times along the East Anglia coast or along rivers :   A way of life typical of Fisher-Trader families in Anglo-Saxon England in those centuries  - By the time of 1066 the Norman Conquest of Britain they are moving along the coast to Kings Lynn and arriving 19th century to SAXMUNDHAM Suffolk .   There were descendants of the 9th century Family HISTON living in the Colchester area in 1953/1954 …  

… Georges-Andre Malraux made a lot of friends in Essex from 1937 until his death 1976 … and the Newspapers respected his privacy - At the end of the 2nd World War it helped that Old Grand Daddy POTTER owner of Clacton Gazette did threaten to dump the Reporters of Colchester and Ipswich newspapers in the SEA from the Clacton LIFEBOAT if they dared mention that `Georges-Andrew` was over for the week - He occasionally played cricket with local teams  - In the summer 1945 I remember our Marine Parade Greengrocer, opposite Bailey the Chemist, calling out  `ANDRE-W-W-Wwww `  at one Match on the Clacton Recreation Ground pitch and daring anyone to yell `ANDRE` as the ball was thrown  … !

… Colonel Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX also taught us in some school lessons Summer 1945 - At the St Clare Convent School 1945-1946 I don`t think anyone learned much French  - he looked too hero film star in those years …     ( his books are all available in print as paperbacks … he publishes from age 26 years in 1927 : He is a very young man learning about the world he is born into … and always wanting to improve life for others … He visited us in autumn 1976 before his death November 24th  …   )    

… In 1937 his first visit to CLACTON he looked about 17 years of age and I appointed myself his Mother on discovering she was dead …  and corrected his `quick fire` speech … He had been too long in Revolutions perhaps :     Josette the YOUNG LADY said after 2 weeks enjoying sand and sea and Pier and the villages around  `that SHE DID NOT RECOGNISE HIM IN THE DAYLIGHT … now he had been brought to heel by Greetah-Greta … she kept a day diary and might use ideas for her stories … She recorded that he would stand Greta on a table or the mantle piece and say sternly `SAY IT AGAIN IF YOU DARE` …  and I would reply `you are making your Guardian Angel sit in the corner of your Soul and cry ...`  ( I GR like to think I improved his manners so that he could go into the sitting room of Mrs General de Gaulle … and hold her knitting skeins for her to roll into balls of wool for her knitting …  )  

1937 October :   He accepted to be my Guardian after Granny Mary Gordon had requests from eminent persons who had read his books = found his heart in the right place :  it had to be agreed with the Ransom families and Trustees overseas and courtesy the VATICAN until I am 25 years of age …The RANSOM family did not return from SPAIN until November 1937 and had terrible news of inhuman behaviour … Georges-Andre and JO had left by then and gone to the USA to lecture … We had been told by them that they would return to us and the town for Easter 1938 … this did not happen because of WAR clouds … then the 2nd World WAR …

… 1930s CLACTON and abroad where we went to take care of our Family Philanthropy :   I was aware that about me these were all very good human beings doing their best to help have peace upon earth …  but a coming War brought mayhem … and inhuman greed …          


 ( Nota bene :   our Irish Murphy Family are not Tinkers - see their present day INTERNET Adverts of MURPHY SHIPPING - I have thanked them again for my 21st birthday Present in March 1954 … I had lost touch with them since the 1960s … )

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Family photographs and drawings I have used in my work  ` histories through families`   is on     WWW.ANCESTRYANDTRUETALES.JIMDO.COM …
(www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com)

( I mostly use my maiden name for writing and web sites  :    GRETA RANSOM :   my father is Frederick John Ransom of the main families Ransom-Frobisher-Weddell of TALL SHIPS … 19th/20th centuries an English little home we have is  `Jerusalem`  Little Park Road,  DEPTFORD, London …   )


I am hoping this long letter will get you ALL writing your family histories and leaving your good common sense and experience to guide the world and future generations :   Tape recorders and CD can also be used to record your histories and this can be transferred to the Wireless Computers :   

… I shall put this letter for XMAS on web sites :   JIMDO  TWITTER etc … Mention of CLACTON will then have it put on the town web site & other sites of world histories will pick up the names of the families given here & thus it is noted by for future work … The Gordon and Potter (Admiral Potter who broke his back age 29 years and got a pension from RN in the 18th century is an ancestor)  If only this technology had existed 70 years ago - it might have stopped the 2nd World War …
     
WASH LANE has featured in centuries of CLACTON History =  CLACTUNA of the Norman-French Little DOOMSDAY Book histories.  Here at Wash Lane, Jaywick Sands, the fishermen for centuries pulled up their ships and boats in wintertime … Fishing stopped in November to March since Iron Age Britain and Roman Britain and all our Anglo-Saxon centuries :   some smuggling goes on at Wash Lane in 17th-18th centuries - ` brandy, laces,  letters for a spy … and `watch the wall my darling as the gentlemen go by` … the poem by Rudyard Kipling tells of all these matters …

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2012 AD and many more ..

…  From a niece of ESTHER Mary nee Gordon, Mrs Fred Potter … born April 1913 - dies June 1912 AD by the SEAS EDGES, Clacton-on-Sea …     

        `Greetah`  =  Greta Frobisher Weddell Maureen  RANSOM  ( my 3rd Christening November 1933 is on Jacopsholmen Island off Xristensharb WEST GREENLAND )
          

                     F  I  N








USE THIS LETTER FOR FAMILY HISTORY work building on J I M D O … and Twitter … etc  


Dear Sister Magdalen       XMAS 2012 AD
(Violet MacDonald)

A few things in this box for you to enjoy  … and some bottles for you to share at the table over the Christmastide …

I hope you have had a good year with your health … and enjoyed the good summer weather … Lourdes must have been busy with visitors but perhaps too hot in August.   


This year I lost my youngest aunt, Esther Mary Gordon (Mrs Potter, Clacton lifeboat family & town newspaper) Well, she was age 99 years … but she was looking forward to her 100th birthday this April 2013 AD !   She was very much part of my life in Wartime Britain & I lived with her & her 2 children on and off for three years … there were nice people we knew in the 1930s and the 1940s all long since dead of course …  She was very well last year and I could ask her things about the 1930s and her memory was ABSOLUTLY CORRECT !  So I got more family history than I was asking her to check for me !   

But last Christmas her only son Richard, my cousin,  died that day … by March she felt the lost - he would not be with her for the summer … she went into decline and died in June this year - I was the last to hear her voice and she knew I was telephoning …  That leaves me with family who have all, but one 1941,  been born after the wartime … A whole AGE has suddenly gone … !! 

So I have issued a lot these last months on my web sites for 20th century and Family History … That makes me feel more cheerful.   Auntie Esther before she died  ( we are all a big Roman Catholic mob )   knew I had just finished a lot of biography on her grandmother Teresa Murphy Carroll CLASSICIST who studied Plato & Harmony …( she married John O`Brien Williams superior Silversmith and designer …   So TMC is the mother of the mother of my Aunt Esther is Mary Helena  …

…  It is this Irish Dublin and Manchester side of the family who had an acquaintance they called `young Pacelli` … He used to telephone my Grandmother Mary Helena Gordon in the 1930s … I met him when I was nearly 3 and we had a talk in Rome - afterwards I invited him to tea in the City … He had another Visitor but wrote a letter to Granny and me saying `when your grand daughter Greta comes to Rome next time we will go out to tea and I know where there is a hurdy gurdy and I think she will like this …`

 Granny Mary Helena and her sisters also have an Irish Dominican cousin living IN the Vatican writing !   What a nice safe place to live !    And Aunt Margareth of West Greenland has a grandson a Priest in Rome !   Her great-grandfather Poul Gronlander used to have correspondence with the Humanist pope Benedict 14 - they used to write to one another in 4 languages !   And they were always rushing around back then in the 18th century !

1935 when I meet a nice tall Priest for a chat in Rome I know he knows all my families … YOUNG PACELLI is not yet Pope of course … and like my families he has masses and masses of work … We did not get our Tea party in Rome City because War came …
 
When he did become Pope in 1939 he immediately moved his little school in Rome into the Vatican … He kept quiet about this little school.   He had some Jewish children in it and they lived in the Vatican during the 2nd World War … he called them `children at risk` …

Auntie ESTHER and I were always interested in family histories and had memories of the lives of the older generations …  So she was very pleased I had recorded so much Family history her last  years alive  …  

…  BUT, this year,  to lose 2 of the family close to me for most of my life was very sad and I felt the loss all summer … BUT KEPT BUSY !    Auntie and my cousin linked me to her aunts, our great-aunts who lived in their house `Stella Maris`  near my Convent School Saint Clares on Clacton seafront … Miss Bessie Martha and Annie Agnes Carroll Williams were not typical spinsters … Andre Malraux a lifetime friend calls them `my intellectual equals` …

Andre and Bessie Martha were fortnightly at TEAS at the Oblate Saint Charles, Lancaster Gate in the late 1940s and 1950s & the conversation was the best of IRISH WISDOM !   :   He had to give these merry Lancaster Gate Old Priests retirement home tea parties up a bit when he became a Minister of France in 1959 !   At my Clacton convent School 1945-1948  he was allowed by the Nuns of Saint Clare to sing with them in their private chapel  - unheard of except for a priest now and then :   and they called him ` our dear Andre`  - He had a beautiful counter-tenor voice  … Like all of us he was always busy and rushing about … full of energy like all my families … always busy and rushing about like `YOUNG PACELLI` too …    

Miss Bessie Carroll Williams and sister Miss Annie she a trained sculptress in marble and stone also ceramics worker and painter were full of energy.    Both of them from their teens and 20s with friends of all ages and young trainee priests keeping their heads down,  ran a MISSION at Liverpool 1880s onwards on a terrific Welfare system scale that helped provide for the worst of poverty … they got supplies of goods and blankets from factories for people living 20 in a cellar in wintertime Manchester and Liverpool  … And they educated evenings in the warm Halls they hired by readings aloud  not from the bible  but readings from John Ruskin Letters to Workmen of England and Mrs Gaskell her NORTH SOUTH novel, information on the world of that time, skills that would help get jobs, and also taught art and music to very poor children - They ran Hospital Clubs too …  

… they all had to keep quiet about a lot of this Work for there were well-to-doo people who objected … the bishop said to the young men  `I leave it to your conscience` …  

The family began to go into the Universities but still kept a strong Welfare and Civic Duty state of mind .  A nephew became “ OUR BILL (BUTLER) Mayor of Manchester”  in the 2nd World Wartime …    Two of my great Aunts the Misses Julia and  Teresa  Williams married 2 Butler brothers … and became known as, the BIGGEST CATHOLIC MAFIA in MANCHESTER …  So I have put all this family history out on my web sites  and it is SAFE for ETERNITY …  (www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com.  

 

The painting is by my grandpa George Ernest GORDON his father JFG of Edinburgh , his mother a Miss Matilda Kellow of Edinburgh … my grandpa grew up in Greenwich with 5 brothers 2 sisters, father the eminent Mine Host of the beautiful Trafalgar Tavern on the waterfront … he hosted the Houses of Parliament once a year at the famous Whitebait Suppers when they rowed in ceremonial barges down to Greenwich …

Grandpa George painted pictures for gifts for everyone … his elder brother had lessons but he could not be bothered as he loved animals and nature and these he paints best he can  … The tiny shepherd in this painting is somebody he knew …he never bothered with portraits as his brother did.   I have the original painting from Auntie Esther years ago as a gift in memory of her father … I  find it cheerful … hope you like it …

Some of the wine here is Italian and suitable for we Catholics !    And some French friends are now HOOKED on this particular brand.   I found some Greek wine this year and have a Greek cookery book with aubergine and tomato dishes and lamb chops and things - Greek wine does not match French food …
 

Best wishes and love to you and everybody with you …

     `Greetah`  Greta nee Ransom - (widow Whitehead)  


     
                         FIN

Sent in box 21st December 2012 with letter attached     X M A S   2012 AD

GREEK WINE red/ Roman Republic and Empire called all Mediterranean red wines `SAMIAN RED -Amphorae were labelled thus  … dredged up from sea beds and sunken ships proves this ` …

… Aubergines baked, tomatoes fresh in quarters, lamb slices very soft : Use Olive Oil only for cooking …
A good grainy bread … A sauce can  be made from the lamb juices, a roux adding a squeeze of lemon …  slices, rings, of lemon

 ... ( I have a Greek cook book - simple cooking … lots for Easter … )  SAIL WITH JASON and the ARGONAUTS … and HOMER … `Came Rosy fingered Dawn the child of early morn … and the good house dame set about the cooking … bringing forth from her store delicate things …`

GREEK RETZINA goes with the above meal … especially at Eastertide …  

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SAHARA WINE red/
North African food ?  How about Morocco - Keep it BIBLICAL perhaps … EXPERIMENT … ideas follow :

Lamb or kid roasted … green broad beans buttered … or Butterbeans - they come in a tin !

A good un-leven bread ?   I KNOW !    D A T E S !
Make a sauce from juices and chop dates in it … or leave them whole …

VICTORIA has gone off with the ARABIA Morroco
North African cook book … !!!  

SUGGESTION :    Taste the WINE before cooking is finished .. And perhaps a GINGER sauce might be the thing ?
Do NOT drink the whole bottle before the cooking is done - finances do NOT run to giving you 2 bottles …

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ITALIAN WINES red - yellow from the slopes of that lake near Castel Gandolfo … whites …

PASTA … PASTA … but flip the pages of Roman Cook book by APICIUS  … a sauce of oregano and delicate wild garlic … slices of tangerine and tomato … BASIL sprinkled if in season … OLIVES and OLIVES …  

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ROMANIAN wines … I have a cook book … but nobody can easily read it … It was given to persons invading  the Pillar House Kitchen and talking endlessly while big cooking sessions were underway !!!  ~   Certainly there are EGG and cheese dishes …