RREPLACEMENT :

 

Replacement

 

Photo montage meaningful to

 

come here :

 

 

Nota Bene :   The File put out 24 December 2017 was only my working document – it was not in shape ... not all of this went to Harwell for the exhibition April  - or was intended to ...

 

...  much of the information was given on telephone and then posted to K.L. in photo-copy - colour for paintings etc, and she was working in a HURRY to create that Exhibition ... I did not use E-mail as it would have given her work and the quality would not have been good enough ...

 

 

 

 But it was necessary as I found information amongst the Mary Freeman Archives to encounter again the following HORROR that many of us at that time encountered on and off from a maniac with an expensive playboy BLUE CAR run by `Mengele`  Mr-Dr Harrington...

 

 

.. he had difficulty getting in and out of it by the time he HIT Harwell village and the area up to Oxford – he was crazed with admiration of himself ... he had been diagnosed MAD age 17 years from the use of DRUGS ... he often used disguise ... and wished to kill women and only keep some for breeding ... he also wanted to kill and destroy all good-looking young men ... : 

The Village of Harwell and the surrounding villages were not all `dancing around the Maypole` and good harvests and pleasantries ... life has enough difficulties ... BUT THE APPEARANCE of this thing `BLUE CAR`  I had been frightened of since 1950s, as others, was a shock to the area –

 

 

 As often :  `old Mengele` from 1968 sometimes brought in his wake from decades past  “The Clown of Heaven”  as a certain Scot-Chinese was known ...

 

 

BUT the mother of the Whitehead twins West Virginia-Kenya living at Walnut Tree Cottage Townsend had `Pong THE CLOWN OF HEAVEN` burst in on her one June morning waving a GUN but she had one under her newspaper and pulled it first ... She knew of HIM in Kenya days : This becomes comedy as he PONG-JONG rolled down the lane to TED LAY and ordered him TO EVICT Teddy Whitehead Kerven mother of the Whitehead TWINS – Major or Sirship  Mr Jong etc had TED LAY eminent Farmer think this little fat guy  said he was Head of the COMMUNIST PARTY – SO HE KNOCKED HIM OUT in the Tractor shed – TED LAY had had a bad day the day before on the Farm .... he was thinking of putting one of his little planes together ... having a nice spin in the blue skies ?  Both these maniacs lived by PIMPING and Pong the Clown had been ruining the sons of GOOD MEN in the CITY of LONDON with dicey trading and deals ...

__________________________________________________________

 

 

MEMO :   Peter Rathbone Ransom Whitehead

...  born 1970 August 21^{st ...}    Schools-Manor Prep-Harwell Primary- then for safety with friend Dan Grimshaw just ll years old to across the fields MILTON MANOR SCHOOL `MILLBROOK`   run by the Glazebrook family ...

  No child - young boy ever wanted to leave this school at 14 -15 years of age – it was so excellent at bringing them into approaching adulthood ... Educational rules at that time demanded unnecessarily spruced up quarters ... Pete got encouragement in photography here, courtesy and grace ...

School even had some RED BERETS etc come and teach a few weeks when they were in need of stability ... so we parents all had to buy our sons AMMUNTION TROUSERS ...

 

 I wore 2 pairs of these CHINA 1986, 1988 the Tours for BRITISH MUSEUM NATURAL HISTORY of almost 2 months each – Nearly everyone in Sciences knew Mrs W. has 3 Chinese grandmothers past centuries Siberia, Mongolia and that Peninsula now North Korea – MEMO :   In the late 1950s it was the Chinese Legation-Embassy that had helped protect we of the Catholic Mission run by General Charles de Gaulle and Andre Malraux from EVIL Harrington and the `Clown of Heaven` ... They knew them to be 2 evil men ...           

 

In Shanghai 1986 a young man got off his bike and in good English said he was a tailor and could he make a sketch of these trousers ... he did ... bowing to me !  I said my 13 years old son and his school friends all had to have these 3 years ago ... he smiled broadly ...

 

 

======================================================

 

... PRW - 7th day of his life  ... he `Mengele` Harrington maniac of that playboy BLUE CAR `little boy bait` as young people and Police called it crept into The Pillar House attempting to lay hands on baby Peter just born in John Radcliffe Hospital  ...

Many people came to object to the maniac called Mr/Dr Harrington born 1912 talking its `lah-di-dah` with threats – Harwell and villages having these encounters in the dusk  – but we all must be patient and understanding and well mannered ...

1971 -  He tried to swop over Mary Freeman`s medicines – said the Doctor had left a not e with his assistant to call and correct her medicines .. she was on her own ... Mary had taken her daughter somewhere  that morning ... MARY –Mollie  saw that BLUE CAR at the bottom of her drive -  and managed to walk to the entrance and seeing him leave and not alarming him ... she had then come over the road to us at The Pillar house and ask to make an emergency call to her doctor ... IT WAS NOT TRUE – NO CHANGING OF MEDICINES  ... I do not know how it proceeds ... I hear later years ...

 

PAST HISTORIES of EVIL PERSON  :   Spoof Doctor Mr`MENGELE` HARRINGTON -  A 1930s play boy onwards it had a 16 years sentence Austria 1936 but was got to a private NUT HOUSE in SCOTLAND – in 2 years it was loose Whitsuntide Holiday 1938 & told to pursue ANDRE MALRAUX  whose name was on a legal AMERICAN WILL as GUARDIAN to An Estate of PHILANTHROPIC ORPHANAGES worldwide giving an education to unwanted children to aged 18-20s fitting them for work in civilized professions –

These children taken in from birth or early years were taught all religions and PEACE – but told at 15-16 years of age that ` sometimes you may have to make a personal decision to not hold to this Vow` ...

 

 The schools of TIGGY GROTE 1864 onwards quietly functioning outside the British Empire were with the agreement of intelligent people in Nations A - Z

  :   This philanthropy was funded by an ancient Estate of British SEA TRADERS of many centuries :  

 

 

HARWELL VILLAGE – 1968-1970s :   TERRIFYING OCCASIONS ... given www early Histories :   

 

 

I had this maniac break in on The Pillar House 1968 when we only had the front of the house – before we bought the back party with the bigger garden & with help locally & from the sellers began to put the house together again so that it was become part of the Village with its big garden used for local occasions ...

 

 

PHOTOS are given with this FILE :   Everyone Village kept cool about this maniac – it was a nasty  surprise –  But I had it around 1950s at Colchester Museums - the staff and Police 1953-1961 had several accurate NAMES for it when I worked there from age 19 years  - The Police warned this Dr HARRINGTON to STOP STOP STOP putting that expensive blue motor car IN FRONT of the big Gates into the Colchester Museums PARK  - this was the only way at that time FIRE ENGINES could enter if there should be an emergency – HARRINGTON would not – so they bravely towed his CAR AWAY !!   This was 1954 – Andre Malraux was with some WORK at our Museums ... a file was kept in The Hollytrees House Museum for him – eminent British intelligent persons contributed IDEAS for Museums – and buildings – and safeguarding archaeological sites ... WE ARE ALL INTELLIGENT PEOPLE & do not break the LAW ... this Harrington was a maniac with blackmail on lesser educated persons WHO HAD REACHED POWERFULL POSITIONS ...

 

 = 1957 – 1959  in LONDON when I  age 24 years now had a room at THE CATHOLIC MISSION run by General de Gaulle and Andre Malraux, with young Catholic staff =  at that beautiful Terrace House St Edmund`s No 50 Lancaster Gate Square (go and see it – its now a hotel )

 

 

BUT horror of horrors - THIS MANIAC `Mengele` Harrington could get over the doorstep when Malraux was in France –

 

 

... it happened that a young female cousin (university degree – married to a Barrister with a 2 years old son)  of Peter J.P. Whitehead and his twin brother the Baronet  (see Debretts Peerage)   had just come as Assistant to Andre Malraux – She found she was NOT allowed to open the postal deliveries until this spoof Doctor Harrinton or his young Nurse wife had done so – She could not get in the OFFICE until 10 am each day !   She pointed out that some of this Post coming in to Andre was FRENCH POLITICAL MATTERS : 

 

HARRINGTON was still pursuing ANDRE MALRAUX about this 1938 WILL ... and `Mengele` Pimp HARRINGTON spoof Doctor was getting paid by THE WHITEHALL lavishly by the hour !   2 persons in The Whitehall were frightened about what they knew ... BUT as we all work for a salary and many for an extra PENSION besides the PENSION granted by our Governments it is BEST NOT TO SAY ANYTHING ...  :   

 

 

HARWELL :   By 1968 I learned there were people around the village who knew a surprising amount about this `upper class` spoof = they did their best – this maniac used disguises – he wore 6 inch boots when driving the BLUE CAR - but in tennis shoes or `flatties`  he had a little brown sports car and 3 others we heard – You would have to have experience of him back through the years to recognize this IT a horrible thing that carries syringes with knock-out drops in its pockets !

 

1950s -  He `Mengele` Harrington insisted he did private work for The National Health Service – that he experimented with DRUGS for them ... it became comedy 1957 when he took all his clothes off one morning in Kensington Gardens ...

That week - a note in a newspaper said the Doctor  thought he was helping the NHS ... he had a title in his family in Scotland ... and a tiny tattoo of a swastika in his ear from 1939 ... he admired HITLER he said but this was so he could work for British Intelligence (they denied it quite rightly !)  ...

it was suggested by a Police physician after he was examined with no clothes on that he Dr Harrington needed a rest, a quiet holiday  ...

...The London PARKS were always with Police somewhere happily ...

      

  Doc Mengele Harrington was called `Old Mengele` by London medics 1950s-60s  & they feared his connections – known as  a pseudo G.P. Hong Kong `with reluctance` 1948  -

 He was disqualified by BMA 1982 after his SHOW Piece London  divorce 1981- this had his maniac crimes revealed – British Medical Association -BMA in  newspaper reports said `the public need not fear – he will not be allowed to work for the National Health Service again ...

 

But Mr Doc Mengele-Harrington  had immense blackmail on persons in the public eye ... he died from DOPE in 1992 February ...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

HARWELL Part 2  :    A working document :

    Amongst the familiar figures of the village were sometimes ANDRE MALRAUX – retired Wing Commander Michael Morris 2 world Wars DSOs ... Boseley Butchers ... young men and women who have known one another about globe,  Paris, London and country-sides from 1900s ... The Great War ... the 2^nd World War ...

 

MUCH BETTER editing - of what was only a WORKING document ... the Exhibition having to be put together quickly ... information for a quick exhibition was sometimes by telephone into the late hours ... In order to plough back years it was necessary for me to put accounts of evil matters ... old druggy PIMPS collected first at Blewbury – explored the villages ... angry that people they had abused from the 30s-40s were now meeting ...

 

  

Part I will follow ...     Greta Ransom W.

 

 

 

HARWELL HISTORIES :

THE PILLAR HOUSE 1852 on

(Greta Ransom Whitehead –   collected photos & records-iconography-daily life Harwell 4^th February 1968 to 31^st May 1993  ...

 

 

FEAST DAYS and HOLIDAYS in `Village for a Thousand Years` published 1985 for Millennium 985 AD – 1985 ...

ACE ACE & ACE ... stories for the Pillar House children ... are www.   ...  www.greta-ransom.com and www.ancestyandtruetales.jimdo.com ... storage retrieval other means :    

 

 

NOTES for a coming exhibition :   Artists & painters their families and connections about the Globe influencing their work – John Frederick Henry BACON – L.Leslie BROOKE  (Robert Anning BELL at East Hagbourne – see his important career Liverpool) ...

 

 c 1918 on ?  a Mr STREET an architect whose Aunt owned the Pillar House and he lives with her (info was from Derek Southall 1968/69 who knew something of his work – I cannot remember more yet  –

 

1920s - then the widowed FATHER of the 4 Misses Clarke and married sister Rachel (Canada – issue a son and descendants ... Miss Irene headmistress of the school (Miss Mousie ran the pantry & kitchen & larder to feed the young boarders at THE PILLAR HOUSE – school for young children (girls ? boarding :  Sometime before end of War ( c 1941 ?) after having children during Air Raids file into the Pillar House cellars Irene Clarke (telling me) they moved to the corner house Osterley – school went on here & Amanda and Paul amongst the last day pupils at OSTERLEY 1960s :

 

1939-1946 -  WARTIME The PILLAR HOUSE & ROYAL AIRFORCE :   “  it was for a short time a CLUB for the RAF upper ranks –  the front of it had a bar ... the Airfield up the road ...”  says Dr John Fletcher at the Harwell Atomic that time before moving job to Oxford Director of the Archaeological Institute – dendrocronology and all that – ask National Gallery – paintings and what they are painted on ... !

Dr JOHN FLETCHER and Delle and family live in Pillar House about 3-4 years (photos black & white – some early photo-copy here with WHITEHEAD RANSOM archives – given by Delle – garden and families ... may be worth blowing them up to identify the persons 

(Of course these photos may show the Harwell spies Dr Pontecorvo and family and Dr FUCHS a bachelor ... who were nice members of the HARWELL ATOMIC Agency ...  :   

Then the Fletcher family move to Sutton Courtney and John working in Oxford at the Lab ...

 

  

AFTER THEM comes Admiral and Mrs Chisolm ? and daughter Victoria, other children no doubt – they had previously lived in MALTA – it is SHE who is blamed by the Misses Clarke for painting The Pillar House WHITE – “ like the houses she saw in Malta ...” said a disapproving Miss Irene come visiting and  telling me what it was like when her father and she and sisters lived there ... and a little about the artists too ...   “ The Harwell village did NOT like this painting of a fine brick house with stone mouldings white ...”  And the village backed Miss Irene Clarke in her taste ... and grumbled about this in the 5 Pubs of the Village – with a population of 200-odd ... Until other disapproved matters came along ...

 

1950s the PILLAR HOUSE and gardens bought by Peter JEFFREYS and his wife – daughter and son (sadly son Peter killed 18 years old – a red car for birthday – the popular JAMES DEAN image had another young man killed locally)  :   The artists studio quarters standing in some state ...  and gardens & orchard still extending to MAGDALEN Estate Oxford the Cottage where the ROSE family come ... it is Primary School teacher Mrs Mary Rose who painted the oil painting c 1959 saying   `I felt it would now be under threat the Orchard between us and The Pillar House ... so I did a little sketch then this oil painting – will you have it to keep safe ... it’s a pity when the villages are in-filled ... Nowhere for children to play in safety and learn about nature ...     

 

1959 the front of The Pillar House bought by lecturer-artist DEREK SOUTHALL wife Jenny, small daughters JUSTINE and ROSANNA – who attend The Primary School

1968 PJP and GR WHITEHEAD buy THE PILLAR HOUSE front from DEREK SOUTHALL ... and he and family and the VILLAGE so pleased when we buy the rear of THE PILLAR HOUSE from the JEFFREYS family 28 July 1970 – Little Peter Rathbone Ransom Whitehead born 21^st August 1970  ... Mrs Jeffreys especially happy to see it again as one building how she `remembered it 1950s the long passage upstairs with sun coming in all day` = they went to live in Malta - taking their  memories of a dead son age 18 years died 1950s ... WHITEHEAD children Amanda and Paul James – Victoria-Augusta (named after 2^nd Legion ANCIENT ROMAN EMPIRE) is born April 1968 – village old customs observed – white ribbons pinned to the big front door ... presents of 6 new laid eggs ... A welcome indeed :   

 

THE CHILDREN WHO CLIMBED ABOUT THE DAWNS of YESTERDAYS in the village of HARWELL ...  

 

 

 

Follows :  `FRAGMENTS from daily life`

 with the `accepted Squire 1940s` since  13^th century when FREEMEN sent 6 elder sons to The Ox-Ford, 6 more following as they bought themselves FREE

 :  MARY FREEMAN (nee Laura Mary Dudley Short – her mother Cotton family of Founder of Kings Library British Museum Sir Robert Bruce Cotton 17^th century :

As an artist and teacher she sometimes used the names `Mary Short - Mary Cotton – Mollie Freeman – M. Dudley Short ...`  Her husband Percy Peter Freeman of the Family who has a young known scholar of the book `Schools of Athens` before he dies age 29 years ...

 

... ` Hon. Squire of Harwell` ?  Soon after she and husband came to Winterbrooke House High Street the villagers and Inns, pubs, had her with this quiet title amongst themselves ... Tradition had HARWELL village of a thousand years beholden to The King only ... because a penniless local Knight was called to join the Royal Army – he must be clad in good chain mail and armoury, clothes of velvet and fur, and horses with attendants ... This local Knight granted 12 Harwell Churls their FREEDOM if they would pay the customary silver shilling ... perhaps they contributed more to the expected splendid appearance of him when he reached the King and his Nobles ... Did the craftsmen of the village help ?

 

 The churls being FREE promptly put 6 elder sons in the new College Saint Magdalena at The Ox-ford ... and 6 more followed ... (information from Doctor John Fletcher Harwell Atomic then to Oxford Museum of Archaeology ... He had lived in The Pillar House 1940s with wife Delle and children including Antony – has books out from time to time since age 18 years ...` Dr John Fletcher would with a smile  proclaim `you can say that CAPITALISM got going in HARWELL ...`

 

Elizabethan Village – 1600 HARWELL – `then and now series` - Anthony Fletcher – published Longman 1967 ... his father Dr J.F. said `he was mooning about the house having lost a girl-friend ... I said do something ... here is an idea ... I will give you a hand ...`  (We live in The Pillar House from 4^th Feb. 1968 (to 30 April 1993)  and previous inhabitants wander in and out ... requesting we join in their histories work and art work ... thus we enter circles of late 19^th century to the 1960s and ever onwards ...

 

 

 Mary Mary Freeman dies May 1986 – Official Appreciations here are from Dr Nicholas Penny at the Ashmolean Museum, Charles Freeman her grand-nephew,  2 from Dr Peter J.P. Whitehead The Pillar House ... and I find that I GRW have written 3 pages the week after her death ... 

(copies sent to KATHE LUKER organizing Harwell Historical society and an exhibition for 9^th APRIL Palm Sunday 2017 AD

 

 

(Greta-Greetah Ransom=Whitehead ... “ ... MARY MOLLIE ... born 5^th March 1890s-1^st May 1986 ... “ she can never quite leave us, we who have known her, enjoyed her company, her conversation and joined in her activities ...

She will dwell in our minds and in our lives for all time ... we shall tell new generations of her great magic as a woman and an artist-teacher and human being ...

 

I can recall her talking about being young early 20th century  ... and in my mind`s eye as she described bicycling all one June night into the lovely countryside easily reached from the University of Reading ... She was aged 17 years and in a fever of love for her Tutor – he was going to join the Roman Catholic Priesthood.   She said  “ I simply rode all that beautiful night in June, wrestling with my terrible grief – first love makes such an impression ... and by the early morning I had accepted his decision.  It was a shocking thing for a young girl to do ... luckily nobody knew I had been away all night ...” 

 

 (I GRW felt the music that matched this event in her life was the  coming compositions of Ralph Vaughn-Williams ` theme Thomas Tallis, `Lark ascending, and ` ... perhaps drifts from  his  film music Antarctica  (= sub-arctic as we Seas families called down the centuries ... )...

 

OR ... who recalls her description of dancing on the lawn one evening a little later that year with Lord Balfour`s daughter ... the music was Claude DEBUSSY  Prelude de l`après-midi d`un faune  (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun ...)   As the music and their Greek inspired dance finished she caught the white rose thrown to her by her first love.   “ It was his way of telling me that he could not go back on his decision to be a Priest ... but that the white rose was a symbol of our relationship ... beautiful and pure ... ... ...  ” 

 

NB:   One of her last water-colours is a big painting of white roses ... it was bought for The Pillar House :     The Pillar House Children and I had bought a dozen of her paintings over 30 years ... they chose them for their birthdays ... we put our Spending money in money-boxes for art and music and visits to ancient cities ...

 

 AND ... memories of her making a speech at one of her given 80^th Birthday Parties ... when she asked to make a speech ... thoughtfully said  “I want to quote a few lines from the book `Tropic of Capricorn` by Henry Miller ... ... ”  ... the circle of guests stiffened just perceptibly and they perhaps braced themselves and put on calm faces against her saying something rather `modern` in defense of the role of the ARTS in our lives ... she shocked nobody ... it was philosophy ...

 

1983 in JULY-AUGUST the Ashmolean Museum set about a TER-CENTENARY SYMPOSIUM  (photos of us all on steps of the Museum) and PJPW contributing,  and I and she were invited as Members of  `The Friends` :   she and friends having begun the `Friends` in 1969 :   She did not attend every day or the full day because of the extreme heat temperatures over 90 F.  She told me to make notes on all the lectures she could not attend one afternoon ... I was to call on her after 8 pm and we would sit in the cool of Winterbrooke House garden and read my accounts.  I did that ... we talked for over two hours on African materials in early collections of the West, and exotica from Islam ... the early China TEA trade centuries, Japan and 17^th century European trade and collecting of art, commissioning it, by Europeans :  she listened to my notes and added her personal knowledge from her visits to Asia to my notes at that day of lectures ...

 

 WITH LUCK ... from a child in single-figures I was very interested in what our Ransom foreign brides cooked, and wore as wedding frocks !   As with most ancient Sea Merchant families we never lose our relatives with seashores where a SHIP can be pulled in when Wars-plague-famine etc. arise :   Xmas cards came and birthdays were remembered for we young from 12-13^th century Palestine, Europe and most of South America and Italy and Spain & West Greenland ... and visits made by them and us  ...

 

THUS ... from late 1970s I am made a member of 17^th century Cavaliers & Roundheads philanthropy society SEALED KNOT to come into the Kitchens with Master Cook polymath Ian Hicks-Mudd and Colonel Robin heading The Roundheads  `Regiment of Sir Thomas Ballad raised for 100 Years War` ...  I had practical experience of kitchens of 16^th-17^th century Noble and Roundhead Tables and Trestles !   A few days before the ASHMOLEAN TER-CENTENARY I was asked to have some of the world scholars to The Pillar House and provide a supper ... I set about a 16-17^th century banquet - stayed home a day while Mary took certain of the lectures ...

 

 From 1970s worldwide visiting scholars to Harwell were greeted with `which century would you like to eat from  ... ? `   The Pillar House EAT ART came about !      And this was a world known to MARY FREEMAN from pictures in world Art Galleries and Museums ... and the guests of course  ...  

 

 (NB :   If in a hurry do Anglo-Saxon supper of pork chops, apple sauce with honey, barley bread beer or wine ... I think it has come from a poem of those centuries ...

 

Read book recommended by Dr John Fletcher `ALFGAR THE DANE` – written at Sutton Courtney ... XMAS will never be the same again – 1001/or is it 1006 the peasants invited to the Manor House for a splendid GOOD FOOD SPREAD looked from the windows and saw Abingdon, Wallingford, and somewhere else, Dorchester,  were all on FIRE ... those wretched DANES again ... the ladies made a chain and fetched water from the river ... all survived somewhat ...   

 

1983 August :   That evening of my 16-17^th century Banquet,  MARY-Mollie Freeman encouraged us to eat in The Pillar House big garden and she would come across from Winterbrook for the desert ...

 

I had eager help from sturdy Art historians from Eastern Europe and Italy who lifted three big tables out onto the lawn by the Medlar tree ... A heavenly summer evening – The Pillar House architecture delighted them and they spotted its 18^th century features -  commenting it was not 19^th century  - although built in 1852 after THE FIRE ... the owners wanting their house back !  Stand at the great front door when sun setting and look along the L-shaped house to the GREAT KITCHEN ... a most convenient plan – children cannot get lost – central big room was our MUSIC ROOM where piano in use every day ... 

 

MARY FREEMAN 1983 -  SHE  entered The Pillar House on her own through the High Street little gate calling out her arrival ... A Goddess dressed in shades of lavender flowers in ankle length gown of organza and matching lavender big picture hat swathed in silver lavender net ... The learned men of the Art Historian World arose and went to greet her and escort her to the head of the table by the Medlar tree ... she greeted everyone and said how she was enjoying the SYMPOSIUM of the Ashmolean Museum ...

 

My delicate iced deserts were tried with chilled wines of all shades :   And then she was encouraged by the Table to speak on her travels of the world and its Museums, Art Galleries from the beginning of the 20^th century ... She spoke on people long dead but revered by them ... she had known many in her long career from her girlhood – her parents with friends called `the Georgian Poets and connexions`  :   the philosophical matters artists encountered ... the encouragement she gave them all had them with joy and hope ... She looked so stately yet ethereal as if we had with us a person of a thousand years ... in this village `HARWELL Village of a THOUSAND YEARS 985 – 1985` the publication ...

 

1985 - PJPW with help a cousin Dr Martin Brett Cambridge writes the investigation of the earliest Charters 985 AD ... publication for the Visit of c 2,000 descendants of HARWELL families – Saxon Norman French BAYLOLLS & descendants, 2 brothers Harwell ... others ... many USA but also worldwide ... A SOCIETY and magazine had been running for many years ...

 

1983 August – The foreign  scholars attending the ASHMOLEAN TER-CENTENARY invited her to visit them in their Nations :   I heard her saying to someone as the conversations went on  “ Oh, we were all staying with the Ambassador in Cairo that time ... and young Graves came for about a fortnight ... he was a clever but flamboyant young man ... and actually we were quite relieved when he left to go on somewhere else ...  ”

 

Amongst her acquaintances, colleagues, friends she could recall a tall delicate young man who spoke English as well as her generation did ... it was in 1920s Ceylon first time ... he had a soul and wrote a book then others ... he was a Frenchman but had English family a line from his mother of 900 years Norfolk-Suffolk ... she Mary had met him again before he died a little too early  - he had many English friends - people called him George or Andre – MALRAUX ... In the candlelight at the tables on the Pillar House lawn,  these men and women of the highest intelligence seemed to slightly bow their heads – knowing he ANDRE MALRAUX had several tragic deaths to burden him since the years of  2^nd World War and on to the unexpected death of his two sons  ...

 

 Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX  had become the 1^st Cultural Minister of ART – appointed by General CHARLES de GAULLE 1958/9 – 1969 when they both left Government he says   ` ... ... ... we felt we had done what we could ... we were getting old ... ... ...`  RECORDS :  Visits to The Pillar House from January 1970  - Dining room ... then visits to see the children and the garden ... accompanying us about LONDON Exhibitions ...

 

2 last Visits September and October 1976 ... then   A PILGRIMAGE TO THE SEASHORES and he left alone for 20 minutes on `JO`s BEACH`  where we had SUMMER 1937 – CLACTON-HOLLAND-on-Sea ... He and Josedtte come from BLOOD of SPAIN Civil War ... and all of us at the seas edges and Poles Nord to Sud knowing another WAR is COMING ...  We could not save the lives of the world`s CHILDREN of the THOMAS GROTE HOMES ... established 1864 onwards ... A genocide planned from 1929 by Scots Earls and in-laws to one branch began Norway Chrsitmas morning 1938 when 350 children were deliberately drowned on an isolated beach ... photos –

 

 

REPORTS by 1^st January 1939 `an Embassy Berlin` (Canada ?) and Report  from VATICAN ...

 

 

I coming 6 years remember that day the `Dames School house` Old Road Clacton-on-Sea a morning – our post goes across road to the junior department of a Dr Barnardo Home (or it is stolen !)  ... my distraught father saying `I cannot say a word or this country with this new reign will arrest me ... I am still in the Army ... HE MUST SPEAK OUT ... he is said to be in America ...”  :   

MALRAUX did not know what had happened ... TREACHERY – & TREASON  now took over ... and WAR broke out 1939 3=4^th September ...

 

NOTA BENE :    READERS of this work HARWELL histories etc  can look at the BBC publications RADIO TIMES ... THIS IS an easy way to step in at first into these times ... familiar to we ... but remote from younger Readers ...  I keep a file handy of Xmas-tides and birthdays and holidays and relatives visiting ... it’s a good way to step into the past ... especially if you have photos and information on grandparents lives ... OPEN SESAME !  ... then continue with newspapers and level headed writers ...

 

This 2011 AD www. issued work from records called  :   “SUMMER 1937 ...”    www.greta-ransom.com and www.ancestry&truetales.jimdo.com and www.greetahransom.wordpress.com ...    Title    “ SUMMER 1937 Andre Malraux, Josette Clotis a young lady, Greta Ransom, CLACTON-on-SEA and WEST GREENLAND ...” scaffolding for work to come - DOCUMENT in 3 Parts ... 2011 records released ... continues 2017 AD ... www.  & other necessary means of storage and retrieval ...  

 

 

 

 

   CONTINUES ...

 

MARY FREEMAN (Mary Laura Dudley-Short Mary Mollie Cotton on some art work ...becomes Mrs Percy Peter Freeman ..)

 

Winterbrooke House HARWELL ...  in her 70s-to mid 80s it was remarked by various people that her dinner parties really got going after midnight ... then she would talk about Art and its role for everyone in the world, artists, friends, and always Exhibitions she had just seen.   And perhaps lead the way up to her picture gallery...

 

I and PJPW invited one occasion  “ come about 10pm ... ” crossed the road to our The Pillar House at after 2.30AM ...  HHer well known in the medical world Roman Catholic nephew Dr Jacques Goddenne had arrived =  he as a young Doctor had experienced the dangerous `Agent Orange` in a War doctor.   He would come to visit his mother (Olive)  her two sisters his Aunt Phyllis Dudley-Short in St John`s Wood and Aunt Mary Freeman widowed 1960s at Harwell :   I a child of known Southern Irish families with relatives & friends in the Vatican from mid-19^th century &  Quaker-Nonconformist too & PJPW a Rathbone Quakers grandmother – were at ease here :  His Quaker great-grandfather Philip Henry Rathbone of Liverpool, Chairman of the Museums & Art Galleries Committees ...

 

In the 1980s we took her to `the Play` at Stratford-on-Avon Shakespeare Theatre, setting off early morning so we could have a picnic lunch in Holy Trinity meadow before going in to the theatre :  Twelfth Night, Henry IV, A Winter`s Tale perhaps – Perhaps one performance was the Oxford College Gardens ?  An occasion to Salisbury for music in the Cathedral and perhaps to Old Sarum city mound – picnic in the setting sun.  We drank a little of my homemade wines of certain flowers (white rose petal with a touch of ginger) fruits, or nettles with a touch of Sage or Thyme ... Quince, Medlar, dandylion, and supposed that Shakespeare enjoyed these flavours too and the delicate colours ... quietly talked and listened and enjoyed being alive ... the children with us ...

 

Mary Freeman and I had late Victorian childhoods although over 40 years between our birthdays ... hers in that time but mine by long living  relatives – one is Great-Aunt Miss Annie-Agnes Carroll Williams a sculptress and Arts and Crafts worker Liverpool who read each night a passage from the Bible and a passage from Lucretius his `de rerum natura` - her Roman Catholic Italian Professor Manzoni told her to when she was 17 years in 1897 :  she had Heaven and ATOMS to discuss 1945 onwards with a young friend of East-Anglia & French ancestry !

  

This aunt could say of some in church overdressed on solemn Feast days  `my dear she was dressed like Fanny Cornforth` = MARY FREEMAN  had no recollection of hearing this slightly disapproving comment on a fellow Roman Catholic  (or Convert ?) – Family of M.F. did not brush shoulders with those who had seen The Pre-Raphelites then ) 

 

Thus MARY FREEMAN said thoughtfully on one occasion to me  `Greta, I think your childhood has earlier Victorian elements in it than mine ...`

 

But we did run our households with somewhat Victorian economy ... and knew from a book called `Enquire Within` some wise sayings

 

For the light of the day we`ve nothing to pay

Let hope be our handmaid

Care in summer, comfort in winter :  this referred to our homegrown fruits for storing in dark cellars, jam and jelly making, and pickles :

( I made wines of pretty colours - and she would very occasionally ask for a bottle for a soup or desert )

 

Wilful waste makes woeful want

Better go to bed supper-less than rise in debt 

   ( we did not agree here and both of us felt a bowl of bread and warm milk a little sugar and a scrape of nutmeg a sensible idea !)

 

Take care of pence, pounds will take care of themselves

The windows opened more would keep doctors from the door

    (we both agreed NEVER OPEN WINDOWS ON A COLD NIGHT !  And sleep in a warm room !

 

We increase our wealth when we lessen our desires !

    (a good one for the 21^st society)

 

An hour in the morning is worth two at night

Morning for Work and evening for Contemplation

 

           Better advice for modern times is from Annie-Agnes `stone worker & arts & Crafts, youngest dau of Teresa Carroll Classicist :   Annie-Agnes Miss Murphy Carroll O`Brien Williams, she my supposed- to-be-retired great-aunt chants the below to me from 1943 at `Stella Maris`  Clacton-on-Sea` :   She also read with her Bible & LUCRETIUS from age 17 years the INGOLDSBY LEGENDS by old Revd. Bareham 1834 – it made him `well-to-doo` & life in his Rectory warm and snug in the winter months = perhaps the below is his ...  

 

... In the morning work awhile

After dinner rest awhile             Advice for 21^st century

... After Supper run a mile ...

 

And take the big meal in the middle of the day again – better for the digestion ...

 

MARY FREEMAN - become a Roman Catholic Convert in her young years - may have not been allowed read INGOLDSBY LEGENDS ... (Readers of these few pages will enjoy finding out why ...)

 

The advices go on ...

Put a stout heart to a steep hill

    A good BOOK is a light to the soul

Use a BOOK as a BEE DOES A FLOWER

    Be temperate in all things

 And ... Little deeds are like little seeds

                 they grow to flowers or to weeds ...

 

Yes I had the older Victorian up-bringing ... & my grandparents and their families both sides knew a `young Pacelli` - many people knew ...

( A man become Pope whose bad publicity is because so much of his life & travail remain hidden by evil tricks of devious madmen of vast greed from 1937 ... Records many :

 

1936 Spring after he and I had a 20 minutes talk-away about South America and Tierra del Fuego “dear to my heart” he had other Visitors waiting -  he regretted he could not come with my family out to tea in ROME - WAR was coming :    Thus he `young Pacelli`  writes 1936 autumn to Granny Mary Helena Gordon to say he knows where there is a hurdy-gurdy and he and I WILL go there to TEA next time I come to Rome – he also talks with her on the telephone in England  =

 

Many friends know that since he returned from his Germany appointment to the VATICAN he slips about Rome in an old Robe un-recognized with his sketching book ... and our Irish-American cousin Priest who lives-in the VAT too will accompany us on this TEA PARTY :   This Irish-American cousin Father S.F. sends me blue and green sweets for the sky and sweet clad earth = and some come to The Pillar House up to 1973 - then he had to go to Heaven and continue writing - But `young Pacelli` had gone on ahead in 1959-  but tragically still deceived by unintelligent evil maniacs who did not wish other nations to be well educated ... but they did evil deeds for money & hedonist mad FUN really   :

 

 MARY FREEMAN, her families and friends are people who are sensible & aesthetic and practical, trying without violence to make something of Heaven come stay upon the earth ... as with my people :

 

See ISSUE of TLS end of March 2017  ...  about the 1225 A.D. Carta de Foresta ... (Times Literary supplement)    : 

 

HARWELL VILLAGE  ... at Winterbrook House and the Pillar House our household and aesthete economies led twice a year to ` Araldite Glue Party mornings` as MARY FREEMAN called them ... favorite china or porcelain or crafts workers wares were stuck – broken or chipped plates, bowls, cups or saucers – and got very sticky fingers trying to mend Glasses not too successfully – the guest was warned to set a rare wine glass down carefully as it might wobble :   I had done some restoration work on Iron Age pots and Roman Samian Ware at Colchester and Essex Museums in the 1950s ! 

 

SHE, Mary, WENT TO LONDON once a week to meet friends and go to Exhibitions ... she had a Club but I cannot remember its name ...

 

 

 and she went abroad to stay with Jacques her nephew and his families ... He had a sister at John Hopkins Hospital who had all their finances on a computer while another sister Liz with husband Ed ran a Lukemia Hospital New York for Children ...  they Ed and Liz  visited Harwell mid-1970s and she asked me to make a luncheon at The Pillar House and she would arrange a supper at Winterbrooke ... They had known the mother of the Whitehead twins in Wartime 2 London when they all worked for the American Red Cross :     As they are in the Medical world I turned to John Evelyn, Sam Pepys, their use of fruits & salads and fresh vegetables of the Covent Garden ... and real white and yellow wines and not my homemade ... they visited friends in Oxford and we all met again after Supper at Winterbrooke over the road and the evening finished early ...       

 

Ed and Liz spoke on their New York Hospital and the young patients who will not live very long  :   ` ... we give them a normal life, some schooling each day, visits to the City events, Museums and Galleries, and light entertainment and pantomime and Christmas festivities and they have visitors from their families ... We take them to music concerts, regular visits to the Parks and they have countryside visits too =  Because of the drugs they must have to stay alive they cannot progress beyond a 9 years old in education ... they will die by 11 or 14 years old ... we have had one live to 16 years ... it is a matter of Research ... some parents can pay the Hospital ...  and this has us able to take in poor children ... We see our children have a happy life as normal as possible ... it is short ... but we know Research is going to help ... come up with advances ... ... ... `

 

And she had the family of her brother in HOLLYWOOD USA ... his daughter June a scriptwriter etc. ... MARY had regular correspondence from and with all these family members ... and exchanges on matters concerning  the world ...

 

MARY FREEMAN 1970-1980s ... WE KEPT IN TOUCH BY LITTLE NOTES ... rarely telephone ... she put her notes were put through the Pillar House door and I could put mine on her kitchen table when Mary Lister her housekeeper was there ... occasionally in good weather she might call at `great kitchen` door The Pillar House – it can be seen in one of the LLB Books or she might come to `the jasmine door` leading into the gardens, gaily calling about an event we should attend in Oxford and saying she was OFF to London ...  ( Mary Lister`s daughter Heather was drawing at a young age and brother Darren had thoughtful things to say about natural history ... Father Lister was very proud of them ... they would be in charge of the house ...)

 

 

A JOURNEY DOWN THE YEARS ... 18^th-19^th  and 20^th centuries = spoken by Laura MARY-Mollie Dudley-Short become Mrs P. Peter Freeman  ...

 

Days around the Globe and England & HARWELL

in the LIFE of MARY FREEMAN ... she and her circle well aware of Racism G.B. ... see photo in book of her with a Committee of white and Indian women  ...

 

These pages composed by me from all manner of Records :   I  Greta `Greetah` Ransom Whitehead ... Here we will step into her days and life from her conversation and my being present 1968-1986 onwards coming to know her families and friends ...

FROM THE PILLAR HOUSE after her death The Pillar House makes  two visits of 2 months each 1986 and 1988 for BMNH-FISHES Section  =

 

 

With Dr Peter J.P. Whitehead I visit  China touring the SEAS EDGES  -visiting Fishery Colleges and Universities ... My family  RANSOM  ` the REDEMPTIO for ROMAN BRITAIN LONDINIUM ( Thames River duties GRAVESEND to the Fort LONDINIUM  77 AD recovering from  `Boadicea-Boudicca` losing her temper when insulted by a Roman general ... so she laid waste 61/62 AD Camulodunium-Verulamium-Londinium – but 19^th century got a nice bronze work alongside the Houses of P ...

 

Our CONNEXIONS around the GLOBE (world)   - as  THE FRIENDS of MARY FREEMAN and her AGE turn of the 20^th century  UNDERSTOOD = PAST-PRESENT-means FUTURE  :   They could look at the STARS and know there was more beyond - earth had created life in many ways ... But beyond the Night Skies is more ... (21^ST CENTURY can view the NASA WEB SITE ... )

 

((  We `REDEMPTIO = becomes RANSOM 5-6^th centuries  AD :   Wise to change name – visit by Augustine & a Deputation 597 AD comes from ROME – we agree join in !

We retire 92 AD to EAST ANGLIA Dunwich  (from 10^th century AD beginning coastal erosion )    But we continue for ROMAN BRITAIN to hold hereditary post of `The Redemptio` = The family are SEA TRADERS and MERCHANTS come from known families at UDEWALLA BC ...  `To keep the blood pure` good marriages were made Italy and shores of Meditterrannean ... and dowry a little piece of SEA SHORE to sail in when times difficult ... keep your Ancestors ... (presents come to the young for Birthdays etc )   

CHINA from Siberia, Mongolia to Korea and JAPAN we sailed down the centuries from 1400 AD  marrying educated Brides :  

 

IN the TWO CHINESE VISITS 1986 & 1988  (like living a 100 years each time)   I discovered many things which she MARY FREEMAN had spoken upon ALMOST YESTERDAY ... Confucius sensibility everywhere ...

 

My father, brothers, my grandparents had died very early 1930s-1960s :    But I met my Chinese ancestral lines - from POUL GRONLANDER Gotharb & Xristensharb, multi-language Poul growing up with the sons of good Pastor Egede and wife Gertrud, Poul polymath = Poul is correspondent with the Humanist POPE  who writes Poul   “ ... come quickly – we must talk on botanical medicines – I am going MAD here ...”   LATIN translation of course ...

 

(This Pope tries stop the Inquisition minded – recognizing that many in `THE VAT`, as elsewhere in Ruling Circles  were suffering various illnesses ... and finding cures would help them come  `out of the Doldrums`

 

( POUL has 16^th -18^th century family histories and  parents of CHINESE-Eskimo-French scholars :   He is my grandpa 4 generations back and his educated blonde curls blue eyes wife Margaret Yates is of a modest but humanist CARLISLE  shipping family  ( her drawings of Poul by Margaret show a young fellah of 6`5” tall, dark blue eyes and “dishy”  =  as East-Anglia girls in the 1930s remarked shown family Archives at Clacton-on-Sea ...  they all go dancing and have met a girl named ZEPPERLINA – she has a plaque in the local church (in actual books or Internet hopefully ...)

 

 20^th century, 2 World Wars  and poverty for all 1930s are re-called by an author of ` DARK VALLEY` publ. 2000 AD ... he gives READER research from official RECORDS and his own family experiences through 1920s-30s -40s =  Europe,  Britain & the GLOBE ...

 

20^th century :   Music and Hollywood films helped when life dismal ... `Walk on the Sunny Side of the Street ... and `Night and Day ...

Our families have Uncle Fred MacMurray in films  “  when Wall Street Insurance LOW ”   he tells us on visits ... Also another close blood line from ( my)  Jesuit educated Portugal INCA-Tierra del Fuego Grandpa 3 times back marrying  Spanish BASQUE wife ... thus  giving  another Hollywood figure - a cousin to  the mother of my Father  ... My grandmother Jean Minerva a ballerina-teacher-choreographer  ...  This second Hollywood film maker is also `dishy-handsom`  ... but NOT  6 feet 5 inches tall  as POUL ... His  tiny Eskimo-French mother read the First FRENCH translation o LUCRETIUS printed PARIS 1720     

 

(see Cosmo Gordon bibliography & TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – TLS a  Review by Peter J.P. Whitehead of The PillarHouse and BM Natural History FISHES Section :   1980s ... )

 

CONNEXIONS and CONNEXIONS the centuries - HARWELL Village of a Thousand Years publ. 1985 has philanthropists, Artists-writers-scholars, Army, Navy & FLYERS (Air-Force Men) living in the village or nearby - and Scientists at the Harwell Atomic Site :  Continental Refugees had been entering Britain from Anglo-Saxon times and others ON THE RUN from Continental troubles 16^th- 17^th centuries and that because of Religious matters by 1685 ` REVOKING of the Edict of NANTES` the Bosley Clan came sometime after ( Bouzlay-ie ? )  - Thus 20^th century Harwell Village has 18^th century French refugees with this  `BEST BUTCHERS shop of all` : 

 

Mary Freeman and Catholic and Non-conformist and Quaker friends knew this historic world of SHIPS PASSING IN THE DARK – but sometimes pulling into the same Port :   1968 summer a very tall solemn figure entered to get the Meat Order for an old English friend of the 1920s,  to be greeted in French language from behind the counter with  “ Ah !  Andre our countryman -  we have always read everything you write –

 

 

The once young man of a good soul struggling author of books 1920s-30s-40s ` Man`s Fate`, `Days of Wrath` `Temptation of the West` `Walnut Trees` etc wondered if he needed to go `Retreat` again that Monastery of St Francis, Italy :    

 

HARWELL 1968 Summer a `Man of Letters` picked himself up from the Bosley Butchers Shop floor and enquired ? in French and English – HOW ??? ... And they explained THEY had come with goods and chattels after `Revocation of NANTES 1685` - an exodus to England was allowed :    Arrived EAST ANGLIA (paper making & weaving craftsmen) but 19^th century moved near Ox-Ford and took up farming ... `Oh, they knew his mother`s HISTON families line of many centuries – Kings Lynn and Saxmundenham later ...  FOREIGNERS CAME IN  =OH !

 

They spoke to him in good French but a dialect of a French village – told of  their ancestry the last 2 and a half centuries :  “ We all come from this French village where we share the same Grandfathers 4 and 5 times back in the years – We used to visit every two years – they coming over here – not so much now ... But we take our own  BEER over last years ... because getting older we cannot drink so much of our cousins Red Wine - had hang-overs when we were younger ... very good wine ... ”

 

HARWELL summer 1968 :  this tall dignified figure I have known 1935 Paris & 1937 all summer Clacton and East Anglia SEAS EDGES calls at Bosley Butchers for a weekend Meat order – he sometimes has work art-history with Dr John Fletcher – 1960s  : 

 

He (Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX)  returned 1945 May to East Anglia the little town Clacton-on-Sea laden with a dead wife and 2 dead brothers from the WAR – Our schools and great Catholic Church of Our Lady had him teach a little in our schools, sing in our choir when - we help him with his grief with a full performance of that joyous Monteverdi `1610 MASS` July 1945 – and The Order of the Poor Saint CLARE called him  “ GOD`s GIFT to young women ” ...  and let him sing in their Chapel because of his counter-tenor voice !  He trained under Alfred Deller in Paris in his 20s !  :   Clacton-on-Sea and area knows him well – he has relatives from Lincoln to Suffolk :  

 

I always call him `Georges` as his mother Bertha did – and carefully  take no interest in Politics 1950s onwards when he steps into French Government as Cultural Minister with General Charles de Gaulle – the General and Gs-Andre Malraux run an Anglo-French Catholic Mission St Edmund`s House, Lancaster Gate Square by the Parks  :  Mary Freeman and her families are Catholics and this beautiful private dwelling the home for decades of a Roman Catholic Anglo-French man of business and Philanthropy 19^th century-1920s had gatherings of good people – my great-aunts visited – He left a Fortune to be distributed to English-French small businesses :

 

1941-43  General de Gaulle and his wife and my great-Aunt Miss Bessie Martha Carroll Williams had Wartime TEAS at Diocese of Westminster with other Roman Catholics :  Meeting again 1957 they rattled away in 19^th 20^th century elegant French ... where they had left off 1941-1944 :     

 

This ` English-French MAN of LETTERS too` as Winston Churchill calls him 1950s,    has an English life with old friends of 1920s-30s & relatives :   HARWELL & Bosley Butchers with courtesy invited `their double-countryman` to join in a Sing-Song down at the new Harwell home – they no longer lived in the big Queen Anne Mansion where they have their Butchers shop ... next The Pillar House :  Harwell had these two splendid architectural houses and the little Charity Homes – still with 5 Pubs-Inns in 1968 !       

`Georges-Andre `Man of Letters`  said to the Bosley families that he had friends living about their ancestral French village ... SMALL WORLD

 

SMALL WORLD as I found 1988 in The Post Office Hohhot a sweet town of INNER MONGOLIA - in perfect English two young men told me their cousin was a scientist at HARWELL ATOMIC STATION ... He and wife came to tea 1988 - photo  :    

 

1986 - If MARY FREEMAN had not died 1986 I do believe she would have met us in HONG KONG before we set off along the SEAS EDGES of CHINA for 6 weeks ...    

 

MARY-Mollie, she was passionately interested in the progress of children learning to draw and make visits to Art Galleries and Museums :  If our children sent her a Christmas or Easter homemade card or a letter with a drawing after we had attended OAS PVs and Ashmolean events then she would call at their tea-time or come across on a Saturday morning to thank them – She had taught Art in several London schools to children from her 30s ... BANKING her Salary at Bethnal Green, QUIETLY,  to make a Scholarship in Art for a child wishing to continue – I think she did this in other schools ...  :

       

   

MARY FREEMAN, her endless work & transport 1950s :  At nearly 50 years old she was taught to drive a car by Delle Fletcher, husband Dr John Fletcher said `Delle tied cushions to her back and chest as her pupil was thought to be a bit nippy with the gears ...` I heard from Mary that it was a `god-send` to go where she needed in her own time :  She felt one day when children grown up I might learn to drive a car – cars had been around since 1880s/90s – I was not keen !

 

 ( NB:  The days of we young `flyers in training` had ended for  me when 2^nd World WAR broke out September 3rd 1939– newspapers and BBC – my father `on release` from 1934 British Army:   I was 6 years 6 months old, tall,  & knew the world was round and small !  We could fly anywhere !   At 6 years I learned to land our tiny planes if an emergency happened - a bit bumpily at first :  But we needed to fly Pole to Pole in those days 1920s-30s – Training was very serious - first lessons were understanding engine and history of FLIGHT = it had only begun c 1904 !   Then care of the plane and handling every engine part - checking after landing flight then before take-off  =

 

 Serious discussion with other pilots come in from long flights about `their flight` !   Thus I no longer `Shweppes Demon Flyer in Training` – grounded after 2^nd World War ended !  My last flight 1939 was to LAPLAND - & the TEA fizzed when the Reindeer families put something in with the sugar – and they laughed away  :   At Harwell I preferred buses & trains, seeing the landscape, other people, and reading a bit & making my endless notes and lists ! :   (LIR – a lst Class FLYER my young uncle born 1921-musician-artist kept diaries since age 12 ...)

 

She invited me to an Ashmolean event one evening 1980s – she would drive her car – Returning through centre Oxford we were waved down by a patrol car Policeman & she immediately stopped – he advanced like a Bull, saw who she was and with theatrical sweeping bow said with solemnity   slowly  “  Madam – MAY we have some lights ... ”  

“ Oh Officer, how silly of me – we should have lights – we should not have been talking so much ... we have been to the Ashmolean ...”  She looked very girlish.  

PJPW had to accompany her to the Watermill Theatre – talking all the way about an exciting project – they went half the way in second-gear. He insisted on driving back .

 

Last July 1985 we had fun in her kitchen cooking some Medieval biscuits from 16^th17^th cookery books for a TEA TO BE GIVEN TO THE VISITING AMERICAN DESCENDANTS ... this was to be in The Pillar House garden - & she would host them at sometime :  We made some EAT ART as a friend an Art Historian based Cologne called this enjoyable kitchen work : 

 

Big Peter had written on The HARWELL Charta 985 some help from a cousin a Medievalist at Cambridge – I had  an Anglo-Saxon receipt for barley-wheat biscuits-honey, eggs, butter & some MACE – ( ENGLISH Fairs- Market Places, sold spices & dried fruits shipped from Palestine since Roman Britain times & before ... )    

HARWELL blood lines were coming home 1985 – sons and daughters of HARWELL  =  and Master Coleman A. HARWELL owned the Nashville TENNESSEE Press !

 

I baked and we tasted – the church cat called Muffin by my children pawed in and circled about the kitchen – he is large beautiful black and white ... he was interested in `the art eat` :    Mary said `Oh I do wish I had a cat again – how I miss my Misty who died some years ago – but it would be difficult to cope with a cat  when I am so often away or up in London ...  it just might get under my feet ...

 

THESE  Mace flavoured Anglo-Saxon BISCUITS were regularly cooked in The Great Kitchen at The Pillar House ...  I remember young Pete & friend Dan Grimshaw of Upton on one of our frequent visits to SARUM-Salisbury thoughtfully chewing these Anglo-Saxon Medieval biscuits 1985/6 at Old Sarum in the foundations of the first Cathedral & musing ` that Bishop of the ROLLING STONES ... must have eaten biscuits like these then ...`

( history tells us that the Bishop had a row with the Knight and dismantled his Cathedral and took it down the hill to its present site ... he is supposed to have used farm carts – but surely easier to have rolled the stones ... ? )

 

Knowing her for a few years 1968 – 1986  it was felt her spirit was always about 27 years of age ... An ever enquiring mind, active lifestyle ... person of great sensitivity AND A STUDENT ... In her 92^nd year she had so much to go on exploring and translating into the arts ... Kunst-kammer and Wunderkamma, cabinet of curiosities – closet of rarities ... student of the globe and the Universe ...

 

 

  Greta RANSOM Whitehead  ...  re-reading some lines I wrote 1986 the week after her departure from the world ...  (March 2017 AD)

 

 

 

Printed off Mar. 26^th 2017 – copy to Kathe Luker for  HARWELL EXHIBITION in new Village School ...

These pages by GRETA RANSOM widow of  Dr PJP Whitehead BMNH

 

   Based on 3 close typewritten pages I wrote the week after death ... October 1986 I accompany PJPW to CHINA for BMNH – visits to Fishery Colleges, Museums, Universities along the coasts Hong Kong to CANTON ... to XIAMEN/Amoy ... Shanghai ... Heinan ... QUINGDAO ... on to PEKIN .... 6-7 weeks work ... returned via Japan and New York December 1986 :   1988 April repeat CHINA ... (PJPW told 1988 Febr. He has 4-5 years to live) ... bought 1830 house in France H.P. moved 1993 ... began much historical recording work – given to me to continue  - ...

 

                                       

  

 

NOTES to page 2 PJPW work – his `APPRECIATION`

 

GRW adds a little on `the spot` information – oral from she and her artist friends and families :

 

I am sometimes passing him oral M.F. from our daily Harwell life ... she may have just looked in ...

Or she & I talk as we go about our household duties – then take a rest with a cup of tea ...

 

“ After breakfast work awhile - After dinner rest awhile (meaning midday big meal as French do nowadays and working England did 19^th century)   After Supper run a mile ...”

 

 

Page 2  PJPW writes

`... she taught in Cambridge – (margin note)  at the Perse School (Cambridge ...

 

HOWEVER !    Here are her first jobs as told to me (she would be 19-20 21 years old :    She lived awhile with the MAYNARD KEYNES family his Russian ballerina wife and children ... “  We would go out mornings to walk the children she their mother the ballerina pushing the pram – perhaps another child on the way ... sometimes I had to push it ... and see to matters of the household – he was very proud of her and the children – he had much work and was often excited about it ... the household was different to my upbringing ... but I was able to continue to study art  ” 

 

THEN she met the Eric Gill family ... and they went to the countryside in a cart pulled by horses he driving – they went with others in the art field ... ` unusual households but it helped him in his art work – living in this way`   ( then Augustus John comes in somewhere – perhaps via his sister ...)  she bought work by Eric Gill :  

 

She was often `up to town` (London) and off to Belgium to nephew Jacques & wife Monique and big family ... In New York Liz sister of Jacques with husband ran a N.Y. LUKEMIA HOSPITAL for children (see my notes – meeting them 1976-7 ... In Hollywood, and sometimes coming going, the daughter and family of her brother who died in the accident on the big wheel at Battersea :   Many friends of all decades came to stay – or she to them ... Sometimes a `Retreat` with friends – staying with Nuns who were trained in Art = wood cuts and fine printing ...

 

1968 on at THE PILLAR HOUSE – I enjoy being at home - have big P`s two older children the Pillar House to 1976 – then A. to Canada/America ... We make regular outings to Museums & Art Galleries ancient Cities, PROM Concerts Royal Albert Hall – music in great Cathedrals ... Friends of Salisbury Cathedral ... Always busy :

...  my two children Victoria-Augusta b 1968 (called ` the Mouse-weed` or `Mousie` (still 2017 AD) but named after ROMAN EMPIRE LEGION the VICTORIA-AUGUSTA ... and Little Peter  (now in the Churchyard 1970-1998  P.RR.W.)  (who asked to have his name spoken as PETE when he was 21 years & back from a year world tour :  A previous child of The Pillar House  (Lord) HENRY BROOKE called `little Henry` asked his name be without the `little` when he became an MP Houses of Commons 1930s ...

 

I WORKED LIKE 10 `Irish Navvie`s in The Pillar House and she appreciated that I did and found it `sculptural dance` and I always had a wireless on softly – Radio 3 (what had been our Third Programme)

 Long player records, tapes ... THUS -  Mary Freeman and I spoke as we went about our daily tasks ... Winterbrooke House or The Pillar House ...

 

...  all Whitehead 4 children had daily school, weekly piano lessons and with she sometimes and other families exhibitions to attend Oxford-London and school holidays visits to the Museums and Aqua Sulis (BATH City) – visits to my Gordon-Ransom Clacton seaside families and Whitehead and Rathbone relatives visiting  :   she was keen to hear our `adventures` when I took the children on London visits ...

 

 We did 2 CLASSICAL Tours by car 1968/69 `Harwell to Pompeii and back` and 1969 ` Harwell to MYCENAE and back` camping mostly = AMANDA Oonagh,  PAUL James,  & Victoria-Augusta MOUSIE 5-6 months ... before little Peter born 1970 then off again 1973 Italy by car – Big P. always driving = he could combine Museum work etc. on these Tours of 6 weeks each :   ALL slides & photos to Video and now on DVD too – some borrowed & copied by world Museums – Days before mass Tourism :   

 

I born into centuries of Seas-Trader genealogy-philanthropy-arts-crafts & work of all sorts with the hands seemed natural to her !   I had had one grandmother IRISH - Church singer etc. the other the INCA-Basque -Argentine-Bavarian ballerina-choreographer-teacher !

 

Her world understood something of Philanthropists LIVE DANGEROUSLY 19^th-20^th CENTURIES – the rich are short of money – Shakespeare would have understood this world  :

 

... I grew up 1930s-40s called `APE -  ESQUIMO ` by related 1883 Scotland Senior Earls - another Clan jumps in on us 1904 – Good human beings warned of  “ the little blue-eyed half Chinese-Scot who WORKS for certain Earls BY MOONLIGHT ... ”  ( he has a Switzerland- France educated Chinese mother – her rich family all lines are very honourable – could recite CONFUCIUS  !!  

 

CARS - I never learned to drive a car = but could land a small plane in emergency by 1939 age 6 years –

“ Shwepps the Demon flyer in training Huh ! ”  said an experienced pilot from 1910 West Greenland 1938 – He eyed me after our landing from flight Atlantic to Xristensharb West Greenland – I at 5 years refused to take a beer with the Pilots calling out `Beer Kid ? ` = Replied `Shweppes` please ... I dress as a boy = or my experienced FLYER Uncle LIR age 17 years will get called `Nursemaid ` - I have been flying since 9 months !

 

1938 on -  Daddy and LIR now Fly near Casablanca to see a Polish man about `my PORRIDGE` ... He is the real person - the idea for `Rick-Nick` in that film with the lovely piano tune ...` But dark overcoat trilby pulled over his eyes 1953 he thinks I remember him - when he sneaks into Colchester Castle Museum saying `I AM THE SPY – I used to grow your porridge Casablanca ... remember – your father said you were here ... I want to see a Curator about North African Roman ruins ...

`  

1938 – BUT A WAR IS coming – most people knew it by 1936 !!

 

 

PERHAPS MARY FREEMAN NEVER LIVED AS DANGEROUSLY AS US :   but many people she knows 1900s-1960s live as my worldwide families (foreign Brides for centuries !)    The War Artist friends she had of both World Wars lived dangerously ...  And this was a time of EMPIRES and they were not wishing to give up this Role – France with Indo-China, Scandinavia – RUSSIA - and the biggest Empire of all time still coloured PINK on Globes and in Atlases ... WALLS HAD EARS !

 

 

MARY FREEMAN learned to drive a car in her 50s – in her 80s she had to give up :    She received a sweeping theatrical BOW from a hefty Oxford Policeman  -  it was coming up to Midnight as we left The Ashmolean  ... “  Madam – could  WE  ?  have some lights ... please ...  ”

 

The worlds of MARY FREEMAN & my families  - 19^th-20^th centuries:

 

1957 October :   a tall kind looking man who haunts the National Gallery with his small party stops, smiles and addresses me properly `Greetah` not `Greta`  - says I have grown so tall since the war ... will I join the party ?   Too shy I shake my head and say I have to get back to the Catholic Mission St Edmund`s House ... I did not remember him but sayng my name correctly means he is pre-war  (War began when I am 6 years and 6 months !)  But he knows so many in my families since he was born ...  :

 

Oh – 1970s I learn that he is a young friend of Mary Freeman ... `Civilization Clarke` ...

 

1930s – SHE `Mollie` can borrow a painting from his Gallery for her Class at The Convent of the Sacred Heart Hammersmith ... he is used to her wrapping it up in newspaper and going by bus – everyone puts their coins into `The POOR box for something or other`   : 

Golly !  This time she wanted to borrow a REMBRANDT ... he begged her let him send it by taxi – HE would put the taxi fare into `the POOR box` himself ... !

 

The young Art Class at Convent Hammersmith are 10-14 year – she has them examine the real painting ... she would give them a subject for their picture and say they might like to copy the style, brush-strokes of the artist in the painting she had borrowed from K.C. National Gallery (it is families like hers, and mine, that have presented paintings to galleries all over the Globe) : 

 

THUS – much of her COLLECTION of big paintings by children is saved :

Hammersmith Sacred Heart Convent moves to OXFORD 1940 after Xmas 1939 (5-6 big paintings of London in the fog may be inspired by Rembrandt ?  I have 1 framed & its impressive in my `Atrium` !  Others others are “ Midnight Mass 1939”  in a Crypt church – It must be R.C. SAINT ETHELDREADA`s crypt CITY of LONDON well known)   :

 

Her nephew Jacques gives instructions to me and PJPW to keep all of the childrens work SAFE – he says in letter “ this collection not understood yet ... ”  ... especially the LAGOS collections of childrens drawing at the Protestant Mission School run by the Broadbents (retired Oxford 1960s ... He Dr Pastor Broadbent often put his young African people showing promise into a HOME across the lane to take certain classes with orphan children educating to 18-20s/then to universities in medicine, sciences, agriculture, arts =  ( this a worldwide piece of Philanthropy A-Z begun from USA 1864 winding twice around the globe A – Z with agreement intelligent persons in all the nations – It was disapproved by certain SCOTS LORDS  )

 

1970s -  Dr Jacques Goddenne says not to let these childrens drawings go back to LAGOS yet ... She and he this Belgium nephew son of her sister OLIVE ( he in War Africa ) had met the artist Ben Onwhowh & she bought a painting from him when he had a London Exhibition – he had done a portrait of a Queen :   Perhaps he BEN  agreed Lagos was not ready for the drawings yet – ages are 4 years to 22 years .. they are safe and some photo-copied ... I WORK and WORK !

 

She also teaches Harwell Primary School early 1950s – Jim Froud took his paintings and also Alan Spence ... many have the name of the Harwell child on :   Stu Harmer`s father age 15 may have been looking at a Turner train ?   I have framed some – the rest are safe and some on one of my www. sites `jimdo`  (Kathe has web logo) :  Many safe here, in brilliant coloured paints are religious subjects – may be recorded on an Apple phone – I WORK and WORK and WORK !  

 

 

T H E  C U P

 

SWEET IS THE FOLK`s DRINK,

I tell of its flavor

I mean not wine, nor mean I honey,

But an ancient draught

beyond my power to describe

I marvel at this cup that itself

quenches thirst

AND of itself going round,

From lover to lover ...

THIS IS AN ANCIENT WINE

MOST RARE TO DRINK ...

 

Shailzh Ahmed-Al-Alawi

     A MOSLEM Saint of the 20^th Century

 

 

 

LINES typed on the back of her colour photographs of her abstract water-colour 1972 THE CUP (she signs herself MARY SHORT)  original exhibited at her 80^th BIRTHDAY EXHIBITION :   photos given to a few friends as presents  =  copy to Greta Ransom -Whitehead – she hears from a long ago Acquaintance  (died 1976)  met first in Ceylon 1920s of my 3 Arab-Palestine RANSOM grandmothers 12-13^th centuries – Roxanna & `Hebithiaya` (poetess) and `Goldi-locks` orphaned niece of an Arab Trader  &`Man of Letters`  ... www...  he my guardian from 1937 )

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nota bene :   Roman Catholic CONVERTS ... MARY FREEMAN ...

HER CIRCLE gathering as she after W.W.1 got about the world to teach ARTS and CRAFT - and a philosophy of fairness

 

begins her change of religion 1^st WORLD WAR called ‘GREAT WAR` quickly knew all we `died in the wool` ROMAN CATHOLICS = Converts were always a bit serious ... they perhaps did not appreciate a full-blooded Choir singing 1610 MASS ... it transported you with joy ... Choir and Congregation travelled about The Planets ... put their for US to get out upon and FURTHER and FURTHER into TRUTH of MATTER ... She and those with experience of the GREAT WAR – dead family, friends, VISITS to the FRENCH battlefields were searching for A WAY

 

I born 1933 felt a child of THE GREAT WAR – Sundays around the Globe were kept as REMEMBRANCE – artists, composers, writers who had taken part in it showed it in their work – searching for A WAY : 

 

1986 -  and various connections are collecting for A BOOK on she and HER WORK ...  collections safe) ... If she had been older when the WAR began 1914 then she would have surely taken up Nursing Duties (See Vera Britten et al)

 

 I G.R. of Wartime Schools 2^nd World War, Clacton-Bullford Wiltshire, back to Clacton Jan 1942 could relate things to her ... especially CHILDRENS PAINTINGS – I AGE 7 years embroidered THAT cushion cover in the TRAVELLING G.B. EXHIBITION 1942 – she showed me the Catalogue !  Its an Indian sitting cross-legged playing TABLA and I could tell her the shades of the embroidery silks !!!

 

 And 1942 I met that young hero Jan KARSKI a still winter weather afternoon and evening when DIOCESE of WESTMINSTER brought him down by train to meet my Grandmother Mary Helena (Mrs George Ernest GORDON  because they think she can get him help –I am at the tea party age 8 now and have travelled the world 1935-36 and remember it – Granny, her Irish cousins have an old friend called to my family `Young Pacelli` - I have met him 1936 ROME and we had a 20 minutes talk-in about `Tierra del Fuego` dear to my heart – and the cosy Nuns of Scotland-Ireland-Wales & Cornwall & their hospital work & little school – and Daddy has arranged for them to have help growing their vegetables “because Sister Selena tells that they love being there but winter comes SUDDEN and they must be prepared with STORES from their garden and warm blankets for homeless always turn up = He talks to Granny on the phone and writes `when your grand-daughter comes again we will go out to tea and I know where there is a hurdy-gurdy` ... He takes his SKETCHBOOK and goes about Rome unrecognized in an old Robe :   We grow up with things to do to so people have a real life – see CARTA d` FORESTA  Commentary in TLS March 2017 ... some fairness for everyone ~

 

MAKE PEOPLE LIVE AGAIN ... the villagers ...

 

 

 

 

HARWELL ... IDEAS ... ARCHIVES ...

K :      :    Some Archives to investigate that may lead on to HARWELL  `Village of a 1,000 years ... HARWELL centre of an enlightened Universe ... This collection is made to write a meaningful book on a 20^th century Teacher-arts and crafts and exploring the globe when young  ...

 

 

MARY FREEMAN will have an expanding world from age 17 years & a Roman Catholic CONVERT from  about 21 YEARS  of age ...

 

PEOPLE KNOWING PEOPLE ... as they live the years ahead

 

WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL Archives (were very good 1950s)

(connection here to John Henry Frederick BACON – he paints Cardinal Vaughn the co-architect of the Cathedral 1900s – also Rider Haggard which had many young persons go to see Africa ...) She went to MASS & certain FEAST DAYS here – sherry afterwards – as WARTIME 2 - General & Mrs Charles de Gaulle `jaws` with my Great-Aunt Miss Bessie Martha Carroll Williams Wartime 2 - they take up again October 1957  Catholic Mission Lancaster Ga te Square -IN Irish-FRENCH lingo   = “ we have open door into VAT ... he  an unknown French General not yet ! ”

 I can supply titles books to read – beware of BAR RAT writing – they `laugh all the way to the bank` with  hearsay !!   

 

AMPLEFORTH R.C. SCHOOL – she will have spoken to `young Basil HUME ` who taught at Ampleforth before taking higher Post ...

 

Other Roman Catholic schools Britain – and its Empire :

 (attached a p-c TLS review `young Achebe` & colleagues I put in her boxes & Dr Mrs BROADBENT collection-Buchanan & Ransom etc ...)

 

All the British Art Societies and `Classifying Houses`

Ashmolean – Tate – National Gallery (young future Civilization Clarke)

 

Continent – Art Historians she will have an acquaintance with – especially Roman Catholic and Converts : as she gets older – Berenson etc.  I had letters from Jacques 1990s – sadly Monique his wife dies = she did some craftwork with mounted dried flowers pictures ... HARWELL – when I came we of first half 20^th century all continued craftwork – pottery etc.

 

ARCHIVES all the places she studied – Paris Studios where she took Classes – British painters abroad ... Her youth and maturity lived through 2 WORLD WARS ... Her nephews and nieces from her sister Olive`s marriage to the Belgian Surgeon Godenne ... these children going into medicine Belgium/New York/The John Hopkins ...(family reaching into Hollywood here)

 

1981 - VICTORIA-Augusta may have photographs of us invited to stay with Jacques and Monique the bungalow MONT BLANC ... Victoria went with a gt-nephew climbing and on a GLACIER = she may have photos – I enclose one of she & P. this unexpected holiday that MARY wanted us to have – she may have been going to USA ?  His father had died 1920s Paris – an artist who had been in The Great WAR ... 

 

(VATICAN archives of course – see Apostolica Vaticana)

                       

She and friends met ex-Emperor Haile Selassie and he talked – `go slowly ROME was not built in a DAY` : 

MARY FREEMAN tells me 1981 of the ex-Emperor`s efforts to have education continue after it was wiped out in 2^nd World War =

1900s my families RANSOM-GORDON have relatives who are Scots Missionaries ETHIOPIA

 

 (1936 an is aunt telling me Greta Ransom age 4-5-6 years old of her wedding dress “ I had made a russet silk gown` because after our wedding we were to teach in Ethiopia & engagements would mean evening clothes – white might mark ... ”  `1936 I GR call her `My girl of the russet silk gown` :  she has a branch of her famiies near HARWELL : 

 

There were people with pure souls 20^th century trying to make life FAIR in spite of living through 2 World Wars – THE WORLD OF MARY FREEMAN  (and my world-wide families)

1970s it was felt best keep quiet or media might link us to HARWELL spies – Dr FUCHs having Gin & Tonic in the Pillar House sitting-room Sunday before he FLED - and Dr Pontecorvo  (?)  living at Abingdon with his nice family = TLS has a review last few years – WE STEPPED INTO ALL THIS THE PILLAR HOUSE 20^th century HISTORIES !!

 

ASK ALAN S. about  Spies – he was a toddler - His DAD & MUM are scientists at HARWELL handling uranium  – I have the table she made WARTIME – now houses part of vast MUSIC collection records-tapes-CDs all my peaceful historic working stuff ~  Schhhhew SHUSH !    B. McIlroy may recall Atomic spies around her at work  ...

 

 And do not forget a nice man called Jack DUNHAM a Communist NOT a MARXIST = difference is Communists keep a vegetable garden and you get a nice TEA in 2^nd World Wartime if Rationing Books ... OH - MARXISTS are Rulers and drink whiskey all the time ... they do not abide by CARTA d` FORESTA of 1225 AD ... see that print-out I sent you ~

 

               `Keep Cheerful` ...    Greetah R.W.  March 2017 AD

(& perhaps the spirit of Mary-Mollie &  company ...)

 

 

TELEPHONE CALLS by me (free from France)  Orange ... 3^rd April

 

 

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

SIMMONDS Family – Reading –

via KATHE April 2017 ...

 

 `Kathe to send this ... I am able from 1954-198 to `touch  (them) upon the stones ` (Sefris Greek  his `King of Asine` (transl. Rex Warner  Wallingford 1950s-1980s)

 

Out of my head = but the visit to the last Miss Simmonds June 1954 Bracknell is in my work www.greta-ransom.com  `1937 SUMMER Andre Malraux, Josette Clotis, Greta Ransom, Clacton-on-Sea & west Greenland” – document in 3 parts – a scaffolding for the work to follow on :   (Greta Ransom Whitehead – Gaul - H.P.)

 

Records = READING UNIVERSITY :   We knew Dr William  Russell – Regius Prof. Uni-Reading `Populations` but wrote much for Folk Society Magazine lived many years off Castle Hill   he knew everybody in the history of the town  - but last letter & publication print-outs here 8 years or so – Claire his wife is dead :– they friends of MARY FREEMAN, & David Rodgers retired `Bodley Head` (Head Librarian)

  

QUAKER & Nonconformist Archives – lots – you have to look !

 

Other places – Archives - Museums of Design & Manufacture – Foodstuffs = internet

 

Families :  Genealogies on internet = Englehart/ Millbanke = Anabel and Byron – daughter Ada/Lovelace/she the Patron Saint of Computers  ! ... 18^th-19^th centuries FAMILY letters SIMMONDS and cousinage as I give some below – MORE may come to mind ...

 

London Museums :  Bethnal Green, Geoffrey Museum etc.

Archives all towns where the relatives have lived especially 17^th- 18^th-19^th centuries   

 

 

Me  - G.R.   - 1954 JUNE    =  Colchester Museums to call on Miss Simmonds at Bracknell by 2.30 pm ...

 

 

Visit to the last Miss SIMMONDS of Bracknell Reading age c. 92 years of age – take a Museum van – she is presenting gifts to the house Hollytrees Mansion,Colchester that her families visited as children ... 

She lives in the excellent house her Father built for this branch of the family c 1850s-70s ?  :

 

1954 June -  Miss Greta Ransom with Harold Walter POULTER the Deputy Curator (1934-1962)  of COLCHESTER & ESSEX MUSEUMS ... We are to arrive before 12 noon to have lunch with a friend he calls `young Underhill` (Dr Underhill a Bank Manager is Secretary the Berkshire Archaeological Society = an important post in our world of Museums !)  2.30pm we are to meet Miss SIMMONDS at the house her father built at Bracknell – she is to go to a retirement home – sadly the house and others with delightful gardens are to be pulled down and modern housing put up ...

 

She is delightful to talk with – and clearly sad to leave her home of 92 years =   & she showed me the muslin wedding frock of Anabelle Milbank-Byron    & a raw silk lavender coloured  (pelisse), a fitted coat with full flair ankle-length skirt to wear over it ( the muslin dress like Parthenon figures wear – to be  put on wet at balls to get the Greek sculptural look ...The dress I put on – the lavender coat no - it was too tight on my back – little slipper shoes like the Jane Austin girls in films ... I probably told her that Catherine Gordon coal mine heiress is on my grandpa Gordon`s line – his gt-gt grandpa had coal mines )      

 

 ... asks me to choose a book from her father`s library ... I saw RIGHTS of MAN ... she said it was her father`s book ... At Hollytrees next day Mr Poulter said  `Here Child – that book is a first edition !   We are swopping it for the little patch box that Colonel Englehart brought for one of the girl cousins ... made in Bath ...  It is safe here ... but before the War my families Ransom-Frobisher-Weddell had that  book `RIGHTS of MAN` -  it came from our island West Greenland !    We are Sea Traders !

 

·              To HARWELL 1970s  -  from 1954 come contacts and 2 letters =  from `young Underhill `  now RETIRED -  We live  in The Pillar House Harwell & with others work after MIDNIGHT on Save the Village – step into the never ending `Save England its Green & Pleasant lands`   :   We join with others including R.C. convert Mary Freeman - `Master` Ben Lenthall direct descendant of SPEAKER LENTHALL the Parliament of Oliver Cromwell ... Jim Froud R.C.A etc.    

 

Steps out `young Underhill` ...  he nearby writes about 1954  `I believe we have met your wife when she came with Mr Poulter from Colchester Museums ... etc.

  

 

1954 June - We are to collect for The Hollytrees Mansion  next to Colchester CASTLE some gifts from the last Miss Simmonds = gifts for HOLLYTREES now a Museum Because branches of her families as children from 18^{th/19th centuries}  visited with cousins the family who lived at The  Hollytrees Mansion :

Built (? c 1760) by Charles Round who had one daughter  - she illegitimate – he raised her to be his companion in the Library – she marries well – he may come into Parliament or have connexions  :

 

ARCHIVES   ? Are the SIMMONDS Quakers-Nonconformists at anytime – so many of the early manufacturers & food industry were – rem. Records-archives here :  

 

 

The SIMMONDS – are related to family Milbanke (family of Anabelle marries George Gordon Byron)  - perhaps related to Charles Round the builder of this lovely house ? – Check Parliamentary records for Round – he may have kept a quiet life after his daughter born – she may have come from the `manufacturing class` ? = they were rich like my husband`s Quaker families Whitehead & Rathbone   (I helped Yoj-Joy Rathbone 1979 on with a little book `Relatively Rathbone` but collected 2,000 surnames in my head as Nonconformist-Quaker records were explored = and met at least 1,000 of them – Proud of having not a title amongst them -  until a marriage into Quaker Whitehead branch had one dare become Lord Mayor of London ! 

 

1986 & 1988 Tours Fishery Universities for BMNH meet scientists with grandparents saved by Rathbone-Whitehead gift of 36 thousand pounds to Shanghai Famine 1889 ... Inner Mongolia Post Office capital Hohhot 2 young men speaking perfect English tell me a cousin is a Scientist at HARWELL ATOMIC !    

 

Colonel ENGLEHART & family seem to be cousin branch –or may be an in-law line ... but if any Nonconformist-Quaker lines then cousin marrying 1^st-2^nd-3^rd-4^{th cousins} etc  happens :

 

(Mr  Harold Walter Poulter – family of Whitby – big archives Colchester Museums – I was there 1952-1956 but always in-and-out until his death 1962 because we have friends ... His mother`s line is de Quincey ! ... he had correspondence over this visit ... he lived from 1934 in the top of Hollytrees – a very comfortable apartment ... )  I have a file here on him and the Museum – perhaps I put a page on this visit ?   Help its 11 pm ... Well not 3.am like the other night finding HARWELL histories from 20 years !

 

 RECORDS that should be with HISTORY of READING Society & BERKSHIRE Archaeological Society  =  the yearly 12^th night Party –  1986 I and daughter go as The Misses Simmonds Caroline and Charlotte ... our Suitor is Colonel Englehart  - PHOTOS – outside-inside sitting room The Pillar House + there is photo of Victoria-A and Dad and me in early 19^th century clothes at the READING PARTY that year :

( Dad – is Dr Peter J.P. Whitehead of BMNat.Hist. Fishes)

 

 The two Societies chose a century and we all cook appropriate food, find or make the clothes, learn about household and Trading of that century

 

1986-  the historic party is history of READING  18^th-19^th-20^th centuries - manufacturing of foods, beer, town & schools-all of the infrastructure- trade raw materials overseas – A half dozen prisoners from Reading Jail come and always  the one who has the Cell of Oscar Wilde ... it is the duty of this lucky Prisoner to write an ODE and read it at the supper ! 

 

1954 - WHAT WAS COLLECTED ??? from Simmonds last household of 19^th century   :   Clothes – books = porcelain & china ? :  childrens games  = tiny writing on slips of paper turned over and over ... passed amongst them sitting around a table ... more childrens games ... dolls ?  

 

A lot of things were in boxes –

 

 Lady Byron her wedding frock and pelisse ... I wore a evening briefly the ELGIN MARBLES muslin frock/gown  ... now in Bath Museum ... these ancient Greek frocks are to wear under the beautiful pure silk coats ...   (the mother of GEORGE GORDON Lord Byron is on our Gordon family tree my grandpa G.E.G.  (see his paintings - especially `Going to Church by Moonlight in the SNOW` 1926 – willed to me and Andre Malraux 1947 )    ... little heiress Catherine Gordon of the Coal Mines – his Mother young hero to be of GREECE ...  we too Gordon into Scots coalmines  ...)

 

Were there LETTERS ???   ASK COLCHESTER – ARCHIVES – I have put things – accounts of Empires `out East` ... He going out with colleague “before the Boxer troubles”  protected by good Mandarin families – they studying BRONZE MAKING ... (this will be in my `scaffolding` 1937 SUMMER on www.greta-ransom.com – and possible Mee-cou  (her name means a dangerous weapon or a flower in Japanese) has put this in smaller sections on my www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com ... ?? 

 

MILBANK – BYRON wedding clothes to BATH MUSEUM ... LOOK at the MILLBANKE cousins – in-laws ... (Annabel after disaster of marriage to George Gordon BYRON is going to make visits to Elizabeth GREG (Quarry Bank father) who is Mrs William RATHBONE 5^th at `Greenbank` the Rathbone home – they are into EDUCATION projects ... 

 

(Rathbone `Greenbank` now LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY) :  Eliz. Is the cleverest child of Greg – See how these Nonconformist-Quaker families in manufacturer/philanthropy inter-penetrate ... For instance they marry not only cousins but where the family are engaged in TRADE and manufacture ... THUS example SUGAR Liverpool – TATE , LYLE and part Italian Family FAIRRIE on our sugar packets ... marriage Oswald Rathbone to a Miss Fairrie = hence children – one we knew ISRAPHEL (mother into aesthetics and investigating Koran ...)   Surprising 17^th-18^th 19^th century England links of marriage – from TRADE  - young people meeting at events ... not surprising where female lines lead :  

 

1980s - Israphel Brenda Rathbone 1980s The Pillar House Harwell ...  “ gifts to children ... who have my family name Rathbone ..”    ...  Victoria and Albert Museum use `little Peter` on their Rathbone site ... he is the 4^th Angel this plaque for above a fireplace of his great grandma Ethel Whitehead, her 2 sisters Alice Cotton and Elfreda Rathbone educationalist spinster ... Plaque made by Uncle HAROLD RATHBONE and portraits of these young sisters of Harold drawn by Prof. MANZONI ... Harold not good at portraits ... fired tiles ... Pete`s great-great Aunt Annie Agnes Carroll Williams with Cassandria Annie did the hair, lilies etc. ...helping Harold who had many ORDERS at his Birkenhead Pottery ... 1890s – 1906 when it had to close ...    

 

Patch box,  Bath (Aqua Sulis) – from Colonel Englehart = wooing the girl cousins ?   SIMMONDS FAMILY 1954 collection taken to Hollytrees Museum COLCHESTER ...  Harold Walter POULTER and Miss Greta Ransom  :  

 ... ar

 

 

I am still `miffed` over this swop by Colchester Museums – my RIGHTS of MAN that their 19^th century fingers had touched   =   Miss Simmonds said choose a book – I said RIGHTS of MAN please – her father`s copy ... 

 

.... A BOOK !   Of IMPORTANCE :    with my background SEA TRADERS 92 AD Dunwich SUFFOLK `the Redemptio` of Roman Britain = name changes to RANSOM 5-6^th centuries when a Deputation comes from ROME 597 – we agree to give up MITHRAS and join CHRISTIANS ...

 

SIMMONDS 19^th century Family -   A book held by someone who read about changes – and sentimentally to she because it was her father`s book  - probably I intended learning more about Quaker etc. Reading and out to East Anglia ...

 but we had a busy time in ROMAN BRITAIN 1^st-2^nd centuries which is what COLCHESTER MUSEUM was supposed to be specializing in ... for we are Camulodunum Colonia Victricensis – where our Bo`adicea (Tacitus) now Boudicca, lost her temper ... :   I receive a little salary from Colchester Town – 9 pounds when I begin 1952 November ... but I am happy in these other centuries ... !

 

And so 1954 June the book is what I really wanted – a memory of she the lovely house and her growing up there for 92 years ... !    Her father seems to have approved the `French revolution` =  when it’s a matter of Honest TRADE you do not fall out over changes of Rulers !   I had no idea it was a first copy or early printing ~ Life in the Museum world has you putting people back on earth ... and with often their good ideas ...

 

I will try to walk back into that afternoon !    I can see it all ... the house was wonderful ... a delightful place for children to grow up in from the 1870s ...

 

I do not enter this Reading world until late 1970s again .. my husband PJPW was BMNH Fishes worldwide ... at this time we were into DUTCH BRAZIL ... Moritz Humanist Prince – Mauritzhaus his dwelling ... full of stuff from that brief Empire a few years ... READING manufacturers will enter here ... ledgers & shipping records ... and marriages ... and mounting racism 20^th century ...   

 

                              `Greetha`   11 pm ! Tues. 4 April 2017 AD

 

 Tuesday – April 4^th 2017 AD

 

Wednesday 5^th = Added some  more - but I must get to la Poste before 2.30 pm ... this may help with ideas ... scour internet ... a vast project but remember marriages often kept the families afloat 17^th-20^th centuries  ... things always turning up outside internet in local towns and facilities ... HH     

 

 SUNDAY 9^th APRIL official opening of the EXHIBITION at HARWELL new Village Hall ... children and friends went ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FILES – FILES 1968-1988 : 

(Whitehead family The Pillar House Harwell : 

Methodist Chapel & SAVE HARWELL ...

 

LETTERS :   Jim Froud & friends, MARY FREEMAN & friends, BEN LENTHALL and his circle Bailliol et al, TV, some BBC ...  & various village people adding to the themes of the letters ... drafts/final letters always being written after Midnight !   HERE copies the letters sent by Peter J.P. Whitehead (growing up Kenya and Wallingford `White Cross` - grandpa Sir Rowland Edward Whitehead Q.C., and wife Ethel Rathbone (Liverpool family – Shipping merchants, philanthropists ... gt-grandpa of W. twins Director of Liverpool Museums and Arts Galleries Committees ... etc. etc. = Business, welfare, arts, stage and Hollywood films ... well known QUAKER FAMILIES ...   

 

(then I learn of the HARWELL Exhibition for 9^th April 2017 2017 AD – in new Freeman Hall ... so work has gone on until MIDNIGHT hours ... as we did 1968-=1988 trying to save HARWELL ...  

 

 

so the above is sent end Feb- into all March 2017 AD – papers various - from 2 boxes SAVING METHODIST HARWELL Chapel etc. and following years of SAVE HARWELL ... copies letters PJPW, me GR-W, Ben Lenthall, Jim ALL WORKED HARD after working hours to SAVE this piece of `ENGLAND`s GREEN and PLEASANT LAND` ... I wd. Sketch out answers to the Vale of White Horse and persons we should also appeal to were collected ... these would be polished by M.F., PJPW., BL. Others ... BUT THAT IS MY letter to VALE ... I won the little brick barn from demolition !  It was scheduled ... we of Pillar House tried buy it ... but could not !  THUS it remained in DANGER – later years an appeal could be made to pull it down ... UPKEEP !   THESE LETTERS SHOW THAT WE OPPOSING IN-FILLING OF VILLAGE were intelligent ... cared about children, air quality, noise and pollution – and QUALITY OF LIFE for the children growing up and the next GENERATIONS !   A LOST CAUSE – because of the village being CLOSE to DIDCOT RAILWAY ... etc. etc. etc. = GREED at WESTMINSTER !   FUTURE AGES may recall us UNDER THE ASHFODELS ... who leave words, pictures ... put some VICTIMS back upon the earth ...  ( Britain now a polluted, over-populated Island ... see book by Geographer CRANE (Review by BMNH scientist 1970s onwards RICHARD FORTEY ... his review late March 2017 in TLS (Times Literary Supplement)  .

 

 

 

BELOW Begun 1980s ... 2015 AD :

A LITTLE INTRODUCTION to our village ` of a thousand years`  & its people, lands, buildings, activities down the ages, and its continuing philanthropy  :  

By Greta nee RANSOM (Mrs Peter James Palmer Whitehead BM Natural History Museum 1961-1992 Dept. Ichthyology) came to The Pillar House 4^th February 1968 and left reluctantly 30 April 1993  after selling The Pillar House built 1852 after the Village fire (records) .. “ in the style of 1760s because the owners wanted their house back – as near as possible and not the modern Victorian style ...”   : we were often writing letters at midnight assisting with the preservation of the village – CPRE & other gatherings and householders ...

 

The Didcot Librarian Brian LINGHAM 1969 began his books on local history and gathered information before much was lost – the Railway at Didcot was said to be hastening the doom of this VILLAGE of a THOUSAND YEARS ... that was the title suggested by PJPW when Brenda McIllroy and Dr John Fletcher asked our help for the book to be made for the 1,000 years CHARTER 985 AD to 1985 – Hundreds of descendants of the American Harwell blood lines visited (see local newspapers Newsheets etc. – our records are in this typescript further on –

Perhaps others gathering HARWELL HISTORIES  ( a somewhat Invisible village as it has become)   may find from my assembly they too can begin following some Roman Britain and Anglo-Saxon & Medieval English lanes and shady pools with clear waters ... Remember ALFRED the NAVY over at Wantage & his rides by horseback as a child to ROME where the Anglo-Saxon Quarter was famous for its good food :  

Dr John Fletcher 1970s reminded me of my Roman Britain ancestors as well as Captain Alan Villiers – they knew my Guardian very well (a Frenchman with a blood line from his mother of 900 years Family HISTON et al Norfolk & Suffolk,  East Anglia, arriving at Saxmundenham Hall 19^th century.         

 

I keep files (Harwell too) – a habit down the centuries of my families Sea-traders out of Jutland, Udewalla BC,  & marrying Mediterranean wives becoming part of the expanding Roman Republic and Empire world- We SEA TRADERS Suffolk RANSOM (Redemptio)  (Office of `Redemptio` Roman Britain buying first lands 92 Estate DUNWICH (sadly coastal erosion from 10^th century on ) so that wives & children and elders could farm and provide for Foul Winter & have a safe anchorage for men returning from trading voyages of a year or more :

 

These families all the globe kept life books & tagebuch & these were translated from Arabic & Latin down the centuries & we had Masses said for our Ransom brides – and what they wore at the Weddings and cooked interested me from age 3 years !   The silver moonlight fashionable frock 16^th century Venice worn by Grandma Maggie Ransom Carew then another Ransom bride for the son of Maggie returns to his Family name Ransom ... Carew were a bit MEAN in those days ... see paintings of them ...

 

 ( “ here daughter we hang just the once BY THE WOMAN” says my young father British Army, genealogist & administrator of a family worldwide Philanthropy from 1830 Buenos Aries established firm - adding 1831 the unpaved Wall Street N.Y. family Brokers of Grote FJR b 1911 ...)

 

Maggie Ransom dau. of The Lady Japan & widower F. Ransom Montrose Basin Farm has her 3 children return to the ancient Ransom Suffolk 6^th century name because Seas Edges foreign brides Dowries were usually where a ship could be safely pulled in and there was FAMILY from other centuries  ( 5^th century AD the Roman Empire had to depart Brit-ain putting out the `Last Lighthouse`-  so Latin was no longer a language for the East-Anglia Market Places & we were no longer addressed by our Occupation `REDEMPTIO` – TIMES were changing :

 

(  FOOD :   History begins in the kitchen says the little Penguin blue-white cover 1928  by Eileen Power called MEDIEVAL PEOPLE :   When cooking in `The Great Pillar House kitchen` with its ancient brick floor and 5 feet of bread oven (we used) a good Anglo-Saxon meal is fat pork chops, apple sauce with honey, barley bread, wine or beer – it may be recorded in a is book has the reader able to push open the door and go in for a chat ... I was taught to do this 1950s at COLCHESTER and ESSEX Museums as we had the responsibility for – “ ... go shopping Child in your midday dinner times and get a good bargain from our Roman Britain Market Place ... beware the olive oil and unguents sellers ... some Flasks may seem heavy but often have a thick clay base ... !  

HARWELL has a cookery book produced c 1970s by local families ...

 

 

BOSLEY BUTCHERS  HARWELL High Street 20^th century :   the families 17^th early 18^th centuries came to England to settle too - in Norfolk-Suffolk-Essex (East Anglia) = BOSLEY family to be Harwell Butchers 20^th century landed these coasts late 17^th century-early 18^th annoyed at the Revoking of the Edict of Nantes =

 

This French skilled & quite well-to-do HUGUENOT family came by ships (perhaps owned by kith or kin ? )  with some good household possessions & wealth & skills as Papermakers & some farming :  19^th century moved to Oxfordshire & Berkshire as farmers and 20^th century were next door to The PILLAR HOUSE – where 1890s the artists Frederick John Bacon,  1900-1909 L. Leslie Brooke, then 1960s Derek Southall – his family shopped there as we did :  

The first two artists are well known late Victorian artists from Royal Academy exhibitions, book illustrators using villagers as models :   then 1960s Derek Southall a young painter-constructionist-inspiring teacher & philosopher with two young daughters Justine & Rosanna at the village Primary schools – wife Jenny also a trained artist & teacher ... We have two works by Derek and one piece of work given to Mary Freeman may have got to the Ashmolean ?   We were, are, all members of The Friends begun c 1968 :      

 

... (I am tempted to include a 4^{th budding artist,}   she named 1968 April born to The Pillar House (villagers brought traditional gifts of new laid eggs and white satin ribbons were pinned on the great door for her birth – `new babe of the Village a gift from God` )  after the 2^nd Roman Legion of Ancient Rome (the) Victoria-Augusta  – you shall judge by some reproductions of her work ... inspiration may have come from the L.Leslie Brooke books & the work of Robert ANNING-BELL who lived a while at East Hagbourne linked to HARWELL by a delightful old lane which we with young children walked in the 1970s-1980s finding wild garlic ...   HH but she left off art studies and went for music instead :  –  (her mother GRW worked at Colchester Museums 1950s as `Roman Britain Maiden of all work` by great Quaker family Deputy Curator Harold W. Poulter & a “Master Greene”  (Graham Greene who came in to the great Castle to hide away and scribble some weeks ... I said I had only read one of his books called `Brighton Rock` and it made me fell miserable :  He said `never mind – one day I will write something cheerful` ... Perhaps that is `Travels with My Aunt` ? 

          

1968-1993 :    We lived in The Pillar House `Johnny Crow`s Garden` where the immortal stories and drawings were made by L.LESLIE BROOKE published Fredk. WARNE from 1900s –

... the villagers of Harwell and round-about are models for the drawings of LLB ... he exhibits R.A. portraits and has much work as a book illustrator )  The Quaker Whitehead family having married into the Quaker Rathbones Liverpool we found an ancestry connection to LLB via his wife who has a blood line from Gregg Quarry Bank who marry into Rathbones 18^th century :

PAINTINGS by Victoria Augusta are much approved by trained artists France ... so will photo-copy some ... 2 of homeless peoples – she 17 years old ... 1980s ..

 

WHEN ASSEMBLING ENGLISH HISTORIES one has to check the printed family genealogies of the 17^th 18^th-19^th centuries & see where the Brides marry & if her Dowry is land or seashores or orchards (metal detector in the family is useful – tombstones, village records, a chance word remembered when you are a child, a visit, a name a place name, an event ... Visit, look at names about villages, small towns ... this was a holiday activity of families 19^th century ... I helped to assist with Rathbone-Gregg-Ball-Batt-and after 2 years having 2,000 surnames in my head reaching into Furse Botanical Admiral, Holmes, Paget, Bolton etc. STUDIO ART MAGAZINE etc. into USA  – 19^th century genealogy was a wonderful pastime before TV, & via www is picking up again : 

 

In Alabama 17^th-18^th century a line Ransom via a Bride has a son from the HARWELL line USA (farming & shipping trade) :   Ancestral branches are everywhere – the BOSLEY Butchers went every 3 years to visit their ancient French village where they shared a Grandfather 4 and 5 times back – they were wary of the Wine and took plenty of beer to celebrate GRANDPA 5 TIMES BACK who gave them ALL LIFE ... (What chance are we...) ... Conversations in Bosley Butchers buying 2 lbs of those pork herbs breadcrumbs fat sausages that children loved ... : 

 

The USA branches of the HARWELL blood line visit us 1985 – Researcher :   Remember that the Texas NASHVILLE PRESS Owner kept full records of his Harwell genealogy – MR COLEMAN HARWELL;  :   There is a letter from him in the files I have kept – for safe storage & retrieval when that is arranged :  PJPW called on him when he was visiting his own American relatives – one Life President of the New York Yacht Club – Jos. Sparkmen – whose sons would visit us at the Pillar House Harwell & one had a wife with a blood line to Anne Hathaway the wife of Shakespeare ...

 

Dr JOHN FLETCHER and JAN WHITTAKER tirelessly worked on the Harwell genealogy & histories - he lived in The Pillar House 1940s with his young family and wife Delle – son Anthony is a well known historian :  Ask Oxford Academia :

 

For the 1985 festivities I cooked Medieval biscuits and cakes and gave a tea in the Pillar House Garden  (authentic receipts)  photos the Pillar House gardens TAKEN BY YOUNG Pete and `Mother – Greta ... come and look at this ...`

 

 

Pillar House GREAT KITCHEN QUALIFICATIONS were  : -   the SEALED KNOTT & CIVIL WAR SOCIETY had us researching 17^th century foods for their Disaster Fund Raising Banquets –

 

... the Meal for Queen Henrietta Maria required `crayfish from Scotland for larding the Great Beef ` (Ian Hicks-Mudd – has prepared his House of Lords speech if he becomes Lord MUD of Island of MUCKE... Working each like 10 IRISH Navies – and wearing the authentic clothes and talking about the events of the times had the members learn much about modern times ...

 

Nota Bene :   (I may write of `Irish Navies` because my grandma Mary Helena a dau. of Teresa Carroll CLASSICIST Dublin is cousin to Murphy-Carroll-O`Brien-O`Grady etc. etc. and they all sent me 21^st Birthday presents :   They KEEP the PEACE and believe in negotiation even when faced with opponents heavily blinkered ... they have an Irish Baronetcy and 3 Sir-ships and a Castle to stand upon the battlements and speak from ... I had to endure in Camulodunum C.V. and Londinium the 1950s some `criminally insane` calling my relatives `Paddies` :   RESEARCHER :  Beware of these feuds as you enter village histories and enter truthful research ... Harwell 1920s had retained common sense Village sensibility of the centuries :

 

MY STORIES of LIFE at THE PILLAR HOUSE HARWELL 1970s-1980s written for the WHITEHEAD children sheltered from miseries KENYA, EMPIRES FALLING BRITAIN & FRANCE & Scandinavia of UPPER POLITICS are called `ACE, ACE & ACE` ... 3 are on web sites

 

www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com – etc. & found on Paper with photos ... This is a continuing work on PAPER = there are 6-7 TRUE STORIES the life at THE PILLAR HOUSE 1968-1993 ... These stories tell of contemporary life and outlook in a fast changing world ... I learn how much The Pillar House with its last village garden for civilized events is missed ...  (records-DVD-tapes-print ...)  

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HISTORY :   HARWELL VILLAGE  

 

5 artists who worked in HARWELL ( but there were more I did not meet or hear of 1968-1993 ... ask village/Didcot librarian/Churches/Pubs & Clubs...etc etc. )

2 photographers

(ALAN SPENCE elder son of Dr Spence Director of The Atomic Site 1940s-60s :  Alan has art work and was a working photographer – ask him where he trained & where his negatives are stored :

I GRW & V-AW have a set of the photos (by Alan Spence) of MARY FREEMAN`s house before it was dismantled & art works placed in various institutions or sold :   Alan and Janet, Jim Froud Royal College of Art, and Dr PJP Whitehead BMNH = Natural History Museum South Kensington,  and me (Greta nee RANSOM  Frobisher Weddell , Mariners, Sea Traders  = Poles Nord & Sud )   were given the KEY to Winterbrooke House by her nephew Charles Freeman (Oxford Historian etc) to photo and write on the interior of this `Wunderkamera` for a Midnight Visit allowed to we aesthetes who had listened to MARY-Mollie on her young years and career about the Globe & those she came to meet and talk with about the work they all made in this 20^th century – their contribution : 

 

We (photo of us about 2 AM by Jim Froud when we have reached the Picture Gallery at the very top)  ... a very LAST VISIT `accompanied by her Spirit` the last century would have said  – & as an R.C. convert she would have approved this ... We all wrote on her – Alan taking colour photos as we went from cellar to Picture Gallery at the top ... with 2 bottles of a crystal turning sherry laid down in the 1930s by her sister Phyllis (families Cotton BM Library, Bowdler who got at Shakespeare, Georgian Poets friend & business man their father Douglas-Short  ... Phil too was a Catholic concert and a Buddhist (house St John`s Wood – Phil dies in the 1970s perhaps early 1980s – leaving The Pillar House her big Cotton family dresser and Bowdler kitchen table & an Edwardian blouse of their mother ... most gratefully received and we went to help Mary transfer all this to Harwell The Pillar House to make certain it graced The Great Kitchen which she had seen us labour evenings to restore as it was 1852 a copy we heard from the Building family of what was there before parts of the house were gutted by a Village fire (newspapers have this) ...

 

... THIS IS REAL HISTORY too – as a tiny child I knew Walter Benjamin (Book `The Arcades`)  and he told me that he and liked old technology and that history is most accurate when YOU ARE THERE to record it ...  H  

 

2^nd Photographer seems to be young Peter Rathbone Ransom Gordon Whitehead 1970-1998    “Pete began to photograph the Harwell village and area,  adding poetic lines and text from 14 years of age ...”  ( Work safe in his printed photos, negatives, photo-copy printing and a little on www.  He studied photography and philosophy, travelled India and Kashmir ... PRW b 1970 dies 1998 ... “ When you first visit India Mother, Greta, it is wonderful ... when you return you begin to think ... I may need to travel a bit ... I am not sure what I want to do ... so much needs doing to help ... Welfare perhaps ... ... ... ”   Pete the youngest of the 4 Pillar House children was the most perceptive ... the most `perspicacity` ...

 

NNB:  ( I age 3-4 years travelling 1935-1936 Poles Nord down to Pole Sud (our own airplanes & ships one RN having Uncle Alfie Charles Ransom Rear Admiral of the family) had my impressions recorded in a Family Diary 1937-1938 ... a comment upon my chosen Guardian is  “ ... well not quite my perspicacity I think ... but he is loved by the town and has done as much as possible in these Wars of Spain ... I was told not to say a word about our planes or Unity`s mother said he might start the Spanish Wars up again ... it was best now to try and talk as they began too late to sort things there & they were all talking different languages – but she will speak with him in France when she can find him ...`

(  ... small children observe much when away from the local Seas Edges ... & then include it in their games when returned home ...  )

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?  MUSICIANS & composers :     

( One is certainly Victoria-Augusta Rathbone Whitehead – asked to write for The Pageant a grown-up stepped in ... she did the music background for a film for Schools and Colleges and has much work ... I luckily kept tapes of her 1993 work as composers and artists have a deplorable habit of scrapping early work then regretting it ... Her various early works `Trains in India` called by all who hear it is terrific ... it began with another name such as `OUT THERE`   :    Her brother Pete and friend saved it and brought me tapes which I have copied and they are easily put on CDs !  A piece called `Slug` was taken to a school/schools ? & loved by children in Oxfordshire  ... she has stepped into the world of electronic type music ... painting with sounds, as poets do with words ... )  

   

 

MUSIC ? ?  ?  HARWELL and villages :   

Is anything remembered about  the Church organists and choir leaders ... especially 19^th early 20^th centuries ... The Methodist Chapel High Street end of the 1960s put on Hayden`s CREATION  !     I recall the excitement ... they abandoned the building ... the two splendid benches were brought to me for the Pillar House as a memorial ... If a real HARWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY is possible then the village can have them back ... together with the Bo`bart Organ a gift to PH from the last two ladies of the family living in a bungalow by The Chequers Inn ...  & marble slabs from Bosley Butcher`s old counter ... also 15<sup>th</sup> century beams from `Glen Leigh` with the carpenter marks in Roman numerals ... We and friends (leading lights LENTHALL family descending from SPEAKER Lenthall of the PARLIAMENT of Oliver Cromwell ...could not save this wonderful big garden pair of cottages of 15^th century ...

Also JIM FROUD ARTIST  gave me an 18^th century brick from a house he would rather his father did not pull down ... (It is `a weight` for Summer Pudding) ... Thus is real history of peoples recorded ...  

 

 

  BOSLEY family from 18^th-19 centuries into the 20th spoke excellent French of a village of Huguenots France – received communications “by Packet boat” from KIN and took up invitations from 19^th century and after the FRENCH REVOLUTION (read Tom Paine,  Dickens `Tale of 2 Cities` & `Scarlet Pimpernel` books etc. etc.)   ... where they had a grandpa 5 and 4 times back ...  

 

... As a newcomer I hear in the Butchers Shop 1968 spring  ... “ we take our own beer as our cousins from back to the grandpa Nos 5 and 4  we all share ply us with their wine ... I keep telling young Bruce to learn French ... & Oh I have had `a head ` for 2 weeks sometimes ...  ”  They informed me they came from my part of the world first East Anglia ... RANSOM  ( The Redemptio) Sea Traders at Dunwich 92 AD ... and that my French Guardian was their fellow countryman in France and in Norfolk-Suffolk ... & he called by to get Mrs Beryl`s meat order from Blewbury on Saturdays ...  

 

RESEARCHERS and old families will know that it is easy to move about the centuries when your genealogy has not been lost by MODERN TIMES ... to remember interiors of households-pass on possessions with centuries of history = Walk into the families as if they are invisibly your surroundings ... Brit-ain then ENGLAND an island of Seas Edges sailed the seas in trade from centuries BC  ... Made friends & married on other shores and liked a Bride with a dowry of a little piece of seas edges to bring the boat in safely and have KIN to help stand firm against the ills of the globe ... HISTORY BEGAN IN THE KITCHEN ...

 

 

 

Music down the centuries 9^th-10^th century onwards is easily found on CD or discs – the local schools 1960s-1980s  including Harwell, taught Recorders and WANTAGE where there was a `Burnt Cake Shop`  had an Early Music group ... David Munrow broadcast on BBC –

Ideas :   Radio Times from 1931/33 gives information :   & there was Oxford Christ Church Music Department Archives 20^th century perhaps earlier  - internet will help :   Magdalene College had 13^th century on-wards Music information – this written down music will have perhaps reached Harwell village choral singers early centuries who would play pipes & other early instruments :    “ Harwell sent 6 Churls sons to the new College at Ox-ford ... they bought themselves Free by supplying a penniless Knight with silver coins to purchase his armour and entourage as the King bid him come ... ... ...  ”   (Dr John Fletcher et al ) 

 

 TUDOR MUSIC, Madrigals well known and performed often to-day  ...

 

 

Harwell ARTISTS – PAINTERS – ILLUSTRATORS etc.

 

 

Victorian-Edwardian Artist :

John Henry Frederick BACON R.A. 1890s lives Pillar House Harwell  - ROMAN CATHOLIC – big family - rented it from owners - may have been family before 1852 fire – they had it re-built by the village builder:  THUS a late Georgian early Victorian interior - & the PILLARS :

JHFB RA – “ A PAINTER OF FAMOUS MEN ”    Did a very big oil painting - was in Guild Hall `Return of Regiment` =  a few books for children (2 or 3)  illustrated by him but not with the portraiture achieved by L.LESLIE BROOKE lived Pillar House 1900 to 1909   – John Henry Frederick BACON had a big Roman Catholic family :   biography written about 25 years ago by one of his daughters – A Roman Catholic family/Diocese of Westminster will have information/  Unfortunately he dies early of an Influenza outbreak ...  

 

1989 :   Travelling into Oxford with Janet and Lorna I did the usual `history of Art` at The old Poly - and they adding `Sociology` , Janet adding `Theatre` etc & going to work later with theatrical groups in Oxford :   Lorna teaching craftwork to apprentice young students had the brilliant idea to take them OUT amongst the buildings :

 

I went for HISTORY OF WORLD DANCE  (19 hours practical-practice if we could –) My Bavarian-INCA choreographer grandmother was remembered by some older teachers ... she danced Argentina, Paris, some teaching Deptford

 

I having seen BALINESE dance when I had to accompany PJPW to his work Indonesia 1980 for BMNH, and having to accompany him 2 Tours of CHINA 1986 1988 of 6 near 8 weeks each saw Asiatic and Chinese dancing & Japanese in Tokio :   

 

( CHINA - where I have collected 3 Grandmothers direct line RANSOM 15^th- century and 16^th century SEA TRADERS down the centuries & my families have been in touch into the 20^th century – still calling in but mostly by little airplanes)   Our near 2 months in China travelling the Fishes Universities and Colleges along the SEAS EDGES felt like living another 100 years each time ...

 I met a CHINESE biologist 1986 at Nanjin who had saved my life in London 1959 January ... she held my hand in joy – photos of us www with the work :   It is little snips of this real history that have the Reader come close to the TIMES – those visiting HARWELLIANS from AMERICA 1985 also had similar histories and connections ... Remember The NASHVILLE PRESS OWNER !  ) :

  

 

( 1988 February PJPW learned from Oxford Hospitals he had 4 years to live from lungs & brain tumour = Kenya 1950s had young men enjoying a 1920s style of life   :

 

PJPW (his Article on THE HARWELL CHARTER of 985 AD – some guidance from his cousin Medievalist Dr Martin Brett over at Cambridge University, is in the BOOK  “ HARWELL VILLAGE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS”  (his title) published 1985 for the CELEBRATIONS is available and is in THE WESTGATE LIBRARY of LOCAL HISTORY and hopefully other Archives & internet :

 

Dr Peter James Palmer Whitehead born 1930 Kenya – dies 1992 age 61 years Oxford  : 

His Ancestry of famous Quakers is well known & as a child his RATHBONE & Whitehead-Gregg etc. etc. relatives would come and stay at the Family house (1915-1951)  `Whitecross` on the Thames at Wallingford = and I have written on much of these 17^th-19^th century families who “made Britain rich”  with others of their related families, & helped collect Records as we all did = meeting many of these old Quaker lines especially the LIVERPOOL families and branches & had some of these Quaker branches and in-law branches at my Clacton schools 1942  during the 2^nd World Wartime :

 

1982 an Exhibition of Arts-Crafts the work at the POTTERY Della Robbia, Birkenhead, the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, of his great-uncle Harold Rathbone had the children  familiar with family roots ... (Records here are in LIVERPOOL and Appleby etc. & hopefully all out on internet ... )

 

REMEMBER that Robert Anning Bell took a house in East Hagbourne for 2 or 3 years – I have sent KATHE a copy of a painting which people said was of LAINES BARN – he must have come to supper at The Pillar House ... ANDREW LANG came and stayed a night ... connections of that world of artists wishing to work awhile in the countryside : 

  

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( My OXFORD University adventures in Art History-DANCE- had me  join evenings Magdalen College, Masters Lodge :   FREE for ASHOMOLEAN Friends was  `History of Cinema`  :   Those attending were all in their 40s & in the business – but only a 73 years old and ME (58/59)  knew all the early films including the silent movies :

 

I also took the Tuesday 5 pm Lectures for young ladies as JOHN RUSKIN set up :   Pete was in Oxford at more photography work so I got lift home – nice when they can drive – I never learned :  But 1930s I flew in tiny planes Poles Nord to Sud and in-between :  Had to pretend to be a boy so Uncle Lennie not called `nursemaid`  : 

 

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L. Leslie BROOKE R.A. 1900-1909 Pillar house – wife Diana Sybil – 2 sons – Leonard History student Oxford – dies RAF 1^st World War/   ` little Henry` becomes MP and Home Secretary/Lord Brooke/visits The Pillar House/letters to the 4 children – from another child who lived here/

 

KNOWN FOR HIS BOOKS FOR CHILDREN – PUBLISHED Fredk. WARNE 1900s onwards  :  RING O`ROSES, GOLDEN GOOSE, Johnny Crow`s Garden etc are drawn in THE PILLAR HOUSE – studio made where the old coach house and stables were : THEY SHOW HARWELL VILLAGE houses, scenes, people – wife Diana is the model for  “ And what they did not EAT that night the QUEEN   next morning fried ”  but she did not like being a model –village he got others from the – some are portraits – you would have had to ask people now in the churchyard – JIM knew some, and the interiors, settings   : 

 

1982 A BIOGRAPHY of his father LLB by HENRY BROOKE publ. Warne  ( Henry 1973 on writes letters to the 4 Whitehead children The Pillar House from a child who lived here earlier – I WILL PUT THEM ON MY WEBS – and include photo-copy for this histories – there is a photo-copy his father The Pillar House etc.

 

A lovely painting, small, of the P.H. garden in snow –looking over to the Black Barn ... 1900 ... he and his wife did offer it to us for The Pillar House but we felt these paintings are now precious and should be in a British Gallery – we refused – children felt this too – I have a photo and have made photo-copies  :   Peter Brooke his son was an M.P.    

 

Useful for some HARWELL histories is one of my sites www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com

 

3 of the Stories for Pete & Pillar House children ACE, ACE & ACE serious are webbed here :   But I usually photo-copy because I like to SCULPT with fonts/the different lettering & colours & add photographs  : 

L.LESLIE BROOKE :   Books for children – villagers as models – buildings – all published by FREDERICK WARNE Britain and USA – very popular – were on sale BLACKWELLS 1980s ...

 

PAINTINGS – oil - Exhibited R.A. and other galleries – very much illustration work for books ... a non-stop working career :

 

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ROBERT ANNING BELL : 

 

NOTA BENE :   The important 19^th century early 20th artist ROBERT ANNING BELL came to live up the lane in EAST HAGBOURNE – possibly only for 2 years :   his very full career includes LIVERPOOL Art Sheds/University ... Friend of RATHBONE family LIVERPOOL – he did the book plate for the great-grandpa of the Whitehead Children – will include one :

L. Leslie BROOKE from HARWELL used to walk to BLEWBURY to take suppers with friends – but his wife stayed home with the 2 boys – it is likely one or other of the two artists BACON and BROOKE may have SUPPED with ANNING BELL along the lanes to East Hagbourne ... LLB used to think out rhymes as he walked to supper and returning late at night for his famous books `JOHNNY CROW`s GARDEN` & then `J.Cs NEW GARDEN `

 I used to take my children by the old Road village to village 1970s early 1980s – THIS IS ALL THE TERRITORY JIM FROUD knew ... and regretted its gradual loss as an artist who owed his inspiration to country things as a child : 

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MEMORANDUM :    WHITEHEAD children have great-great uncle BASIL RATHBONE – Quaker families – his son took me out and about New York 1986 – Amanda and Victoria-A look quite a bit like this side of the family :  ( DEBRETT- Whitehead PJPW career )   1^st World War come Whitehead family Whitecross, Wallingford on Thames :      gt-gt-Uncle Basil is a Cousin of  their grandfather Major Philip Henry Rathbone Whitehead – lst World War – Mentioned in Dispatches with young brother of Basil, John V.R. Rathbone – killed 1916 age 19 years –  friend with them is Errol Flynn – Western Front :

 

          MEMO :   VISITORS  to HARWELL - to stay with Elliot Family :   Late 1960s - David Newton Cambridge/deceased/eventually Prof. Lit. Edinburgh  ( Father of an English-French friend living `up the lane` here in France :  He a young student Trinity Hall would go with JIM Froud and others a walk across the fields from HARWELL to `The BELL` at Aldworth ... they were `doing a SAMUEL PALMER` painting ...`Cornfields by moonlight ` -  

 

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HARWELL  FAMILIES : 

H (ARMAR) (Anglo Saxon)  marrying COURTNEY  (or COWDREY ?) (Norman French) check    

`STU`  HARMER (went to live in Australia ?) 

 

... he a close friend of `little PETE` from childhood  (PHOTOS) ... (some information from Sarah and Stuart early 1980s – ask for more to be written down for the Harwell Histories now being collected by KATHE ...) ...

 

This M.F. collection had (?)  a nice big painting done by father H(Armar) of TRAINS -  I think MF had written on `age 15 years` =  MARY FREEMAN might have been showing the painting class a TURNER & saying to the School class now try to paint something in this manner  -  I remember showing it to STU but he said his father would probably tear it up ... it may be here amongst the collection of paintings she had sent to me to keep safe :    

 

I have some of these big paintings transferred by Apple phone to www. a File called MARY FREEMAN CHILDRENS ART  – it is on www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com ... This site has a lot of work – but it is easy to go to the list of Files and see the work of Children transferred – there is a lot more to add :    Some of the paintings we have framed and keep about the house :   

 

As big children with friends, the two boys enjoyed the restored `great kitchen` of the Pillar House 1976 onwards – when they are 11 years DAN GRIMSHAW from Upton joins them ... with Brian  ( father worked as Master Builder for an Arab King ) helped me removed the concrete from the larder floor one summer – underneath the old bricks of rose-marmalade-olive shades,  so much more meaningful – and this removal of concrete STOPPED the rising damp in the walls !   Poems, drawings, thoughts,  resulted  :   soft talk evenings by the great kitchen wood fire – they could hide in the 5 foot brick bread oven : They talked of decades of footsteps of people passing through these spaces where we now passed – thoughts upon those who knew how to cook from garden & farm & manage a diary ...reminisces from grandparents of the HARWELL VILLAGE & those around ...

 Only poetry written down was from Pete – I hope the others did better :

 

“  We once knew a man who in his swimming pool kept sharks – we found him covered in horrible marks ”  P.R.W.

 

 

ALL BEFORE THE PHONES in Jeans back pocket ... I have a tape I made 1981 of children playing piano the evening of the death of John Lennon `Remember` - the girls would say to PETE  `when we kick you Pete PLAY these notes`  :  They had not the span in their hands yet :  They did a tiny bit of `Cathedral Under the Sea` Debussy for me – but it required 3 hands – they got bored :   It had no meaning – they did not live by THE SEAS EDGES ...

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LOCAL HISTORY :    Dr JOHN FLETCHER and `Delle`  recommended the Pillar House young read book  ALFGAR the DANE  published c 1870s –

 

we did – it is about Sutton Courtney – Christmas day getting dark after a good supper  the VIKINGS came creeping up from the river – Wallingford, Abingdon were ablaze & DORCHESTER  – the women made a chain and brought water up from the river – by dawn much damage but nearly all alive – Vikings went off towards Wiltshire ...EXCITING STUFF and REAL =  Chronicles :   written by 2 brothers who lived at S.C. mid 19^th century  : 

 

 

  CHRISTMAS DAY will never be the same again in HARWELL if you read this book !

 

Children, young people with romantic practical ideas about the future they advance into ... politics ... wrecking of the countryside and nature ... awareness – best go seek somewhere with clean air and less traffic etc etc etc  :

 

Courtney-Ransom = related 13^th century – Ransom girl makes a marriage with a Courtney Knight = We may have a line buried in Salisbury Cathedral  : 

 

See population figures Britain/England down the centuries  (allow for Plagues)

 

(  My grandpa Frederick Charles Frobisher Ransom had a big chart in his tiny study room at the Deptford house `Jerusalem` – Uncle Captain Liam Ransom with 4 tall ships, had the schoolroom our island end of the LUSANS Pacific with a complete genealogy – and had it in his head –We make a marriage Bruges 1904 Ransom Arbroath-Montrose basin to Lady Japan, Okinawa – 2 islands her dowry 1512 :  Honoured to 1948 )   

= the Harwell descendants will have foreign brides too  :

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HARWELL ALE HOUSES   ( ALE WIVES  )   – Dr John Fletcher – info & others :   I heard early 1970s that there was evidence, Chronicles, of HARWELL pilgrims :

PILGRIMS to St James of Compostella & Jerusalem expected to be away 1 and 2 years – whoever told me this when I was new to the Village said the Harwell Pilgrims returned !  :

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BOSLEY  brothers, farm & Harwell Butchers shop :   

I give you further on what they told me 1970s – they are from the Continent late 17^th into early 18^th centuries – Religious persecution etc :     came to EAST ANGLIA – paper makers then to farming ... :

    

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13^th century :   MARGERY BAYLIOLS heiress died age 21 –

last of the family ...

(info – Lingham/Fletcher/Froud/perhaps Hillary ?)

The MANOR has a piece of Anglo-Saxon or early Norman wall  (its scheduled)

Its name is changed late 1970s to `Kings Manor` :

 

Her wealth went to her second cousin Bishop of Bath & Well – His mother  is of the HARWELL BAYLLOLS family ... her niece 21 years dies of Plague ... kind Bishop her 2^nd cousin sets up BALLIOL College with the family money BAYLLOLS  :   With  her monies & holdings he began BALLIOL College Oxford in her family name – there may be some sad histories here = was a marriage intended with her cousin`s line  ?

Was there plague in HARWELL  13 -14^th centuries ... or influenza ?  

IMPORTANT :    CHECK BALLIOL COLLEGE ARCHIVES :   it would be sad to lose her & her ancient family :     We do not want Balliol College to think they exist because of a Bishop of Bath & Wells  !  

 Perhaps Harwell ladies will look into this matter  :

 

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MUSIC :     Pillar House Victoria–Augusta Whitehead  (VAW)

 name from 1^st century A.D.   2^nd Legion Roman Empire = lived P.H. from birth 1968 – 1993 –

she has a set of big colour photos we took the last night of P.H. emptied of furniture – :   Try make her find them – she has unpacked at last  :

I have very many of the garden, house lived in, their friends – house can be seen as it was built 1852  :  Some used in www work :

 

ME G.R. :  ... descends in straight line from centuries of SEA TRADING families = Tudor Mariner Frobisher line  - mother to my grandpa Frederick Charles Frobisher Ransom -1^st World War – Battle of Jutland  (Records seen Imperial War Museum 1957 December) & James Weddell Quaker - WEDDELL SEA =  Captain Alan Villiers & wife comes to little garden lunches at The Pillar House 1968/1972   

 

VICTORIA VAW = HARWELL childhood – Age 2-3 years PIANO lessons from PHILIPPA ARNOLD :   begins as a pianist-keyboards player & composer – teacher from 14 years is the local brilliant teacher Bromley CHALLENOR – teaches music the Magdalen Schools = she has in her 20s some early film music composition work for Colleges & Schools –:

1994/5 composition INDIA-landscape-sounds like trains ... a tour with little PETE = I keep all this safe on tapes/& copies !  – as with her art work – they lose heart early on & dump things !   I kept all the 4 did where I could :   gradually transferring all Pillar House life and work by them to my web sites :  WORK increases like the sea :

 

PHILLIPPA ARNOLD – taught piano 1930s-1970s :

2 daughters played with the Chelsea Opera Orchestra – trained under Malcolm Sargeant : 

       Just remembered – the below  :

 

MANUSCRIPT COOK BOOKS  :     Phillippa gave me a cookery book she began during 2^nd World War 1940s-50s  from clippings magazines/newspapers : intend put it on www

 Also from `BERTS` East Challow a handwritten cookery book of Myfanwy Green-Wilkinson, The Vicarage, Aston Tirrold :   This is handwritten – lists persons to have presents – 1930s

I will print these out for www. and copies can be made ...

 

AMANDA WHITEHEAD :   WEDDING HARWELL CHURCH 1987

  White wine cup with curacao used at Harwell wedding of Amanda & SKI of Aston Tirrold – LAINS BARN – will include copies of the poster !  

 

NB:    this wedding was designed and handmade by us and friends like the rennaisance evening The Pillar House – 19^th century wedding breakfast

There may be a painting, virgin and child LAINS BARN done by Robert Anning Bell when he lived at East Hagbourne- its printed as a card for anniversaries ... I will/ or may have already/ sent good coloured PHOTO COPY for this exhibition ...Easter 2017 Harwell

 

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 Continuing VAW – Victoria Whitehead

VICTORIA NEW MUSIC 21^st cent :   visiting here last winter she descended to the nearby 35,000 BC Palaeo caves of the HANDS – she only visitor – luckily the young Guide also a composer-musician ... SHE WAS ALLOWED TO KICK things & BANG and make NOISES ... this is ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOR HER FUTURE WORK - exciting – composer in caves only needs I-PAD & boots to kick with :  `gor`= means look and `nor` = NO :    `NOR-NOR` when  paint palette is dropped on head or bare feet slither in spilt paint presumably  :

 

...  I do not say but perhaps it helps with her composing,  that I took them to ROYAL ALBERT HALL PROMS from age 3 years & they enjoyed it – I went to early 20^th century music from my 1^st year =  my father`s mother ballerina Argentine – neo-classical ballet & choreography France  Spain – she danced FIREBIRD Stravinsky a friend for our INCA cousins – and 3 Cornered HAT ... Argentine  & Tierra del Fuego : ...

 

1935 and 1936 -   TIERRA DEL FUEGO ...`dear to my heart`  I tell family friend `young Pacelli` 1936 ROME ... when he asks to hear about our NORD-SUD Poles tour for Aunt Margareth Girl of the Snows widow of TIGGY Grote ... all old friends from the mid- and late 19^th century ... WAR CAME again 1939 ... he became Pope and we did not get our TEA out in Rome where he knows there is a hurdy-gurdy ... he slips out in an old Robe with a cousin of Granny and he sketches and Cousin Irish-American a monk writes ... They both live in the VATICAN at this time ...    :

 

HARWELL 1979/80 somebody`s school said  `go hear a piece of BACH PROMS  –  Well she, Pete, Aidie, Stu Harmer thought  the BACH alright :  but RAVED at the BARTOK Violin Concerto ...

I took they and friends (including STU Harmer) to 5 Royal Albert Hall PROMS All Night Concerts – North Indian/Indian/Bali – the youngest brother of my father played table with RAVI SHANKAR family after 11pm ( he uses name of Len Immanuel R born 1921 Argentina )  - Ragas for the Dawn very impressive :  To the Pillar House came Long player records from all nations – Father W. visited for his FISHES work for BMNH – and visiting ichthyologists & Natural historians,  always came with a record or two for The Pillar House – I grew up with the world`s music – the wireless was always on at the top of the stairs – Pete and friends thought it pleasant to never have to come into a silent house : 

I heard early 20^th century music performed – my father played by ear !   So does Victoria – teachers are not best pleased with them !  = Theory is not bothered with – 1970s -  the youngest of PHILLIPPA ARNOLD`s daughters was desperate for a recording of Faure`s REQUIM one weekend = she had to play it with Chelsea Opera Orchestra Monday evening !  She played by ear :

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MUSIC – BOA`BART FAMILY- farmers 18^th/19^th century HARWELL and the area : 

WHO KNOWS THEIR HISTORIES ?   JIM FROUD said he thought they were big farmers around the area at one time :   We Pillar House were asked to have their 1900 organ by mother and daughter – they were the last of the family in the village :   I brought it here to France from Pillar House  to keep it safe :   Possible the name is Flemish ?  

More further on ...

 

ORGAN 1900 made in West Virginia would it, repaired, have a role in HARWELL History again ?  – recitals, re-creation of the 1900s chapels & wear the fashions, food from late 19^th century-to 1^st World War : – ORGAN is CARPENTER ... web site has these organs repaired and they are in use to-day ... No electricity needed !

FULL details – I have it safe and dry – looked by candle-light the other night ... E.P. CARPENTER at  Battle-boro, VERMONT USA ...INTERNET has splendid firms restoring these need no electricity organs – lovely tones, beautifully made pieces of furniture ...  

 

? Date of METHODISTS chapel HARWELL High Street :   The choir sung CREATION 1968 = Chapel to close – be sold off for demolition and 2 pink brick bungalows to be built :   Contents being sold off = we were asked to have two oak benches 7 feet long  – they live here alongside `what JIM Froud & BEN Lenthall called the LAST SUPPER TABLE – a long piece of trestle board 8 feet long from British Museum Natural History work laboratories  -  JIM and BEN had  the idea   “  Trestle table - we MEN will sit and discuss learned matters – you GIRLS will be serving wenches & pour our beer, or wine, from big jugs ... biblical or medieval  ”  :

 

METHODIST chapel -  See newspapers – last burial went in 7 years before sale of the building – journalists photographers – LENTHALL & we, others, speak on this :   I have a black-board outside The Pillar House about this time – collecting signatures – not sure what exactly for now – photos in newspaper  (I have copy in these 2 big yellow box files on HARWELL & a box brimming with paperwork ... :

?  Baptists Chapel in Didcot = both would use MRS ALEXANDER her HYMN BOOK - every school had it except R.C. 19^th/20^th centuries = Modern Anglicans, Bach, always up-market attended posh parties with sherry then 1950s gin & tonic  :

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

20^th century HARWELL MATTERS  :

CPRE – Secretary says  `you can join ... but no good to me unless you are a Lawyer ! `

Late 1970s/1980s I would sketch out letters for them during the day – PJPW would shape them up late evening :   It was a drear business – watching waiting for ENGLAND its GREEN and PLEASANT LAND to be further eroded :   Upton & Hagbournes` seem to have joined in whatever the matter was :

I would use phrases from JOHN RUSKIN – PJPW would tone them down :

We & many others locally were also battling over SWEET MACHINES put in schools !    Preaching that sweets `bon-bons` are looked forward to on Saturdays – a visit to the Sweet Shop should also teach kitchen-ancient trade routes of sweetmeats-care of teeth and Dentistry-medicine – Margaret Thatcher had removed milk at morning  break–she broke a good habit :     Is it JOHN RUSKIN writes `a nation has no future but its children ...`

 Ref.   Opera by Argentine composer this decade called `Margaret Thatcher & General Pinochet` : stage & wireless FRANCE – CD etc  !   Also “GEORGE in the PARK on SUNDAY” = French painter 19^th century George Seraut – lovely tunes & true tale & shows where ancestral ROOTS can reach  :

 

SAVING HARWELL GARDENS so children could safely play – fruit trees grow and village events take place :   Mrs Mavis Batey, Historic Gardens Society, visited and said she would TRY get The PILLAR HOUSE gardens scheduled as `Johnny Crow`s Garden`  - L.Leslie Brooke the well known artist of the Childrens` Books published by FREDERICK WARNE   ( LLB  his son the MP HENRY BROOKE  becomes Lord Brooke & writes a biography of his father  !    She too was drear, like CPRE,  over preserving meaningful houses and gardens especially in villages and towns  !  

She said `only schedule ONE houses and gardens got consideration : she too was over worked`   :    So we did our own PLAQUE to the first two artists JFHB & LLB & fixed it to front of the house – white and gold  :     1993 onwards our plaque did not save the house or garden, after we sold and left after 25 years ...  :

 

 JACKY, milk girl and little shop near the Church told of how pleasant as a child it was that she & all village children could cross from one garden to another by little 3 feet lanes ... no danger for the little ones ...

 

1976 – for Christmas - HOME MADE SWEETS & `BON-BONS ` :     VICTORIA & little PETE & their Classes at The MANOR PREP made a cookery book of sweets to make -  lessons were given at the MANOR PREP Abingdon for November 1976 – I print off and send copies worldwide – copy to come to KATHE c/o Harwell Historical Society  :

 

HARWELL frequent Visitor :   From 1945 & all his life, offer Colonel Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX a box or bag of LIQUORICE ALL SORTS ... & he prefers the black and white ones ... I love the blue & lemon ones :  

 ANDRE MALRAUX my Guardian since Oct. 1937 until I am 25 years =  “ ... he is GOD`S GIFT TO YOUNG WOMEN”  said my Nuns at St Clare Convent School our Class 1945 =  as he tried get our attention and teach us French  ...   

 

The traditional English box of `LIQUORICE ALL SORTS  - he even enjoyed the boot-laces OFF Sweet Coupons Ration Books 1940s :   Was this taste he had perhaps something to do with Spanish Civil War 1936 ?    When the young of ancient Thames side Warehouses, the old families,  ran into SPAIN in secret MURPHYS IRISH STOUT & liquorice tasting PERNOD !!

Young and old FLYERS mixed the two ?  Before flying or creeping about the enemy – I have never tried it UG !  

 Prefer Dry Fly sherry - or wines of all nations - plain Beer 4 vol  :

 

NB:   It is possible that PERNOD fashionable in the 1920s for cocktails had by 1930s left their fathers and grandfathers STACKS gathering dust ... if mixed it must have given the young and old International fighters courage !  

 

 

 

HARWELL Village - & RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES :

 

England :   East Anglia 16^th centuries onwards came many refugees from the Continent : - & late 18^th century into 19^th century began moving into central ENGLAND & farming ... their paper making, silk etc. weaving falling into big commercial companies   ...

 

MEMO :   1930s religious communities of 17^th-18^th centuries were still respected but old occupations disappearing  : 

 Unusual were the few remaining ANABAPTISTS  = Great Clacton-on-Sea = CLACTUNA Little DOOMSDAY BOOK =  had a chapel with service every 2 months = granted by Essex Chelmsford Bishop= until late 1930s – the Anabaptists are said to have finished end of the 16^th century ... I read in print that 1590s ... our Anabaptists did not exist ... we of 19^th-20^th centuries  find `not so` -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NOT SENT TO HARWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY :

Reader refer to our assembly for THE MARTYRS of THOMAS GROTE REAL HOMES educating children into their 20s 1864 – 1950s ... first www. 1937 SUMMER Andre Malraux,  Josette Clotis a young lady Writer, coming 5 years old Greta Ransom, CLACTON-on-SEA and WEST GREENLAND = scaffolding for the work to follow on ... DOCUMENT in 3 Parts commences 31^st January 2011 AD :   NOTA BENE :  Please record in all ways READERS can think of this important HUMANITAS `Journey of Good and Evil` in all methods you can think of :

I do not trust ultra mod technology – it could be used to WIPE TRUTH and REALITY off the face of THE PLANET ... so madness can go partying day in day out ...  ERASING TRUTH from GOOGLE etc may be very much on the cards  ... IN PROGRESS ...

 

NOT SENT TO HARWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY : 

As  JOHN BUCHAN, Writer & Man of Letters says 1939-40 before his too early death ... “ ... EVERY CHILD IN THE WORLD DESERVES A THOMAS GROTE real HOMES, his CURRICULUM ... his CURRICULUM ...”   JOHN BUCHAN, his last alive old friends and loyal assistants pass messages to PJPW and to me, standing at a distance that night of the Lecture by PJPW a dark night a tall tree golden lit slight rising walk to a quite big HALL – perhaps a School or Village Hall – I G.R.w. seem to have a use after the VISIT to CHINA (where I have lines of 3 grandmas` plus the relatives of my blood line of POUL GRONLANDER m Margaret Yates Carlisle 1730s West Greenland :   I think we find that I am from all the lands that JOHN BUCHAN knew as a young man ... and kept contact with as he took up G.B. Governmental Posts ... including Governor General of CANADA ... I may recall his pleasant face at 1930s spring to summertime big pleasant gardens luncheons & teas ... even our very important world EMBASSY  teas ... for WE are ancient families RANSOM & WEDDELL et al ... and THOMAS Immanuel GROTE REAL HOMES for worldwide children ... A –Z the GLOBE ... when TIG began his HOMES in 1964 ... He murdered Arran Island by Scots Lords had his wife Margarethe nee RANSOM widow MRS THOMAS GROTE have to await the heirs reach into 2 figures ... and WE DID ... but a GENOCIDE begun by SCOTS LORDS and Scandinavian in-laws dope growers of the dangerous processed Divinorum Salvia Scotland pellets for their SNOUTS (supposed to not use this DOPE for more than 2 weeks – it HITS their brains in 2 seconds causes violence ...

 

 

(Reports on Div.Salvia Scot.   the 3

 

greatest Research Hospitals the Globe

 

complete by 1970 ...)

 

 

NOT SENT TO HARWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY :

 JOHN BUCHAN a sensible kindly man dies age 65 1940  :

 more information 1985-6-7 ... doth arise :    We were in CHINA Summer 1986 – November 1986 for BRITISH MUSEUM NATURAL HISTORY Zoology-Ichthyology a JOURNEY beginning HONG KONG along the SEAS EDGES  - WORLD, GLOBE, SCHOOLS would be WISE TO READ HIS BOOKS ... lectures, photos, and please use ARTHUR MEES his ENCYCLOPEDIA for CHILDREN in 10 vols.   The photos will put the Reader back easily into the still expanding GLOBE of the 19^th-early 20^th centuries :  

 

 

 G.R. is quoting from her own experience ... CHINA 2 visits of near 2 months each 1986 & 1988 =  and that evening England 1986-7 ?  ... That evening, and I knew I was not being told too much by PJPW, but it became a grey-gilded tall trees OPEN SESAME a little for ME ... faint mists of 1930s ... I think so ... Remember I am only born 11 March 1933 ...

BUT early Readers know I made a good speech December 1935-6 Christmastide in Argentina when the President and his family gave me a REAL GREEN BIG TRAIN for a present – I had only wanted a toy one on a string ... BUT I behaved with excellent manners on the platform and christened this real train :   “ 1961 ANDRE MALRAUX was able to find the nameplate in a Breakers Yard ... dear puffer train had retired from an honourable SERVICE to his nation the ARGENTINE of near 30 years and yet bits of him still chugged on ... ... ...  ”   

 

 

1986-7 - A LECTURE – to do with JOHN BUCHAN ...  to begin with because the atmosphere & goldish electric lights reminded me of NOVEMBER PARIS our little restaurant 1935 ... early supper with an old acquaintance of my families RANSOM-GROTE-FROBISHER ... his name is WALTER BENJAMIN ... and we like old metal and bits and pieces in heaps ... and wonder what to do with it ... this is all called TECHNOLOGY kind Walter tells me ... when we talk of my family Island JACOPSHOLMEN  2 hours by petrol boat off WEST GREENLAND ...

 

 

The Island a gift to Jacob Poulsen (see gt-gt-gt grandpa his letter in FINN GAD  4 vols History of GREENLAND 1960s`   in honour of his Father  genius 6 feet 5 inches POUL GRONLANDER granted by a King of Denmark 1770 after the accidental death of POUL polymath 1765

...   (that Danish King & his friends, of course, said to be MAD ... by those who throw-up work for `brass` on computers ...)   “ GIFT ... ISLAND TO KEEP AS A HOLY PLACE – and when you MAY erect a College, a University ...”   (Did that poor mad King say “ to me ... who are not so mad as THEY insist I am ... ? ” )    ... ... ...  

 

NB :    `Prestor John novelist` :   ABOVE NOT SENT TO HARWELL HISTORICAL SOCIETY  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARWELL :   QUAKERS & NONCONFORMISTS : 

16^th-17^th-18^th centuries - what are the RELIGIOUS communities HARWELL and area :   Ask BRIAN  LINGHAM  :    The Easton family had their (hidden) chapel : Spanish Civil War ... writer poet here ... KEEP IN MIND PEOPLE KNEW ONE ANOTHER ... met at polite things ... Church, teas, At Homes, and TV was not blaring ...

 

 

EXAMPLE :    RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

CLACTON Old Road - The QUAKER enclave of 17^th century Clacton had a SERMON once a month given by the last of the old SPEAKERS – he 1900s-1930s  was acknowledged to be inspiring :   “ Carriages and motor cars came down from London to hear him ...   ”   :  He wore a steeple black hat, black suit and high collar “   and was regarded with great respect ...”   His ancient QUAKER ladies in long black frocks had wonderful white lace collars :  sat  on the high steps of the wooden white painted houses with balconies and smoked clay pipes with long stems – I Greta Ransom recall them when I am 2, 3 years nearly 4 years  ...   : 

 

 

 I from birth,  then from 2 years 8 months years, to 3 & three-quarter years,  had travelled from `Pole NORD to Pole SUB`  & back & forth across Europe 8-9 months 1935-1936 – we have for the Family philanthropy our own little airplanes & travel in 3s & ships here & there :   Uncle Alfred Charles Rear Admiral RANSOM is present with me to hear the last QUAKER SPEAKER Sunday 1936 autumn – and on our NORD-SUB Tour for Aunt Margareth `girl of the snows`  :  We have all religions – her USA husband a great nephew of philosopher F. Immanuel KANT :

 

 

 

DAMES SCHOOLS HARWELL - and others :

 

The BILL & MARY ROSE family cottage, School Lane was originally land owned by MAGDALEN  College until into the 20^th century

...  big cottage - probably a gift from one of the 6 CHURLS families who bought their FREEDOM of the local KNIGHT who had to go to war with the KING – this entitled them to put 6 sons in the new College Magdalen Oxford – more followed to the University of Ox-ford   :  

NB  :   THE ROSE family had records of 2 schools over the centuries in their cottage :

 

MARY ROSE TAUGHT PRIMARY SCHOOL ART  ( Wallingford ? some letters of children on one of my files mid-1970s ...  )

 

HARWELL = WESTMINSTER & VALE of WHITE HORSE : 

 Protests from Villagers and some saving of parts of the villages :  

Harwell = GLENLEIGH , Reading Road :   three  little  15^th century beams saved by JIM & BEN for Pillar House brought here to France – old carpenters marks :

 

Dr JOHN FLETCHER , Harwell Atomic site and then to Department of Archaeology OXFORD ... said  “ 150 cruck cottages HARWELL destroyed 1940s-1950s – HARWELL had more than any other village in England – we could do nothing !   He came to work ATOMIC SITE – lived The Pillar house about 4 years with wife Delle and children ... stored his first season gathered apples in the cellars  – the River Winterbrooke ran through at certain seasons – his family`s Christmas apples were floating ...  ”

 

1969/70s :   “GLENLEIGH”  - pulled down but TV got in, wireless, newspapers – mostly the connexions of BEN LENTHALL direct descendant of Speaker Lenthall the PARLIAMENT Oliver Cromwell   :   TV took film of the destruction and the villagers upset :    But people of old families were frightened to be too outspoken :   However young residents from universities could speak eloquently upon WHY not to destroy the English villages :  ASK JIM/ALAN perhaps/others ?

An Ancient England `amnesia`  had set in since `land of Dope & Tory party ` swept in 1951 – Harwell had 5 pubs ... and good beer did get people talking !

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1953 my father British Army Captain Frederick John RANSOM b 1911 invited by The Society of Antiquaries to come and WALK upon the uncovered ROMAN LONDON &  Mithraeum – here his 2 young ancestors leave a LIFE BOOK- languages used 1^st-2^nd century AD by sea traders are Latin-Arabic-local languages   :   Difficult to stop big concrete business blocks in-filling –Mithraeum is in the dank basement of a concrete block – key can be applied for :    ( Saint Paul`s threatened about this time  that it would be obscured by high rise – stopped )

 

 HARWELL families :   Remember to check your DNA – male direct lines OK - but DNA is not keen on women yet  :   NB:   Ask the opinion of local Vicars if you are thinking of tomb robbing !

 

1952-1960=  I had some experience working at CAMULODUNUM (Colchester)   of RESCUE of archaeological sites – the London Mithraeum fight luckily had attention & newspapers helped ... but much work remained - but was halted  :

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MUSIC Projects for HARWELL =  music of the centuries ?  :

I grew up with world music down to the early 20^th century music - all my family played most things and Irish Granny Mary Helena sang 1916 Westminster Hall Meeting  `WHACK Fol di DIDDLE  ` she agreed to help composer whom she knew :-  walked past Police breaking meeting up after a half hour – gave the names numbers of her two Gordon brothers-in-law ... she has a mother born 1839 a CLASSICIST Dublin University – Granny Mary Helena also agreed to sing `stand-in` for MARY GARDEN early performances Paris `PELL & MELL` Claude Debussy – `FLU raged early 1900s – to the dreadful epidemic of 1918-1919 ...  :

 

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`MEDICINES` of the centuries HARWELL :  

PLAGUE studies – this could be considered –

ASK BRIAN LINGHAM ... others ...Medical schools etc

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THE PILLAR HOUSE built 1852 after the Village Fire :

I have files/histories from previous residents – local happenings ... humanism ... 2 files I will look into & list –

 

Plus 2 files & a box etc.  on Mary Freeman – and the great pile of paintings from the children she taught Convent of the Sacred Heart  & other schools – including 1950s Harwell Primary – paintings have names of the young artist s– JIM FROUD Royal College of Art London took his 3 – he said it was Mrs Freeman and his mother steered him to ART – he felt he never had the chance to think of anything else – but was quite happy about it :

 

MEMO :  1968-1992/3 = I am asked :   Music of all centuries, all the world, could be heard to the passer-by The Pillar House High Street, School lane on the corner & the White Cottage  ... Mid-1980s only a certain doctor across the road objected when TINA resident Arab & Belly-Dancer at Sheffield University hired A Green Grass Band to play into the dawn at her daughter`s wedding in a marquee in the Pillar House garden – marquee  went over the 4 of the 12 fruit trees :   Doctor-not-friendly began telephoning at intervals of 15 minutes from 6am which was 3 hours after the Celebrations had finished – and we were collapsed on our beds :   We always invited anyone nearby to join in ... I believe matters were mended ... : 

 

1984 ? - FOOD – EAT ART  :  The Feast for the Wedding was cooked in the GREAT KITCHEN of Pillar House – TINA asked for YORKSHIRE-ARABIAN food – we managed it – and got genuine THANKS from her new son-in-law`s hearty YORKSHIRE relatives !   We HAD to send her to Oxford the day before  “ go and find some chrystalized rose petals & dance in the Parks  ”  as her nerves had her break a full bottle of olive oil over that ancient brick floor & I whisking about slid & hit my head on our ancient great sink – but recovered ... I keep letters, guest lists & menus mostly :

 

All this EAT ART was FREE – Born in the 1930s we all naturally feel  `on the penny-hang`  = and now the nation went 3 steps forward & 27 backwards 

... (& the nation & common-wealth had yet to say Mrs  M. Thatcher drank a bottle of spirits a day  ... gossip went on in the villages and pubs and at Vicars Jumble Sales etc. etc.    I was informed of these matters but had always a FULL work day 7 days the week ...  )

WE WHO ARE WARTIME CHILDREN 1939 - 1945 :  1968 coming to live in Harwell there were many people who had lived through the GREAT WAR 1914-1918 ... then 2^nd War 1939-45 ... these WARS were not at all forgotten and how the villagers of Berkshire (before it became Oxon) coped was spoken upon ... and they understood so well the need for the British Health Service ...

 

1980s saw MEDICAL RESEARCH  lacking its necessary funding  - there were much fine words and talk of how we should all save for our ailments and be responsible citizens – But failing employment, heavy traffic and fumes, and all that the 20^th century can tell you was not sufficiently considered  ... Medical assistance was so important to keep children and people healthy :  

TINA Dancer in Residence Sheffied University and the wedding ARABIAN-YORKSHIRE ...   We of The old  Pillar House and its GREAT KITCHEN got a gift of 6 delicate engraved pink wine glasses from the Groom = & were most happy :   

 

Up to 1950s - WIRELESS :    Music and Arts – discussions of the news of the week, G.B. and overseas :

BBC Third Programme began 1947 = ASK OLDER HARWELL & villages and older generation  = music & its history, & Talks on the ARTS England – had discussions - quietly spoken matters of something happening in the week ... We senior school Classes always had something to specially listen to during the week on the Third programme – one could think about what was being said and also knit, embroider, wash-up & other jobs ... At first this Third Programme was only part of the week  - but it was not just intellectuals that listened   : 

1930s-40s :  East Anglia had all centuries of music & tuition in Schools – local & professional musicians played in old churches, at dances, Christmas events ... BEN Britten a newcomer early 1940s could hear local groups performing music of last 1,000 years ...

 

WANTAGE 1970s-80s – evenings - had a historic music group for children – And visiting piano teachers to the Villages ... Mrs Philippa Arnold of course down by the Mill stream ... 2 daughters played for Chelsea Opera Orchestra ...

MUSIC :     ASK our late Librarian, Didcot - young BRIAN  LINGHAM came in 1969 ... he would be in touch with these events when compiling his splendid little books  ... Remember his books on HARWELL and area ... the Bodleian Library were helping him with part of this research :   

 

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BOA`BART -  Harwell family – (photo/drawings) had barn attached to Pillar House & the later Couzens house across School lane :  CAN THEIR FAMILY HISTORIES BE FOUND – they were land owners –

Jim & Stephen could know – time of their grandpa `old breeches and gaiters` :

1970s - The last of this family, Mrs B. and her daughter visited Pillar House and asked if we would have their ORGAN from the Methodist Chapel    ( made in West Virginia late 19^th century very popular for small chapels & Homes that kept up evening Prayers )  – See web for Repairers, restorers

 

MEMO:   ORGAN – can it come home ? :

Bo`Bart Gift to Methodist Chapel - ORGAN -   I think I have now sent you details of its famous maker and now restorers -  E.L. CARPENTER Battleboro, VERMONT USA ... No electricity needed !   Beautiful pieces of carpentry ...   

 

 

HARWELL ORGAN – their family had presented it to The Methodist Chapel and it had been returned to them when the young Architect Malcolm and his family turned the Chapel into a house :   It was a solemn gift to us The Pillar House – they did want remembering – `her daughter or she used to play it ... it needed mending a bit ...`

It came to the Pillar House, the Chapel was being sold, & we put it in `the Music room` with our 2 pianos -:   VICTORIA & the others used to play it in The Pillar House but the bellows need mending – or somebody PUMPS away all the time :     At one time VA thought she might use it in her composing – It would have played the Mrs Alexander Book of Hymns ?  I have a copy for my work :

 

I HOPE SOME ANCIENT HARWELLIAN CAN RECALL THE HISTORY OF THIS FAMILY – JIM FROUD & relatives would probably know – he came down here with his family a few years ago  :

 

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ARMY Didcot :   Captain RAY GREENWOOD wife Brenda and daughter Susan :  lived in 4 Corners perhaps 2 years – Dickie Hamilton house corner Reading Road and High Street = then the family moved to Abingdon - the 2 sons went to Abingdon School -of old Lempriere & his Classical Dictionary - useful in writing history when one needs to use only the knowledge of that time

 

 

 

 

   

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Mary/Mollie FREEMAN Artist :  (Mrs Percy P. Freeman)

Mary Laura Dudley-Short

 lived in Harwell 1944-1986 until her death Winterbrooke House  ( born Mary Laura Dudley-Short)

Training, families, friends – my web site has file for her –www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com – files are listed by names and subjects : 

Paintings owned by me & Victoria – portraits of PJPW and of me

The delicate big water colour – part of the House that features in a Victorian novel called `OLD SAINT PAUL`s` :  a friend owned the house – go to the novel to see where it is :

White roses – a late painting after she was 80 years  :

2 of 1950s – gift from her executor –

The delicate water colour an evening scene – COPY ENCLOSED – She said she felt this was the best water-colour she had done

Photo-copy of her `on the vision of the Arab poet`

Woodcut – she printed a few of these : – a woman coming down steps to a well – she said she had been stressed – she had a dream – this woodcut released her – she saw the way ahead :

Various photos-letters-childrens art catalogues ... other things I have to go into the 2 big yellow box files and a box :   I keep things – its an old Museum habit :

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She grew up with many late 19^th century and turn of the 20^th century British Artists – went to Reading University at 17 to study wood carving etc - travelled East – taught in East End Schools – gave her salary as scholarships – friends were very many :  She felt romantic about a young French Artist painting wry shipping scenes – !   French artist called SEVRIN !   (I have a printed set of his drawings given by Mary for she felt they would amuse the children )   He married NINA RATHBONE !   Many artists had London flats and gave Exhibitions `at home` ... as we knew around Oxford ... all would know one another ... : 

 Kenneth Walker later at Nat. Gall/John Rothstein Tate/Vorticists/et al ... several who were CONVERTS to ROMAN CATHOLICISM – especially in 1920s ... all this information on the web ...

... Mary Dudley Short (Cotton) (does not marry Percy Peter FREEMAN until early 1940s :   As many young people 1920s – she travelled East -  studied art Paris/helped Marion Richardson artist with her HHH  Holloway PRISON work – Rules :  teachers not allowed teach female prisoners art - she had them embroider from art books, so they must draw their designs first after deciding what they would like to embroider ... progress !

 

FILE with me on MARION RICHARDSON given me by MARY FREEMAN  - Marion Richardson had a flat at FRINTON-on-SEA which is close to CLACTON-on-SEA – lives dove-tail into our RANSOM-Frobisher-Grote families :  I met at functions many of Mary Freeman`s friends when I was in single figures 1930s :   they approved of our worldwide philanthropy which had to be kept quiet :   Sister Kathleen Richardson lived retired near Oxford :  She worked Whitehall – Mary Freeman said   “ Kathleen virtually ran finances of British Empire on her own ” : 

I and she, all of these art-aesthetes-welfare minded quiet voiced people knew that in the early decades of the 20^th century  you kept quiet about what we women did – WALLS HAD EARS :

 

THE WORLD OF MARY FREEMAN when she was a young person is like mine below 1930s :-    One was aware of Mrs Gaskell`s book `NORTH-SOUTH` still an influence  ...

1939 age 6 years at an afternoon Function I am asked by BBC to speak 2 minutes into his `mic`,  if  I could,  about our Family Tour of Estate Pole NORD to Pole SUD  = easily I spoke 12 minutes – he was very pleased – some eminent people returning to New Zealand were pleased to :  Good training showed from my father and his family - my Pedagogues :   I but have plain going out clothes and a green beret – I only curtsey at old ladies otherwise step back 2 steps and BOW from head – speak when spoken to : 

 

Eric REVILLIOUS – 1968 on, amongst her friends – MARY Freeman & her friends question me about their friend artist ERIC REVILLIOUS – ?

 Amongst her once young friends many felt grief for him – he died as a RAF Rescue plane 1941/2 ?  -  did not return to ICELAND :   I could NOT recall a serious tea-partyat Castle Hedingham October-November 1938 for them :    I was 5 years old – later with sadness I did – he one of the War Artists ... his Museum Saffron Walden   : 

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LOCAL HISTORY  - “ care of every scrap”  :

 I coming from ancient families & working Colchester Museums 1950s  had my new pedagogue the great Humanist Harold W. Poulter ... working visitors were names in archaeology-literature-medicine– MacDonald emerging now & then from under SAQQARA Pyramid/Wheeler & India and Jericho/etc – THEY TAUGHT ONE CARE OF EVERY SCRAP ! 

` Big bits of stone are OK but its what THEY said-thought-ate-bought-visited-health-etc ...`   `History begins in the Kitchen` said a young friend of them all 1920s Eileen Power - died 1928 - Her book  `MEDIEVAL PEOPLE`  a penguin bible for the local historian :   THESE PEOPLE ABOUT MARY FREEMAN KNEW ONE ANOTHER WHEN YOUNG – that’s important to remember when gathering local histories ...

 

1969 at a garden little luncheon at The Pillar House  ( I keep notes of what I have prepared – mostly late 19^th century/early 20^th century )    Captain ALAN VILLIERS who took that MAYFLOWER across is talking on my SEA families & how he was staying ONE SAIL in our great West Greenland house “built like a ship” and there was the library 18^th-19^th century – it came to my father 1938 :    ONE OF THE CREW chosen for the MAYFLOWER was the YOUNG BROTHER age 19 of LORNA FROUD :    

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 MEMO :   my Irish-Manchester-West Greenland families have been trotting into VATICAN from 1851 –

 

a friend from 1880s is `young Pacelli` - he puts on old monks robe and does his sketches for his water-colours sitting about ROME ` unrecognized ... I tell him when I am coming 4 years about the CONVENTS `TIERRA` “ so dear-to-my-heart ”   & we have PLANS = he will send 2 young Priests with an old one – plan is to develop the hospital work of  these Irish-Scots-Welsh, Spanish, Indian Nuns and the schools :  and my father will send warm blankets and all they need from Brazil and this has begun –

 

Aunt Margarethe, TIGGY`s wife (but he had to go to Heaven leaving us ) in care of all the children of the Globe & we helping since the 1920s – he knows all of this of course as my Irish relatives trot in to see him too  ...  Margareth GIRL of the SNOWS, whom he `Young Pacelli knows well -  (she comes to the Vatican from 11 years of age (1853) quietly with the family and the Family of Greenland and many countries discuss the progress of life on earth ... she runs philanthropy he knows – we do not have lavish expenses but we like to GO TO THE BALL once a month ... Aunt Mag (as Lennie dares call her) dances like a girl and her real health she says to me is from having porridge for breakfast every day of her life ...

I tell `young Pacelli`  (& other people who keep diaries) all about our Visits to TIG`s REAL HOMES (1935-1936)  ... & the children speaking 4 languages and classical ones too and Latin like him,  they know ALL religions and are friends all over the world – I met ladies of ECUADOR under the great  tree on the hill when the day was hot and they had been getting letters from Tiggy Orphans in CHINA -  they had met them when they visited 2 months when they were small, 30 years ago – Tiggy sent everybody on big ships visiting and learning languages –  The  letters say that  “ China has problems ... but everyone is trying to help ...”  Later they read them with my Father whom they call `my Pedagogue` :

1936 April - `Young Pacelli` and I Greta Ransom (`Greetah`)  were nearly 20 minutes one diary says ... he had another appointment ... I do believe I heard an orchestra play `PINES OF ROME` this visit ... and we walked a little of the Appian Way ...Of course,  I have been to ROME before ... but at a few months old and 1 year or so it is difficult to remember ... unless some grown-up shows you the photos !!

 

1960 January NIGHTWATCH Colne Engaine – READERS can follow here ... www.greta-ransom.com and www.ancestryandtruetales.jimdo.com ... and www.greetahransom.wordpress.com  ... TWITTER I had then it only `played` to France ... that is no good to we who are global ... I being 14 races (19 in all) and 27 nations !!   

 

1960 -  It is ECUADOR who were ready with other nations 1960 February to put on the front and second pages of their newspapers  ‘ WHERE ARE THE GROTE HOMES CHILDREN MOTHER BRITAIN’    This is organized January 1960 by Arthur Malone Politian (illegitimate son of Arthur Duke of Connaught a son of VIC and BERT as the 1960s warmly called them ... especially the young studying music, art, sciences ... :  All this was swiftly organized by some persons in LAW Britain ... So many newspapers of the GROTE HOMES nations A to Z would print this ... NO GENOCIDE ... But all the stolen Estate PUT BACK ... our Bridal dowry seashores of 14 Races 27 Nations would be put back in their PURITY ... all the trash of quick riches cleared out – forests grown again ... HOMES re-erected as exactly they were ... The Bavarian refectories of brown wood around a village Green with craft shops ... TIGGY felt the children should after morning lessons have a change of scene for the midday meal ... school begin mid or late afternoon ... Dormitories when tiny then rooms for 6 children as they became older and wished to study seriously ... they are in education to 18 and their 20s ... EVERY GROTE CHILD COULD RETURN TO ITS HOME all its life ...

 

MEMO :        READER CAN TURN TO NIGHTWATCH January 1960-61 web nos. above title is to begin with :

  `1937 SUMMER - ANDRE MALRAUX, Josette Clotis, Greta Ransom at Clacton-on-Sea – WEST GREENLAND ... ”            

 

1936 ROME -   Appointment for Greta Ransom to talk with family friend `young PACELLI` ...

He knows we have early transport (1930s Canada)  we take such care of – we give them best medicine and Christmas Funds ... that is for everybody working with us – BUT many people all the globe follow what we do and it makes them very happy  to try do the same... everyone needs a roof and a kitchen  : – He `young Paccelli,  he coming from Germany is appointed to an administration position the VATICAN nowadays :   knows that WE ( Thomas Grote Homes and Ransom Estate encircling the Globe with gold rings and a flower garden )  got into transport early but only stayed a year with Wells Fargo ...”  for they became crooks ”    ~ & Uncle Fred MacMurray only makes FILMS when Insurance is DOWN on Wall Street .. (everybody watches Laurel and Hardy and Uncle Fred and now Cousin Clarke)    Cousin C. is Jean`s cousin – he has made another film  (San Francisco ?)  

Now because I was starved in Great Britain by these horrible Lindsay distant in the mists relatives and OTHERS I can remember the PAST without photos but by FOOD and those who bring me FOOD – so musicians and filmstars and holy people I remember ... the first two being children like me !  (I have named them 2011 – a fearful past where we had to protect out friends and acquaintances form Scots thugs – JURASSIC BOG TROTTERS !!

I remember proudly telling he `young Pacelli`  I was a strong child  ...  I carried Cousin Clarke`s oil tins to his car when we visited our WEDDELL cousins & he said he approved me !   ... I thanked `young Pacelli` for sending the nice Bishop to talk to me at our Weddell cousins enclave ... we all had a very nice tea after a serious talk about Welfare matters ...

`Young Pacelli`  had this Bishop able to help more with Welfare in Argentina and then he moved to North America the coasts and did more ... then I told him about the wonderful XMAS morning MASS in the Cathedral MONTERREY =  and how Jean and all the family came in the afternoon and we made plans to help with the Welfare the Bishop there has going with so many many helpers ... They my family  had to go to a Service at an Embassy –English or North American I could not remember ...  but DRUSILLA  the Maid given us for our visit, she took me & we walked hand in hand to the Cathedral with the great pillars inside, AND  people are allowed to stand up and wave and welcome one another even when the grand Altar service is going on – and even a Priest waved at someone for there were lots of Priests on the altar but 3 important ones  ...  )   ...

 

(TIERRA DEL FUEGO = we have a granny 4 times back & she owned all of Saint Julian`s Bay & the Conquest by Spain did not take them from her family but conveniently LISTED ALL DETAILS OUT – HURRAY !    Sometimes the unexpected comes out for humanists !   The 18<sup>th</sup>-19<sup>th</sup>  Europeans & Gross Brits of the Admiralties eye the lands of WE whom they call `apes & Eskimo `

THIS ASSEMBLY OF TRUTH continues on the 3 web sites ... is printed and on DVDs and other means of storage ... Probably on all SECRET INTELLIGENCE sites run by MANIACS ... for this GREAT MIRACLE of education TIGGY`s HOMES and my family RANSOM our Estate SEASHORES the world now is in the PAWS of dope-soaked JURASSIC BOG TROTTERS ... 2 horrible TRIBES began this 1900s ... ignorance helped them splatter the globe  ... put a river of blood around the globe and have it around our ankles ... (City of London Elders 1965 – the whole truth has opened to them – some saw the dead children upon our seashores during 2^nd World War ...  

 

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MEMO :    this file is a WORKING File ... it has not all gone to HARWELL ...

I printed off photo-copy and text to do with HARWELL village histories ... a slight mention of whom we are at The Pillar House ...

THE FILE IS FOR FURTHER WORK ... IDEAS  IDEAS  IDEAS ...   

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NOTA BENE :    RESEARCH will throw up the lives of the THE HARWELL DESCENDANTS of those who went to The New World –

THE HARWELL TRAIL – the co-author may have work on this :    It has my RANSOM family marrying into HARWELL descendant Alabamba  :  photo-copy.. sent for the exhibition April 2017 ... BUT NO PAGES OF THE SERIOUS MATTERS of the THOMAS GROTE HOMES ...  

 

INFO :   AMERICA 1985 come visitors to Oxford & Harwell to walk in the paths of their ancestors from HARWELL – this should be in the Westgate Libr. local history/or newspapers/or Balliol/Magdalen the two colleges of early HARWELL histories :  1985 – my tea in garden for hoards of them – I cooked biscuits cakes down the centuries/file of these things :    MEMO : - one family owned NASHVILLE PRESS and kept histories :

 

ASK Brian Lingham late Didcot Library :  he author of those excellent books with histories and photos/Anthony Fletcher who slid down stairs Pillar House concussed himself age 9 years & was OUT for 3-4 hours – recovered – his name went with NO !!!  in the 1970s  Pillar House when 3 of the 4 thought about this !!

 

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MARY FREEMAN – her friends before the 2^nd World War :

 

LATE 19^th century early 20^th century – ( then me in my first years 1930s )  knew many of the art-religious-welfare-arts & crafts friends of Mary Freeman – the functions we had to attend London and also the Embassies where we are related to there nations :   

1968 when I first met her Harwell she and her friends asked me about REVILLIOUS artist friend who died 1942 RAF off ICELAND  – but I could not remember other than my father liked his water-colours :    But 1938 a tea party at Castle Hedingham was a very urgent meeting – I could years later recall they were all distressed  – we all lived in worrying times 1937-39 ...

 

VORTICISTS were her friends :  my FLYER uncle LIR 12 years older than me had a Vorticist teacher at his parents home the little house `Jerusalem` Deptford ...WE FLY about in 3 little planes Pole NORD to Pole-SUB - urgent visit 1939 to LAPLAND !   Many of Mary Freeman`s old friends knew about our family philanthropy – had met from late 19<sup>th</sup> century  Aunt MAG & Uncle TIGGY – she Margareth nee RANSOM Mrs Thomas Immanuel GROTE dies 1938 age 96 - as active as a girl – her many Races of grandmothers from 1<sup>st</sup> century AD helped give her good health ... `keeps the blood clean` said Asia-Egypt-ROME et al  :    1970-71  I think he Stanley is the last VORTICIST alive - was brought to Winterbrooke House Harwell – I could not remember him from the 1930s – I must have been 2 years to 4 years old – but he looked pleased to see me fully grown – he had met earlier his pupil LEN Immanuel Ransom ... Kathleen Hale (writer for children `ORLANDO THE MARMALADE CAT`  would have liked to have me recall things when I was 2, 3 years old :  If only they would show me photos  !!

 

So  I knew her circles in the 1930s these older artists are telling me & they called ANDRE MALRAUX `Andre dear` recognizing his supreme intelligence and KINDNESS and common-sense : -  1968 onwards for many years I am amongst people who knew my elders very well –  NB:   I am 6 & a half when WAR begins :

 In 1957 London a tall kind looking man taking a small party in the National Gallery said  “ Greetah – you have grown SO tall – would you like to join us ... ”  I shook my head shyly, knowing sometimes  I should recall these people :  & said I had to go home – he knew that was the CATHOLIC MISSION Lancaster Gate Square – probably knew my saintly great Aunt who has BUN FIGHTS  (= Edwardian slang for Afternoon tea )  with old Roman Catholics from the 1890s  = and her sister worked that time at sculpting holy figures - LIVERPOOL -  Arts & Crafts - going with her Professor MANZONI to help out HAROLD RATHBONE – !!    And she and General Charles de Gaulle had much to talk upon 1941-42 at The Diocese of Westminster afternoons – with tea & buns !

 

 MEMO :   Do not forget great-great uncle HAROLD RATHBONE  Della Robbia Pottery to the four WHITEHEAD children – the family lived Wallingford `White Cross` etc.  from 1914-1960s – Sir Rowland Edward Whitehead & his wife Ethel nee Rathbone sister of HAROLD – their mother Jane wife of Philip Henry Rathbone Liverpool Green Bank Cottage is the Chairman and `hanging-Chairman` of LIVERPOOL ART GALLERIES and Museums ... Basil Rathbone actor, The Great War, films and stage has an autobiography   

 

1930s -  I born 1933 March am aware of  Europe in deep trouble – much of Britain able to grasp it too is in the `DARK VALLEY` ... & a man become MAD gathers power  ... Hitler & me enter 1933- & he closed the BAUHAUS !

( MEMO :   Hitler did not destroy the Grote Homes and did not expect them to fight – but speaking in apparent honesty November 1936, says he expects them to go on functioning and producing useful people in medicines, agriculture, horticulture, the arts, teaching ... THEN ? 

How the MAD evolve ? :   progress is usually by DOPE-bad health & blinkered medical understanding ... and a lack of a balanced education & races ... not sufficient learning  ... in the necessity of exploration of every aspect of the globe and especially beyond into space ... Enough was understood about the skies and planets and beyond in the 19^th century and before ...

 

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RACISM 18^th CENTURY – West GREENLAND :   

Reading LUCRETIUS 1720 French translation the mother of POUL GRONLANDER could tell him `the stars are other worlds – there will be ships that will take us to them one day – we will be too many upon this planet – and there will be things on these other worlds that will help us ...  Called `little-soft white fox paws` Maria, she an Eskimo & a little French had travelled to VENICE as a child with her families – they had ships – they sang the music of Claudio Monteverdi and other composers of 17^th-18^th centuries ... they read and wrote at a very high standard ... they knew the Globe of that age ...  

NB:  The EUROPE of satin and lace, rather porridge coloured skin Upper Classes had members who did not recognize other Races could be scholarly or talented :  ... they only occasionally granted them recognition if they had BIG MONEY  :   POUL 6 feet 5 ins. tall, corresponds with the Humanist Pope Benedict because they are BOTH very interested in Botanical medicines and not the animal preparations ... Poul a young man with an educated wife Margaret Yates of Carlisle Shipping and 5 children, writes the Humanist Pope Benedict in 4 languages – an initial letter says `your Excellency, for which one you prefer I write in four tongues ...`  This 18^th century Botanical Pope Benedict sent Poul and the Egede young men with whom Poul had been educated ( sons of Pastor Hans & Gertrud Egede)  many botanical spices-fruits-leaves, and a horse ...   An early letter in Latin from this Pope is translated as  `we must talk – come quickly – I am going MAD here` ... ... ...

 

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MARY FREEMAN artist teacher :   19^th-20^th centuries

PAINTINGS – drawings – woodcuts  :    Born Mary Laura Dudley-Short – church of England :   Mrs Mary Freeman before marriage & sometimes after signs as Mary Cotton/or Mary Short  (parents know the Georgian poets  = her great-grandparents BOWDLER ( = he took SHEARS to Shakespeare )  :    And 5-? generations back Sir ROBERT Bruce COTTON ancestor – he bequeathed his library – later called King`s Library -  later housed in BRITISH MUSEUM  Bloomsbury ...

 

I HAVE CATALOGUE of the paintings Winterbrooke House :    (sent) ...

 = others may have too, printed out on a typewriter  – also LETTERS she & others :  her young years history told to me & others : 

 

Ashmolean Tercentenary 1983 – did she talk ?    PJPW and me had to attend, she and friends – he gave the closing speech very movingly :    She sitting with us one afternoon otherwise with her friends  :  I stayed home The Pillar House one day and did a Tudor supper for a big party from the TERCENTENARY – lifted tables out into the Garden and made a row – candlelight –The weather was late 80s farenhiet and reached 93 one afternoon ...

 

THE SUPPER 17^th century :   The Pillar House lawn shaded by the fruit trees  (21) I bought from Hillers Winchester 1970-71 paying monthly – first time they had ever had a customer ask for this – reply was WHY NOT ? ... 

After the first course ... SHE  appeared in the cooler evening in an edwardian gown of lavender organza and big lavender hat –  THE FOREIGN ART HISTORIANS MAKING HER THE QUEEN OF THE FEAST – and at her knees ! :  

 

She was lead to the head of the row of tables and after the desert was encouraged to speak on her career beginning the GREAT WAR 1914 ...   she talked brilliantly  :   it was an emotional evening ... they knew they were hearing of another age and people they knew as important  names of their worldwide Art world ... she made the past come alive ... the past came to the tables all put in a row ...

... lifted out by them on arrival ... one Frobisher family , one Cotton family ... others from The Pillar House Great Kitchen – admired by Eastern Europe for its old brick floor, great stone sink, 19^th century blue white tiles, big fireplace with Bread Oven ... logs piled along one wall ... door as drawn in the L. Leslie Brooke Books for Children ... the House was a Pilgrimage for them ... as they whooped and Ohhhed over its architecture ...

... the great staircase ... where 7 years now dead a man they admired for his books as well as his Cultural Ministership ANDRE MALRAUX had stood 1968 – 1976 admiring it all ...

...   and Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX my Guardian since 1937, he at the 1972 renaissance evening created by us and the artistic young of the village ... not a rave but a gathering of well mannered and intelligent people exploring music-authentic food-costume-atmosphere ...      : 

...  I and others 1970s had heard her at her supreme best relating this past and  `WHAT SHE and OTHER YOUNG ARTISTS were trying to achieve to help the whole WORLD`  ... that was one evening in Winterbrooke House – a gathering with light supper a warm evening and she gave us a tour of the Pictures and it was sheer MAGIC she spoke  :

 

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MARY LAURA DUDLEY-SHORT  (Mrs Percy Peter FREEMAN)

2 sisters, 1 brother (descendants America – film world)

 Her sister marries a doctor M. GODENNE - nephew & nieces BELGIUM

-   

ROMAN CATHOLICS (& Converts) – sister Olive marries a Dr M. GODENNE of Belgium  – 4 children

 Eldest son Dr Jacque Godenne, marries Monique – children ... Jacque was in the Africa war that used AGENT ORANGE … a grandson in childhood caused them a scare but survived treatment ... at this time it was believed that  Agent Orange got in the blood stream and could be passed on to children ...

 

 his sister Elizabeth marries Dr Ed MacCracken NEW YORK LUKEMIA HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN  (knew mother of Whitehead twins in 2^nd World Wartime London)  :   They visit to Winterbrooke House 1978,  and to The Pillar House for lunch – I cook a 17^th century luncheon – inspired by John Evelyn & other 17^th-18the centuries writers on FOOD  – I would have heard a lot of the family news ... Jacques and family were writing to me after the death of young Peter 1998 :

 

2nd niece of Mary Freeman, that we meet is Miss GISLAINE GODENNE – came from medicine to computer work  - enjoying herself, having  the time of her life she says,  running the EXPENSES of the JOHN HOPKINS University !  ( some photos) –  NB:  sister OLIVE to Mary Freeman marrying into family Godenne – all ROMAN CATHOLICS here ...

 

MARY FREEMAN – her Sister  `Phil`  lived in a modest house St John`s Wood – joined BUDDISTS Society and enjoyed their philosophy – firm Roman Catholic Covert too :

 

THEIR BROTHER :   TRAGIC  :   He fell from the great wheel at the Battersea Fair when it first opened (1949? ) – check this out with Charles Freeman – it was in the newspapers  :   His daughter is JUNE Hollywood etc. Film Studios work  & has a family – MARY was saving letters from the families – I helped her sort a drawer full – she sent some back to June -    It is possible she felt it best to send them all back to the writers for their families to keep for the future :

 

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

 

MARY FREEMAN - Her husband Percy Peter Freeman : 

 

She did a portrait of him in his Wartime tin-hat :

He had died before we came in 1968 to the Pillar House :

CHARLES FREEMAN – great-nephew in law – was in Oxford – writes teaches – he may like to write on his Uncle ... 

 A brother-in-law who died before she came into the FREEMAN FAMILY -  dying very young - was the scholar who wrote the book `SCHOOLS of ATHENS` ... d 1928/9 ?  this may be his green and silver striped scarf she gave me – I like to think it is when I wind it around my waist wearing delicate summer things – what aesthetes our ages made us –

We used to go to Ettie Desborough`s Marquee luncheons pre-war – Ettie and friends wore the clothes of the days when they were THE SOULS – Desboroughs have one of those wavy blood lines to Rathbone-Whitehead and to me Frobisher-Ransom –    

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Continues :   BOSLEY/FROUD/MILTON MANOR/etc. ahead - several pages to come :

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NB :   MILTON MANOR near HARWELL – Catholics and old Nonconformist families – trade and finance ...

·     1936 April I and my young Flyer musician artist Uncle Len Immanuel RANSOM  are talking on Wall Street  with the husband of the heiress of MILTON MANOR near HARWELL –

·     everyone worries  about these 1930S AMERICAN DEPRESSION days :    The links with people are incredible amongst these CATHOLICS and  QUAKERS ... we live in dangerous times because of mounting fears of HITLER ...  he may be going mad because of too many visits to RICHARD WAGNER Operas ... ?   

 

MILTON MANOR heiress Marjorie Mockla – across lane from Glazebrook school – are links art, scholarship worlds – religions – her son-in-law Count Tolstoy historian scholar with published books –

 

I help cook locally for Fund raising branch of SEALED KNOTT – we are Sir Thomas Ballard`s Regiment raised for the 100 Years War  -   Genuine food all handmade except for excessive use of MIXERS for the syllabubs  –  We are also asked to help with the banquets of King`s Party = A Banquet for King Charles and Henrietta Maria, Roast beef garnished with crayfishes is one dish we helped Master Cook Ian Hicks-Mudd prepare :  

... local branch of SEALED KNOTT will have archives –

Village family connexions to Harwell :   A great uncle of Whitehead Family is Brigadier Reggie RATHBONE  (China 1920s) who with Christopher HILL the important Historian founded for Charity re-enactments the two opposing forces of the English Civil WAR  -  Thus the charities SEALED KNOTT & KING`s PARTY ... decided upon  “over the dinner table”  said the daughter of Reggie  – grandchildren at RADIO OXFORD at sometime ...

Reggie`s daughter and Rathbone cousins came to AMANDA`s wedding in Laines Barn 1987 – complete records of the preparations for this splendid occasion – food, music, clothes ... the families of bride and groom ... Wedding cup is from a cookery book 1930s kept by Myfanwy Green-Wilkinson the Vicar of Aston Tyrrold`s wife  ... It requires a bottle of WHITE  CURACAO – eventually traced by somebody - London ?

 

HARWELL EXHIBITION 2017  :      I SENT A BIG PRINT OUT OF THE handwritten RECIPE AS IT WAS DISPLAYED ABOUT LAINS BARN that afternoon of the return from Harwell Church  ...

 

Amanda`s wedding :  ... we did it ourselves :  church decorations and then to LAINS BARN for `a 19^th century Wedding Feast` ideas from a painting ...  with much help from Ian and an oven helping from an OXFORD College – and me and Victoria kitchen maids and all of us with lists and lists of what to do and when  ... and TINA Hobin and husband,  she` Arabian dancer in Residence` to Sheffield University ... many photos ... memorabilia ... Tina and Les guarding the FEAST from the mice in LAINS BARN as we all went to the Church wedding Harwell ...

 

 

 

 

 

PAINTING :  this may be of LAINS BARN –  with virgin & babe seated in middle of the farmyard -  by Robert ANNING BELL important artist – administration Art Sheds & Colleges at LIVERPOOL 19^th century – lived 2 years at East Hagbourne – knew LLB and JFHB ... it was only a walk across the OLD ROAD from Harwell to Hagbourne remember – they may have had suppers in the fine weather ... discussing what was then the modern art ... RA exhibitions ... :  

 

I SENT PHOTO-COPY colour – it has been used as XMAS and GREETING CARD ...

 

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Happy New Year 2018 

 

 

 

ENGLAND 1930s a HIGH TEA - WINTER LATE AFTERNOON or early EVENING ...  almost tastes like a poem ... you could follow with a walk by a winter sea ...with the dog ... a peep at the river the nearby little Park ...

 

Cut very thick slices of a good loaf ...  & toast, spread generous with good butter, spread with chopped fine cooked liver in some bacon fat ... some chopped green herb ... eat hot, fingers or fork & knife ... TEA either Chinese or what you like at your elbow ... clear plates & tea cups when a good amount eaten  ...

 

Music soft, talk of the day ...

 

AH here comes A JELLY – a  

 

PEPPERMINT JELLY – perfect

 

after the fine chopped liver

 

paste on toast   

 

 

    Its made with `top of the milk` or milk as poured by some in their tea – old people or children : 

Method :   stir some  chrystal Gelatine in heated water, Peppermint culinary essence , the warmed milk, a little sugar – Place on a kitchen windowsill - when cooled and just thickening stir in thick cream so very gently ... chill to finish off :   a dozen Chrystal violet flowers might be added to the top when set ... `dishe`  into glass dishes or thick glass syllabub stemmed goblets – small spoons ... Woolworths Stores sold thick glass called `Jacobean` - goblets, bowls, tankards – it did not chip easily – best to keep the delicate glass for special occasions ...   :

 

Talk awhile  softly ... music, favourite meaningful records,  or played  on the piano or on flute, string guitar  ... to-day a disc or long-player ?... even tapes  ...

... ... take AN ORANGE, or banana ... share with another at the table ...  ?

NO Television – how is the weather from a window ... can you hear the sound of the sea ... ?  Children have board games, puzzles, drawing book, a camera to record ...

 

GROWN UPS ... a real medium sherry or glass `Canary` ... someone read a few pages from a meaningful book ... poems ... talk of clean seashores, woods with bluebells, violets, primroses, quiet lanes & big kitchens of your youth ... homework at big kitchen tables, and ongoing  preparing of Winter preserves ... & meaningful music all over house ... BBC wireless softly always on and at a distance, top of stairs perhaps - so never an empty house ... Important to families with loss of a member in that GREAT WAR I ...  

Ah ... a piece of chocolate from a new box kept in a corner cupboard or a sideboard ...

Earlier BEDTIME in winter :    Wash hands & face & well clean teeth – brush hair :   & a quiet warm night`s sleep in the cosy brushed cotton nightclothes  ... church clocks struck ... and perhaps owls could be heard ...

1930s ... & before ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

1930s – FAMILY TABLES ... I have several www 1930/1935/1943 etc

 Above is HIGH TEA at `Jerusalem` Park Road, Deptford by the little  sloping Park  - DEPTFORD BY THE THAMES ... our first named ancestor Gaius a retired young Soldier Roman Empire Army been in Palestine with his cousin (they with male lines UDEWALLA but Mediterranean mothers)  :  77 AD Gaius takes post `REDEMPTIO` next `Gravesend` & Londinium Fort – interviewing foreign Traders wanting to come up the river & sell produce  ...  Name becomes 5=6^th centuries RANSOM (ransom-redemptio) as ROME has difficulties with its too big an  EMPIRE ...Estate at retirement 92 AD Dunwich SUFFOLK ... family continue to present day ... (LIFE BOOKS-tagebuch-diaries had to be kept safe offshore from 1937 onwards ...)

 

 

... Food of the seasons ... ... ASTERIX & chums of ROMAN GAUL & ROMAN BRITAIN ate similar snacks ...    

... `per PANEM et SALEM ` =   “bread and salt”  = come have a bite to eat ... we will talk about matters ... and  the news  ... ` per Forum  gloriantur` ...

_____________________________________________________

 

MEMO :  Greta  `Greetah` RANSOM  - work for THE MARTYRS of THOMAS Immanuel GROTE worldwide HOMES ...

1988 Washington State Office agents say ` . “NOBODY SAYS THIS NAME THOMAS GROTE – they get killed – the BRITISH in the WAR (2^nd World War)  killed all the children worldwide – Homes on seashores ... British were worried about their TRADE ... if you remember anything then let us know ... AT ... ... ...”... 

 

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21^st century AD ...

Vegetarians – a replacement to the fine liver above ...

So this late noon I made toast & while hot spread it with olive oil & butter, squeezed orange juice from the fruit over it, spooned on chopped green beet leaves in homemade paste of garlic & walnuts crushed under rolling-pin or in `mixer` ... fennel seeds & raw chopped very green apple ...

Put in a bowl, great spoon, dish yeeh selves, add olive oil, dash of crème ... A wood board with Breads a knife ...  Glasses of bon AQUA- add pale pink or pink-orange shades of wine ...more water ...

TALK awhile ... matters of the day ... hopeful things ... 

RISE and assist making a `Cure`s Omelette` - beat many eggs while heating fiercely a stout fry pan, pour in olive oil or butter - when blue haze pour in the many beaten eggs ... 1 to 2 minutes & add chopped `lambs lettuce` or chopped spinach, wild garlic any herbs ... DISH from high heat pan to warmed plates – rush to the trestle, table, or napkin covered knee ...

EAT fast while hot – olive oil in jug to hand ... salts, peppers, where desired ...

Look at something from nature – scenery, garden, art book paintings or magazines ... await tea, coffee ... a thimble of `argmanac` ... jugs of lemon juice with a little sugar and good water ... plain eau, aqua ...

 

 

A taste of ROMAN GAUL & southern ROMAN Britain Empire perhaps ...