Ancestry and True Tales

REMEMBERING COUSIN RICHARD `a sunny boy`

Born 1939-2011 AD … Clacton High School - Imperial College London … marries 1964 - see local newspapers - 2 sons/twins … with issue :  

Great-grandchild of TERESA Murphy CARROLL CLASSICIST  = Mrs John Williams,  he a Superior Silversmith & inventor  :  Dublin and Southern Ireland/buy a big old Merchant House in Manchester 1879 = she hoped to find employment in the Manchester or Liverpool Colleges - she studies PLATO and HARMONY … worked with a sculptor on `Greek thought` ...
The policy of the new Colleges to become Universities was to not employ women with children … She had 5 girls and a son and was well-off to employ help in the big old house … She dies in an INFLUENZA outbreak 1882 …

I WILL WRITE ABOUT THE SETTING ABOUT US AT THE SEAS EDGES 1930s - 1940s … my day to day memories of RICHARD sunny boy are from his christening 1939 and throughout  the Wartime years 1941 - 1945 … into the late 1940s …  


I begin this APPRECIATION 7th January 2012 AD  :   RICHARD Neville POTTER died on Christmas Day 2011 AD  …  7th January is the Feast Day of 6-7th century Saint CEDE Bishop of Londinium and Othona ESSEX  = a great Roman Britain Fort of the Saxon Shores =  important matters to CAMULODUNUM Colonia Victricensis  and we STAFF of the COLCHESTER & ESSEX MUSEUMS 1950s - & to Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX my LEGAL GUARDIAN ( from October 1937 until I am 25 … )   MALRAUX  French Man of Letters is also GUARDIAN to the great RANSOM GROTE FAMILY ESTATE worldwide -

I and Richard cousins born 1933 & 1939 to two sisters Teresa Elizabeth Gordon (Ransom 1932-2-001)  and Esther Mary Gordon (Potter 1937 onwards ) … they are two of the daughters of Mary Helena nee Williams and George Ernest Gordon  :

RICHARD and cousins  :    we are children of the STEAM AGE … puffer trains were of great interest - a delight to travel by for me 1930s … and of importance 1940s to us all in WARTIME Britain … Clacton-on-Sea had a big Railway terminal from the 1860s … 1930s and Wartime it is manned by staff who were part of the small town life out of their hours of duty …
There is a lot of TRAIN MUSIC early 20th century … dramatic and jolly … we were familiar with it, grown-ups and children ...

… Also Claude Debussy LA MER  - the Sea Pieces conducted at Eastbourne by the French composer 1905 … East Anglia adopted this Work - a rival came along 1940s called Ben Brittan, Aldburgh,  with his Opera PETER GRIMES …  

… Clacton & the ancient lands about us had music of all ages … there were WAITS at Christmastide,  the Salvation Army Band was very good and played by the town centre TREE once a week, various other Bands were in the villages & small towns.   A farmstead had a harpsichord in an unused room of a great-great-great Aunt of the family.    Our music teacher 1944 was young Raymond Salt from The Royal College of Music, a composer too.

Second cousins of composer HUMPERDINCK had come to live in East Anglia 1st World Wartime … 1945 they put on his `HANSEL and GRETEL`  in Clacton town & a Repeat towards Manningtree in a School … My French Guardian appointed October 1937 joins in events with the varied interesting people that make up this small town and its ancient lands about it … He now a War Widower and with 2 dead brothers - killed by the Gestapo …  He has come to us again in May 1945 to our SEAS EDGES …

… He had to tell many people that “ Josette his young lady”  was dead November 1944, she mother of his two tiny sons born 1940 & 1944 …    1937 Josette had been very much part of Clacton town life August-September 1937 … seen shopping, at the Blue Lagoon dances … & ORDERING Andre and Greetah  called  “ you two ”   to STAY PUT on the bench around the town TREE.   Andre likes to investigate small town infra-structure … We tend to disappear …  and Uncle Harry Gordon sends out a SEARCH PARTY by telephone to where he thinks we might be …

   He had spoken of us in this small town Clacton & East Anglia generally    (when we go visiting 1937 where his maternal Ancestors lived 9th century to the 19th century )    `WHERE I FOUND THE GOSPELS ACTED OUT` …


1937 late SUMMER :   the future mother of RICHARD, Miss Esther Mary Gordon, was arranging her October wedding in London … where she and her young man Frederick Potter   ( he is 6 feet 4 and a half inches tall)   train and work in the 1930s …
And Miss Winifred Mary Gordon her sister spent the summer with her Manchester cousins, often at Saint Anne Beach … But we had the still unmarried Uncle Harry brilliant young mechanic at the garage Thorpe-le-Soken …

… he is very glad that we can help get his mother Mary Helena through her first summer of Widowhood  … She and Andre Malraux spent hours talking about old friends in the Arts - some in Paris/politics/Southern Ireland & its Freedom from Britain 1932/ WARS & DISASTERS  … Granny Gordon feels discussion not fighting :   but agrees with Andre a little after hearing his SPAIN experiences that `perhaps A STATEMENT HAD TO BE MADE` …  Josette found it such a waste of life … she was making a bolero in black with a big RED CROSS embroidered on the back … she will wear it at a meeting in PARIS in the autumn.   

… I being 4 and a half years had to `take a nap` afternoons overhead on Granny and Grandpa`s bed … I drifted off hearing many things … I AM THE ONLY CHILD AT THE SEASIDE … ( brother John is only 2 nearly 3 years and often has to be put in the Doctor Barnardo Home down the Old Road … he has learned to pull table clothes off tea tables & poor Granny has lost two lovely tea services … but this Summer the kindly Barnardo Home took him with them on holiday - his mother is attending all the Celebrations for the new reign - she was away from May to November - she has met Andre in 1924 in Paris … she did not know he was coming to stay with us … so he got the peace he needed …

…  She, Teresa Gordon Mrs R,  sent a man in August to get some money because she had been gambling - I said that I had a DRAWER in the Bank and could get him 50 pounds … he said OH IT IS MUCH MORE THAN THAT SHE OWES - do not bother … ”  And he went back on the train to wherever he had come from … I should explain that she is my mother … & calls me Ape & Eskimo because of my Ransom ancestry.   It had to be explained by Uncle Harry to Andre and Josette that I am trained to cope with the difficult member of the family as all of them are ...

 1937 last day of July , my 26 years old father FJR and Ransom men had to dash to SPAIN to rescue a 22 years old cousin … so they did not join us in all the things planned =  the rescue ended in terrible tragedy … I did not know this until late October 1937.   I know his mother - she is a Missionary from Ethiopia for the London Mission Society  …


The Saint Clare Convent School close by the Clacton Seafront teaches us in the Kindergarten to run a house simply - do the basic things - be neat and tidy all Sundays with a hat and visit the Cemetery … Andre and Josette are Roman Catholics too so they joined in all these things … Here in Clacton they have found PEACE … They intend to returns to us for Easter 1938 - however another WAR is planned … the last one only ended 18 years ago … The 1912  TITANIC disaster is not forgot and all seven Churches say a Prayer on the Anniversary - Catholic townsfolk CROSS themselves when speaking of it =  (Sign of the Cross)  …

This is a little of the world of the parents of RICHARD Neville POTTER … he to be born 1939 … His future grandpa Potter runs the Lifeboat Society, owns and works like a Trojan at the Clacton Town and district newspaper … and has a printing works too … His wife and her sister have some French ancestry … his wife on Sundays wears Edwardian style black frocks with very good delicate white lace collars and cuffs and some nice pieces of old jewellery - including a cameo brooch … her long hair gone white is in a loose bun and she has a still pretty face and lovely pink cheeks  … I Greta Ransom always curtsey to her …      

 

1945 June onwards - The WIDOWER Colonel Georges-ANDRE Malraux is taking me & small boys, RICHARD, Colin, sometimes John,  to the Clacton Cinemas, on the Pier, or swimming from the beaches  = we get tea from Miss Auntie Win and sometimes from Auntie Esther Potter …

Orders to show ANDRE Widower normal life come from his old 1920s friends Professor and Mrs WINNCLEMANN … The town and our Schools, especially our Nuns have to give him the will to live.
For a few weeks we in Choir and at school did wonder if he was going to TAKE THE ROBE …  Other families have dead from this War … it is noticed that some do not return to our ancient lands and small towns and villages of Essex, Suffolk   :   The families bereaved must be helped through their loss, shock,  and given the will to create a future …

 1945 Summer -  Greetha can still hold his hand as 1937 SUMMER when he is with us with his young lady called Josette … that was 6 weeks August-September and we lived in the house of the grandpa of Unity aged 10 years …  1937 MALRAUX a young man come from the BLOOD and GORE of SPAIN finds comfort and intelligent discussion with our grandmother Mary Helena Gordon …   He will call her  `still a young woman & his intellectual equal`    …  1945 May onwards, 2nd world War has just ended but it is an unreal time … we had become so used to WAR … newspapers to be read every morning, at school too, the BBC News broadcasts … everyone hoping the 9 pm BBC news would have good news so that we could sleep without too many worries …

So that summer we have some days Colin Frederick, sometimes John,  and Richard our responsibility - Auntie Esther can do her shopping in peace and we meet her at an appointed time …
BY AUTUMN 1945 I am growing UP AND OUT of clothes -  and Esther Gordon  young beautiful Mrs Potter   loans me clothes & shoes … Richard gives little smiles, almost grins,  at Cousin Greetha no longer a boy-girl carrying her homemade bow and arrows to school …   or showing him how to hang by your legs in a tree WHEN YOU ARE OVER 10 YEARS OF AGE and good at GYM at school   !     

…  MY GUARDIAN Colonel Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX Roman Catholic WIDOWER of Josette    (father of two tiny boys 1940 & 1944)    after the tragic 1945 August of HIROSHEMA JAPAN … the town filled with white sea mists part of the days that week …  made thoughtful announcements     “ Greetha, she is too BIG now to hold my hand … people will see I am a mature man and talk … ”     

…  He had no need to consider the matter  !!!  … …  … … …
 IT IS KNOWN THAT HE IS STILL A BOY … with excellent English learned from reading CONRAD when 12 years of age in English translation … He also reads our HOTSPUR comic … and looking like an ARCANGEL … he is quite clever-very clever-very pure of heart and soul … yes … and now given to ACTING FATHER to us all …  

Having been raised a Catholic by THREE GRACES, his grandmother, his mother and auntie,  he understands very well the state of the SOUL … When Auntie Esther Mrs Potter says to him    “  … it’s a lovely Cemetery Andre … we have a Catholic part … I SHALL ENJOY BEING BURIED THERE … YOU CAN SEE THE SEA … my mother and father and my sister Kitty are buried there … I AM GLAD YOU WILL TAKE THE ROSES UP FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF KITTY …  yes … you can say a few words to our Mother … Mary Gordon … … … ”   

As we say … he is raised by THREE GRACES in France … they ran a corner shop when he was a small boy … they only had him to care for … We know their names well … Adrianna/Adrienne his part Italian Granny … his mother Berthe/Bertha with her ancestry reaching accurately from 9th century AD to the family HISTON at Castle Rising, along the SEAS EDGES to Kings Lynn, to Saxmundham in Suffolk … and her sister his Aunt Marie/Mary …  
THE READER will follow that that between him and us there is an exchange of HUMANISM … a book he wrote at 26 years of age called `The CONQUERORS`  tells his good intentions … to bring PEACE and happiness … this book, and the one he wrote 1933 year of my birth, are known to our small town, the Elders of our families … In 1937 he is awaiting publication of his book on the SPAIN experiences … he also has begun a film … we see a reel from this in a schoolroom 1946 …  

…  Georges as some of we school children call him … the adults say Andre …   says he believes he gets his mind from his Grandmother … the stories she read him, her conversation, her own ancestry Italy  (a big house of her grandmother 1968 is seen in Italy - and he had bought or rented an upper floor )    … but his Grandmother died when he was 7 years of age …  His ancestry is in places as familiar to us as our own via TERESA CARROLL … and the GORDONS … Richard and I know histories, POTTER line too …

Genealogy was always of interest to the Anglo-Saxons … and it was necessary to hold on to it after WILLIAM of NORMANDY thumped in … on our SEAS EDGES …  

1945-1947 -  ANDRE-GEORGES Colonel WIDOWER of Josette ,  tells us children stories of when he was young … visits to countryside outside Paris, and THE SEAS EDGES for his family holidays … This small town of Clacton that he feels at PEACE in has sounds of the SEA and the TRAINS that take you to THE WORLD … a big Recreation Ground stretches from Railway to Valley Road taking its way to another road rising to the Holland-on-Sea cliffs =  these are Ancient Lands with histories … on your left at the end of the Valley Road is a NEOLITHIC CLACTON MAN discovery site … Old Manor Houses still stand from Norman French times …  


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2012 January  :      I, Greetha Ransom,  am remembering Cousin RICHARD … named after an Australian/New Zealand Uncle, born Britain,  went to Australia 1921/22 … RICHARD almost journeyed to meet his HUMANIST Uncle Alfred Richard Gordon … older brother of Esther Mary Gordon his mother  -  she born 1913 is the last of the big family of Mary Helena Williams Gordon - her elder brother ARTHUR GORDON born Ireland 1891   … in between are 14 children …

…  5 die of an Epidemic 1904-5 … we Cousins are descending from 4 of the 16 children … None of them forgotten … We are taught to be joyful that they had lives, knew happiness, gave happiness to all around them …

 THUS the understanding we have of our Gordon aunts and uncles dead before Richard and I are born … ( Elizabeth-Anne-Edward-Cyril-little Mary- Stephen ?- Thomas, Gerald and George twins …)  Granny Gordon who has a magnificent voice rehearsed the Debussy Opera Pelleas and Melisande through her connexions … it was a vehicle for her grief … HEAR IT …  she also had names you know , Bud Flanagan is one of them, who would insist she help them get bookings by coming along to sing …

The FAMILY & the world RICHARD is born into …  

1939 WAR has come :    GRANNY GORDON & her world of music  :  
…  `Fine Musical Comedy actress she could have been your Grandmother Mary - Bud Flannaghan Music Hall star   
( Flannaghan  Allen )   is telling me 1939 of events Gordon family 1900s …  ` We used to smuggle her dress out … GEORGE WAS NOT TO KNOW … but it all helped KEEP HER SANE after she lost them three all together … WE KNEW THEM … So we insisted SHE HAD TO HELP US … sing between our Acts … `Darling Mary`  she sang a lot in choirs … since she came over from Ireland …

…  all wonderful children … wonderful family … except one … Teresa … never give her a BET for a horse … it will NOT leave the stable … Noel Coward complains if she TREASA gets in the green baize door …`  


…  I, Greetah Ransom,   only granddaughter at the seaside, am 6 and a half years old outbreak of WAR 1939 September -  and used to coping with the FAMILY PROBLEM … I receive instructions from the grown-ups how to handle matters … ` not to go near her when she has a bottle of spirits in each paw - tell a grownup - and beware when she has been getting at DOPE … she believes sometimes she is a big black horse gone mad … `     It was not funny … but Uncle Harry was always jokey but as well solemn serious … when she raged he would simply call her `Old Girl`  & say `calm down`  …


1945 Summer …. Uncle Potter will give clear instructions from 1945 onwards when he comes back from the 2nd World WAR ...   ` … CHRIST !   I have just learned of …   (the latest DISASTER)   do not tell the women Greetah - they have fluff in their heads … `  (We can get Clacton Police to put her in a CELL 2 nights in a row if she is too bad … )     (  Grandpa Potter Lifeboat and Town newspaper keeps it out of the weekly Town News  :   And Frederick Potter, father of Richard,  gives advice to RICHARD from then on :   we should be polite but not be alone with her …

… Twice Uncle Potter fetched me G.R. off her in 1946 … saying
…  ` CHRIST GREETHA … `BLOODY WIN … she did not tell me BLOODY TREASA had hold of you again - pack your things - you are leaving with me now …  NOW !  NOW !    `  … Thus I had a little room with young married Beatie and Ernie Napper family of Nurse Connie Napper Clacton District Nurse and Nursing Home Holland-on-Sea Cliffs …  

 
… The much missed sister of Esther Gordon Potter is the pretty Kathleen Kitty Gordon =  she is Mrs Guy Vansittart d 1929 Roman Catholic marriage - Guy cries in 1973 when he sees little Peter G. RR. W. Whitehead age 3 years …  
 ` WITH THE HAIR OF KITTY`  … A sad man he had called with kind intentions at Colchester Museum the Castle February 1954 … the 21st Birthday party my father FJR was giving me in LONDON was tragic - I too ill … Miss Aunt Winifred Mary Gordon and her sister Teresa Elizabeth Gordon Ransom did not give the INVITATIONS to Guardian Andre Malraux and to me …

(that TRAGEDY can be read on www.greta-ransom.com  document in 3 Parts `1937 SUMMER`  a scaffolding of family history)  

1900s -1920s :   THE WILLIAMS-GORDON DEAD CHILDREN   ? - not unusual in 19th century-early 20th century Catholic Families … epidemics, accidents took so many young lives … Grieving parents replaced children to help their anguish -

 I, my age group, RICHARD somewhat too, allow the Elders to tell us that the dead of the families were in HEAVEN and will greet us when we go …  This implies they believed that we too will live holy and HUMANIST lives  :  
We do not confront this … yet we know MANKIND goes to the STARS … there is no other way to survive … we are well ahead of NASA … this understanding reaches back to LUCRETIUS … RADA is invented 2nd World War … `MOON IS EASY`  Its just a matter of Research …

ANDRE MALRAUX Summer 1937 does not laugh when I say that one day I will write Letters to school friends living on the Stars = and I may send him a letter from a Star if inventions continue =  He now set about designing STAMPS for the POST OFFICES on the STARS … Josette laughed when she found he had PUT HIMSELF on one stamp …         

…  8 of 16 children of our grandparents live beyond 13 years of age … We RANSOM and POTTER cousins, our children,  descend from 4 children of Mary and George Gordon = Arthur/Teresa/Esther/Harry …  
 
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MEMO :     We will gather up the honourable history of ALFRED RICHARD Gordon … (  he features in the Document 3 Parts `1937 Summer` 3,000 pages plus photos/this is a `scaffolding` of Records for historians - I released it worldwide January 2011 AD - )

 …  ALFRED RICHARD who protected his parents and younger sisters in the 19-teens, early 1920s … and lived at home for they had collected undesirable coin-less Aristocrats who were after THE eight pieces of GORDON LANDS SCOTLAND and a Peninsula New Zealand  … The GORDON LANDS were eyed via Great-Aunt Edith Gordon Mrs Tad-hunter … she tells of a near-death for her  evening -  when she went to a respectable intellectual gathering … Lambeth Palace I think it is :   I have included her RECORDS in my Works … I knew Edith sister of my Grandpa Gordon, visited her, Esther too …

…  THEFT FRAUD of GORDON LANDS  :   We are updated 1961 by the other Great-Aunt Annie at Kingston Mrs Frederick Henry Gordon widow since 1939 - he, eldest son of 6 of John Frederick and Matilda Kellow GORDON,  had a fashionable Painting master to teach him at Greenwich & exhibited paintings - portrait of daughter Betty was in Summer Exhibition Royal Academy 1930s

1961 Summer - Great Aunt Annie Gordon is telling LAW Detective Arthur Malone (our POLITAN = Tutor to the Medici Children as he calls you all ) …I am present … ` COIN LESS Earls, LORDS and their SONS , especially of Scotland, were a nasty problem to RESPECTABLE FAMILIES 1880s into the 1950s … and these DOPE SOAKS could play the old RACIST card =  With our Murphy-Carroll-O`Brien  Southern Irish ancestry and cousins coming and going from Manchester and Clacton SEAS EDGES  we had to suffer FOUL NOBLE MOUTHS & FRAUD … She says that Thomas Gordon & children (Police) may have got his land back … but they had to go to Court … The two cousins, children of Betty Gordon, are called Sandra and Gordon - 1961 they are in the London Police …
 

(((( …  Frederick Henry Gordon, great-uncle to RICHARD and me, and our cousins, can be found in a novel called THE CASK 1920 … his friend at work is writing it … one morning he said   `I was in need of a character last night Henry … so I had to write you in as Henry Gordon of Glasgow …`    This book is called the first serious Detective novel - the author, colleagues, friends in Railways and Police had so much FUN getting all the details right … it was necessary to cross the Channel … READ IT … often in print & in libraries  … ))))     

…  UNCLE ALFRED-RICHARD GORDON - Esther named her son RICHARD after this brother she could not remember - but they spoke every Christmastide on the telephone …   he helped in WELFARE along the River Thames where his Aunts Bessie Martha and Annie Agnes the Misses Williams introduced him as a young man … they of important Welfare work from the 1890s Liverpool & Manchester, London …   Alf-Richard taught boxing … a popular fashionable pastime … said to improve the character of the young … there were photographs of him when I was a young child 1930s … one existed until 1940s … He was too young to enter the carnage called `THE GREAT WAR` = 1st World War …   
 

I may roam about with this APPRECIATION of my kind sunny cousin Richard … it is not nice to lose a cousin younger than oneself … and one with whom I had 2nd WORLD WARTIME shared memories with  :  

…   We two children have a far from simple undercurrent to our young lives … ELDERS make decisions for us and give instructions how we should handle the matters …  in those past Decades of the 20th century  :    

…  NB :  called in literature turn of the centuries 20th/21st  `THE EVIL CENTURY` …

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APPRECIATION of Cousin RICHARD
Born 1939 - lives to Christmas day 2011 AD
 

I am living in Clacton those years January 1942-1945/ before I am fulltime Colchester College 1948-1951 … the Family men away at 2nd World WAR 1939 - 1945 …

Grandma Mary Helena Gordon dies June 1944 … and so visits to all the older generation are now to The Cemetery … but it is a nice walk and there is a Catholic section …  From 1944 RICHARD no longer a toddler or small boy but calm and articulate, a real schoolboy … Jennifer born 1941 and no Kathryn born until after the end of War …  my brother John Gordon born 1935, and little brother Colin born 1938 …

…  A Clacton-on-sea town with a quarter of its pre-war population 1942/1944 … empty roads all leading to the sea, beaches barbed wired off until 1944 when the War is going badly for HITLER … Good fellowship and camaraderie - Many men and women come out of retirement to fill jobs, and old men who fought in the Great War the 1st World War spoke sadly that they had thought that carnage would end all Wars … We could talk with them, hear comments …

…  I could recall Sunday after Mass at my Gordon grandparents late 1930s, coffee, sherry, Harry with beer, and recalling the dead and the happiness of days before they died in THE GREAT WAR  :    There was also the TITANIC disaster … sometimes I had a nightmare I was sinking down and down to it … but this was usually after hearing other sadness’s - like the Great War and the TRENCHES … Two choir men had been in France  !    Many people knew someone who had been on THE TITANIC …  and not got off :  a Gordon woman did get off - rowed away … but she was only married-in.   Richard might hear of this … certainly RICHARD heard tales of valour from his Grandfather Potter who went out in The East Anglia lifeboats when young …

1945 August - Town of solemn people, us too, HYROSHEEMAH JAPAN … no one approved it … I have written how walking with Colonel ANDRE in the town that week it was full of white sea mists … as if in mourning … Auntie Esther very solemn and beautiful and still as a classical statue  …   The barbarism of that first ATOMIC bomb could not be accepted by human beings … Colonel ANDRE with 3 tiny boys in FRANCE accepts three a little older boys in Clacton … and me … HYROSHEEMAH presented to us all a world that might be soon going to demolish itself … NOW THAT WAR HAD SHOWN THAT IT COULD END the WORLD …


RICHARD born 1939 - female ancestors :   he is a great-grandson of TERESA CARROLL CLASSICIST born 1838 Dublin  

… her mother Teresa nee Murphy died at her birth :  the very well-to-doo family MURPHY of DUBLIN SHIPPING gave their grand-daughter a good education = she could go travelling with relatives and friends on the Family Murphy shipping lines and steamships   ( she becomes Mrs John Williams Superior Silversmith/inventor) …

RICHARD a grandson of Mary Helena nee Williams  
…  (Mrs George Ernest Gordon … Grandpa Gordon is one of the 6 sons (Frederick Henry/Arthur/Thomas/George/Walter/Edgar  ( & 2 daughters Edith & Alice)    of JOHN FREDERICK GORDON of Edinburgh & Greenwich & his second wife Matilda Kellow of Edinburgh   ( her Great-aunts kept the Post Office Warminster & raised her - there were still KELLOW family at Warminster in the 1980s )     Our grandmother Mary Helena born 1870 Sackville Street, trains as an expensive Milliner in Manchester for 8 years, she is a Catholic choirs singer, & rehearsed the OPERA Pelleas and Melisande  (Mary Garden rehearsed with English musicians)  to help her over her terrible grief at losing 5 children 13 years - 2 years in an unexpected 1904-5 Scarletina epidemic Highgate and London …
… Mary Helena is one of the five daughters of TERESA CARROLL WILLIAMS … CLASSICIST -   SHE STUDIES PLATO and GREEK HARMONY …
    

1945-1946  :   Georges-Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX Widower of Josette Clotis …  who leaves him two tiny boys …    & I ,  Greta Ransom his Ward,  take the boys,  who are the great-grandchildren of TERESA CARROLL Classicist  …  to suitable cinema  =  Tarzan   (the real one Johnny W )  , all sorts of Cowboy films, Laurel and Hardy … George Formby … even a FLASH GORDON …  (  no Hans Ruhmann films as I recall pre-war … he has banned himself by meeting Hitler … until the Father Brown series of the 1960s … )   

…  RICHARD does not learn music … and this is unusual in Clacton town & area - it is the intervention of the WAR …
 
… the musical teaching however is superb and the activities, and many professional musicians … composers visiting to Frinton-on-Sea -  At school we have MUSIC outside the British Empire …  Villa Lobos/Les Six/ as well as divine William Bird and Tallis and Vaughn Williams … and there is a newcomer young Ben Britain with his SEAS EDGES Opera PETER GRIMES 1944 …

… WAITS sing, as 18th century,  about the villages at XMASTIDE  : Second-cousins to Humperdinck put on `Hansel & Gretel` … & by then Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX is a familiar figure again about the SEASHORES town ...   Grand daddy Potter forbids any publicity of ANDRE with ease :   he owns The Clacton & District newspaper and presumably can forbid Colchester Newspapers & Ipswich and others … perhaps they fear he will have LIFEBOAT dump them out at sea if they dare disobey  :    It is an ancient town   ( in Little Doomsday Book called CLACTUNA)  and a county of good manners and common sense  :  

…   In 1937 ANDRE says 1970  “ … here I found the Gospels Acted Out,  Peter…  and I discovered what I wanted to do in life … we had come out of SPAIN and bloodshed … I talked to Mary Gordon evenings and afternoons about it … she had much experience of Ireland … I looked at the photograph albums … I have been able to tell much of what I saw in them … I heard that they were destroyed at the outbreak of WAR … ”

RICHARD has a good habit of listening to good men - he will  learn much from his Grandfather Potter and his old friends … and from familiarity and hours with Colonel ANDRE who visits us every fortnight or three weeks at first … Uncle Harry Gordon 1945-1946 loans us cars, finds petrol, and Mr Armstrong Geographer races about Schools,  including the Oratory Suffolk,  taking ANDRE with him … Armstrong, Cambridge,  is a friend of Uncle Potter …  Armstrong briefly knew Lawrence of Arabia in the RAF … The connections of this SEAS EDGES society are mostly to people with good principals & common sense … Uncle Harry Gordon takes us out to places we visited with ANDRE and Josette 1937 … Dedham, Orford, Mistley Towers, Saxmundham …

This is part of the the setting, the ambiance, about us … RICHARD growing up amongst good fellowship & camaraderie  …

My father Army Captain Frederick John Ransom is expected back autumn 1945 - he was sent to Philippines & then Africa  (he speaks Japanese and fluently about 12 languages …  20 or more sufficiently to handle the great Philanthropy Estate of GROTE HOMES RANSOM `Joyous Venture` nations A - Z outside the British Empire … ) …

Meanwhile, since the early death of Granny Gordon 3rd June 1944, Miss Auntie Winnie Gordon ex-ATS is to receive all communications …

Auntie Esther Gordon Potter, mother of Richard, is telling us  
… “ before the War I thought him,  young Fred Ransom,  very like a young TEUTONIC KNIGHT … always so courteous … but having to dash off for his Aunt who had property about the world … I think there was a Russian film, black and white, we all saw before the War … ”

1945 onwards  :      Miss Aunt Win said that she was in charge of much to do with the family because she was still unmarried … She got on well with ANDRE and Professor and Mrs WINNCLEMANN … she would say she was born before the others in November 1910 and therefore in charge … that her brother Arthur living at Woodford with his family , he born 1891 was retired …   ((( I think that she and Andre have the same birthday 3rd November … Saint Malachie Day, he the Saint of Apprentices … an old Irish custom is to allow the Apprentices to play jokes on their employer on this day of the Saint … )))

(((  Arthur and Nellie nee Maxted Gordon from 1945 onwards :  Their only child Eileen Mary Gordon works at REUTERS Newsagency Fleet Street = she is employed there for 42 and a half years … she is speaking to Cousin Greta in 1988/1989 … I, 10 years younger,  hear from her much adult family history …  )))            
      

1939 - I am 6 years when RICHARD is baptized Clacton-on-Sea - His cake was a light textured sponge with green and yellow icing and a Swan, probably a Stork,  in white icing … War had just begun …  1939-1945 …  


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COUSIN RICHARD Neville POTTER - 1939-2011 AD  :   

Richard is THE FIRST CHILD and only son of his parents  marriage - 2nd World WAR comes September 1939 & his father joins the British Army  - Richard the first two years will be raised by his mother and the Aunt to his father … she and her husband live in the countryside beyond Woking I think it is …   

Esther Mary nee Gordon last child of 16   ( = 8 grow beyond 13 years - a large family because of tragedy to 5 1904-1905 and misfortunes, accidents,  of late 19th century early 20th century medical knowledge …)    

Marries Frederick S. Potter only son of his parents - he has an older sister Miss Gladys whom we all like …  

((( … she will talk to WIDOWER Colonel Andre Malraux 1945 into the 1950s … they speak about books … Clacton town life … and deaths … Auntie Gladys Pottere lost her `young Man` in or after THE GREAT WAR … was it from War wounds ? … )))    

The marriage of Esther Gordon and Frederick Potter is at Saint Bridget Church, Marylebone October 1937 … Richard is to be my only boy cousin on our Mary Helena & George E. Gordon line …

…  Our sad Grandmother Mary Helena is widowed March 1937 … son Harry, me granddaughter, and Andre and Josette call and talk happily with her afternoons or early evenings … Winifred away with cousins at Manchester, Esther working with a Buyer at Selfridges, Uncle Potter still in training at BOOTS London, are busy with preparations for the wedding … they have found a small flat at Putney …

… ((((  1930s a young solicitor to Boots has Esther and Fred attend his acting performances with a Wimbledon Amateur Theatre … during the Wartime he turns full time to acting - his name LEO GENN … See him in a film about NERO with Peter Ustinov … he is very `dishy` … I meet him but cannot recall him … in 1957 November he calls on Andre Malraux at the R.C. General de Gaulle Charity Mission and residence 50 Lancaster Gate Square … I am asked to come to the drawing room … he calls me `GREETAH`  ( the correct pronunciation of my Greenland name before 1950s )   and remarks `YOU HAVE GROWN` …  …  …   ))))   
   

After her wedding Esther young Mrs Potter  and friends took a bouquet to the Clacton grave of her father George Ernest Gordon in November 1937 …


1939 - September/October -  the new baby named RICHARD had his christening TEA … with a cake with yellow and white icing and a `stork` …   :    A small families gathering in the long narrow Walton Road house … Granny woke up to find herself here … a nurse taking care of her … It was discovered that Teresa her daughter organised this move so that her mother could easily take care of her three children at the big house AT THE END OF THE CLACTON REC … `Pearly`  112 Vista Road   :  

1939/1940 … The Clacton RAILWAY reported that TREASA GORDON R.  was off to London … `dressed as a Duchess as usual` to her Nobles having WAR time Parties with big `nosh-ups and slosh-ups` ( = food & strong liquor ! )   She was a known Black Shirt 1930s with OZ   (Sir Os Mosley) and we had to phone him urgently 1937 and ask he get her truncheon off her for she had it rolled in a newspaper and was hitting people … He was very obliging - she should have turned it in at the Depo … Both he and my father agreed  “ SHE WILL GET HERSELF BACK IN PRISON AGAIN … ”   

…  This is the Family PROBLEM known to Uncle Fred Potter and his Dad Lifeboat and town newspaper …  So when you heard dear Uncle Potter begin with   “ CHRIST Greetah … I have just heard from the Masonic the latest … Bloody Win did not tell me this … Julie did not know either !!!   Do not tell the women … they have fluff in their heads … … …  ”    This is matters the younger generation are not to know … RICHARD was instructed how to respond to her by the late 1940s … and NOT worry his mother Esther …
He was to REPORT to Dad …  

… 1939 October -  Clacton Hospital were angry over taking Mary Gordon out of her little home - the Gardener reported he was called to bury Sooty the black cat of Miss Winifred … and that there were piles of burned possessions in the back garden - he could report it was the Photo Albums of Mary and George and family … & that JIMMIE Jong James had been in the house and garden … It is known that this `little bit of vermin` has been a nuisance to the Gordon family since 1919 when he was insisting on HORSES for free from Cousins Murphy, Carroll, O`Brien … threatening them with `Treason Charges` … They are very well-to-doo and have 3 Baronetcies  (I have them in A Debrett 1953 & have put photo-copy out on my FACE BOOK & JIMDO Ancestry & True Tales site - this is all linked to TWITTER/MY SPACE/ and www.greta-ransom.com = colour code work … with RANSOM ANCESTRY  Part I & Part II still editing … Restoration of his genealogy Work done with others, including retired Heralds,  for his CENTENARY =  my young father Frederick John Ransom born November 1911 - killed March 1969 …  

1939 WAR begins September :    RICHARD is in his first days and weeks  - his parents will give up the London Putney flat  :

…  During autumn 1939 Officer Ransom was away on and off on Army duties all over England - He, my father Frederick John Ransom,  had been in the British Army of Occupation Germany 1928-32 and had been asked to `stand by` for WAR since 1937 - he spoke German well  =  With his Army Duties he had looked after the family ESTATE Germany/Austria/Poland  Grote Homes Ransom Estate in 3 Parts worldwide for his Aunt Margareth nee Ransom Mrs Thomas Immanuel GROTE   ( = the mother of `our dear TIGGY`  is of the Family of F. Immanuel KANT 18th century philosopher  )  :   

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  Nota bene :    WARTIME -  and our  FAMILY CONNEXIONS  :  
…  1942 the Polish HUMANIST young Jan KARSKI came down to Clacton for a few hours to the Catholic Church and town Elders - he was impressed by the great Church    ( …   “ please design something like something we see in Rome ”    said the two Widows who commissioned it 1921 & plonked down 20 thousand to get going with  !  It was complete for 29 thou & `young Pacelli` sent his old Italian friend to be Chief Priest … and a splendid pulpit came and an ancient Font …  )  

…  1942 Wartime Clacton -  Granny Mary Gordon and I were called to the MASS and went to the TEA in Montfort Lodge the Priests House … she spoke with Jan KARSKI and she will write immediately to her Irish cousins MURPHY/O`BRIEN/Carroll and see if they can call at the VATICAN and speak with `young Pacelli` whom the families all know … I have a tea-engagement with him - a letter to Mary Gordon reads   “ he could not go out to tea that afternoon when her grand-daughter asked him, after their talk, but next time Greetah visits he will take her out to tea in Rome where there is a hurdy-gurdy that he thinks she will like …  ”   He is not yet Pope … there is an Irish-American cousin a Dominican lives IN at The Vatican … and Aunt Mag Ransom Grote has a grandson a Priest in Rome … there are no lack of connexions to what Julie calls THE VAT …  (there is a video/DVD of Jan KHARSKI telling of his Wartime journeys to try get help for Poland and alert the WORLD to the horrors going on in the WARSAW GHETTO … I advise family, Readers, see it … not the way he uses his hands to express his SOUL …

1943 Auntie Esther returns to the town … she rents the pretty house with the Pear tree outside the dining room French windows, Wellsly Road … HERE RICHARD is the MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE and takes his position seriously in this WARTIME … and Jennifer coming 3 years a doll … then suddenly getting tall … I now sleep in the double bed that Esther and I used that year 1944 after the death of Granny Mary Gordon … it’s a comfortable bed and the mattress bought for Kathryn later on … Uncle Potter said 1960s that for the price she paid  “ I COULD HAVE BOUGHT A NEW CAR … ”    

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1939 October - Great-Aunt Edith  nee Gordon  (widow Mrs Tadhunter)  came from London away from the bombing … She told her sister-in-law Mary Gordon to go to Manchester with her sisters Bessie and Annie who were closing up `Stella Maris` Granville Road & going to be with their sister Teresa Mrs Butler and the nephews and nieces - ( their sister JULIA Mrs Butler had died early 19-teens leaving 4 children, John,  Teresa/Terry, Winifred and `little Bessie` Butler … )   Edith returned in November to her house on Shooters Hill Greenwich, fetched by her great-nephew Donald Gordon who was in the Red Cross … This autumn 1939 was known as THE PHONEY WAR … serious bombing had not yet begun - but it was expected that HITLER and his forces might cross the Channel and enter Britain by the East and South coasts … Uncle Fred Potter will send Esther and baby RICHARD to his Aunt in the countryside … RICHARD A WARTIME BABY … the nation did not know what to expect that autumn …         

Granny Mary Gordon had not wanted to leave the little house `Crail`  Skelmersdale Road,  three doors from the Doctor,  where they came in 1930 and had in MAY the luncheon for their RUBY WEDDING - 40 years  :    I got the menu from Aunt Winnie and Auntie Esther 1944/45 …     I sent an Easter broadsheet montage of this to our families a few years ago - I can print it out into this Work - I recorded too the SUPPER after MIDNIGHT MASS 1943 given by Bessie and Annie - I was there !    Annie described it as `a SUPPER as we used to have after MIDNIGHT MASS when we lived on the big Farms in Ireland `  

…  I am always very interested in FOOD of all AGES & the early 19th century TOP OF THE POPS book  The INGOLDSBY LEGENDS that Great Aunt Annie reads me have FOOD in them - of interest in RATIONED Wartime Britain, of course …  

  …  The occasion of the May 1930 RUBY WEDDING luncheon was described for me by Uncle Harry too … Esther and Win gave them two little Japanese vases come to me - memories flood back when I look at them …
   

1939 - RICHARD and his christening TEA - there is a small families gathering in the Granny Gordon long narrow Walton Road house … this is the year of a second World War September 3rd 1939 … My father had to dash about Britain and the Continent for the family Estate & as a soldier he must help with recruiting/stores/gunnery …  Essex-London-Salisbury Plains … Auntie Esther so beautiful …  the real beauty in the families,  is a nervous but practical mother …


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Teresa Carroll  -  studied CLASSICS, Dublin and Continent -   PLATO and HARMONY and GREEK THOUGHT - WORKED WITH A SCULPTOR MANCHESTER

 

These pages ahead branch into family lines of those who owe their birth to Teresa Carroll born Dublin 1840-1882 Manchester 

 ( great-grandmother to us all ) … If she had died with her mother at the birth then we would not exist … we are mere chance …

 

…  I began this File autumn 2011 of my Great-Aunts BESSIE Martha and ANNIE Agnes the Misses Williams sisters of my grandmother Mary Helena Gordon m George Ernest Gordon from my files of notes and typescripts, invitations, gifts, letters, general memorabilia, photographs,  including my `stark lines` a form of accurate Diary I kept  ( Bessie, Annie, Mary are 3 of the 5 daughters of  Teresa Carroll Classicist wife of the Superior Silversmith & Inventor John Williams both of Southern Ireland …

 

… Two other daughters (Manchester Butler branches) are from JULIA (2^nd  name ?) m Butler   and TERESA (2^nd name ?)  m brother of above Butler .    A joke from our ATS girls Win Gordon to cousin Julie Butler 1940s was   `biggest Roman Catholic Mafia in Manni - two Butler brothers married two Williams sisters …`  The reality is that they are all organising early WELFARE Southern Ireland a little and MANCHESTER and LIVERPOOL & LONDON … a low profile kept - histories of those times will explain to the Reader why this was necessary …  “ OUR BILL MAYOR OF MANCHESTER …”    

 

…  I shall have you in this little Family history to understand the quality of these 5 daughters of TERESA CARROLL CLASSICIST and her husband JOHN WILLIAMS Superior Silversmith & inventor linked to technology …

 

The family member and friend Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX from 1937 SUMMER will refer to Mary, Bessie and Annie again and again as    “ my intellectual equals … this is my family as well … ”

 

… It is he Georges-Andre Colonel Malraux speaking in the 1950s-1970s  who could remember the photo album of the life of Mary Gordon and her families … it was said to have been destroyed 1939 the commencement of 2^nd World War … & he could describe the honey-moon photos of 1890 of Mary Helena and George Gordon their 2 months travelling on horseback Southern Ireland staying with her cousins the Families Murphy, Carroll, and O`Brien   :   see my print-out on FACEBOOK from Debrett Peerage 1953 …

 

NB:    RECORDS :     the `POLKA DOT` wedding of George & Mary, as it was called, should be somewhere MANCHESTER Archives ?    Annie said it was in the newspapers … I have her description, she a 10 year old one of the bridesmaids in white with a scarlet sash, tiny baskets of flowers :    Sister Mary, 8 years superior training millinery,  had designed and made everything with staff = her Milliners paid for all the materials …   “ And it was a great advertisement for them … & she continued to represent them when she and George made a home in London 1892  ”   …  The Millinery House Manchester might have been called  “ MILLICENT ”  said Esther Gordon Potter her youngest child  (born 1913) , mother of Richard, Jennifer, Kathryn Potter …  

 

The death of cousin RICHARD Christmas Day 2011 AD added sadness to the New Year 2012 … but had me begin an `Appreciation`  of my Wartime cousin 6 years younger than me  (1939 his birth to 1947/ and some mention of we cousins Pilgrimage to GREECE 1966 with Yiannis chief driver  “ I go to Athens to see my Mother - two days and we will arrive”   (it took longer with 6 of us Richard & Mea, Jennifer and baby Elisabeth, Kathryn and Greta )   …

 

COUSIN RICHARD - always a sunny boy :

 

… The two pieces of work will flow into one :    But I use big titles to separate out … sometimes, of course, the family histories will flow into one.   So that here you have some part of the SAGA of we who are CHANCE … I do hope the families descended from TERESA CARROLL will have a CLASSICIST evolve … perhaps to continue her work :    `If you are sitting comfortably I will begin`  … at the moment February 2012 the two pieces of work are between 2 files on this Computer … I may have to print out two of them to get all the information in  :      

 

MEMO :     b 1839/1840 = only child of Teresa nee Murphy deceased at time of her birth …  

(mother Teresa Murphy of the shipping agents & other businesses of Dublin )  “ she our Grandmother Murphy we never knew, her father a `well-to-do` Blacksmith Murphy …   marrying into a well off family branch of Family Carroll …they had Farms ”  ( Farming/some horse raising/reaches back to the line holding Carroll Castle Southern Ireland/Letters in Hakluyt Society came from one of the families - PJPW tried find them with help from Mildred Archer of Archives/ but perhaps she did not work directly for Hakluyt ?   I cannot recall but Mrs Mildred Archer 1970s was an important person in London Research Institutions :

 

 

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((( NB:  MURPHY Dublin 2 baronetcies 1859 Shipping & shipping agents, Dublin - see Debretts peerage up to 1953 - O`Brien an 1859 baronetcy :    Uncle Sir John Edmond O`Brien and his family sent me `Greetah` Ransom, great-great grand-daughter of ANNE O`BRIEN Mrs John Williams the 1<sup>st</sup> (mother of the husband of TERESA CARROLL )  for my 21<sup>st</sup> Birthday the O`Brien tiara worn by his grandmother at an Event in Dublin 1959 - Sadly this was stolen by the very Noble chums of my mother Teresa E. Gordon Mrs F.J. Ransom … abuse of it appeared in newspapers and a photo of the famous wearing it, tossing it about amongst themselves,  I am shown by shocked City of London & West End good educated persons … what is printed in the EXPRESS newspaper … etc.   

 

… (this doped up and drenched in liquor Noble mob also tore to pieces the FROBISHER necklace that evening outside a Mayfair Restaurant & unhappy taxi drivers picked up three pearls before they slid down a drain beside the pavements …  Uncle O`Brien came over and demanded the TIARA back - he got it from the very Noble … it was decided it return to his family … The idea with such gifts is you have them for some years and enjoy wearing them - then you pass them to another younger in the Families … )   I have known from the late 1930s that we at the Seaside & Deptford were exposed to frequent bouts of danger because of the Roaring 20s Nobles of Teresa Gordon … but here were their grown children at their unpleasant antics and threats MARCH 1954 … Some of them had destroyed a sculpture by 18 years old Annie Carroll Williams in a Manchester graveyard (possibly a Saint Anne in memory of her Grandmother O`Brien ?  Or a Virgin and child ? ))))

 

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Great Aunt Annie to me 1943/1945  … “ Her mother,   our dear mother Teresa,  she the former Miss Murphy …  also a Teresa …  died at her birth … ”  …

“  … Her father raised her, our mother, & he did not re-marry until she was 10 years of age … he and his family Murphy saw she had a very good education - they were in Shipping and she was able to travel with family and friends for her Studies  (  NB:   she went as far as Malaya but did not circumnavigate)   … so that we never knew our Grandmother Teresa nee Murphy a young Mrs Carroll `    says our great-Aunt, her youngest grand-daughter b 1880 Annie Agnes Carroll Williams   who trains as a sculptress from age 17 with Professor Manzoni of the Granville Marble Works Liverpool/with him she goes to do work in terracotta for Harold Rathbone Della Robbia Works/Williamson Museum Birkenhead Liverpool-

 

I give a USEFUL NOTE HERE to Reader & about how this Family Histories proceeds & how to use it … l give an idea of its breadth  :  I born 1933 moved about all the branches … In 1938 autumn with Miss Auntie Win Gordon we go with distant lines of GORDON to inspect the Family Graves  :   BRANCHES are  Kellow/Booth/Grantly/Tate/Anderson/Atkinson  ( Atkinson of Gordon make Ransom marriage here - I may recall how )     … Mr Tate raises his stick and calls for  “HIP HIP HURRAY for all of them - WITHOUT THEM WE WOULD NOT EXIST …” 

 

I have written this afternoon Visit 1938 in full - and so with many events lived before the children of Auntie Esther are born - but Richard hears information, sees photos, and his father and grandfather Potter know of them or have met them … FAMILIES DO REACH OUT vastly -  The families I give you in this on-going WORK knew of one another, met frequently, seldom, or not at all … or meaning to … Thus 1938 Cleopatra RANSOM ( call her Pat or Cleo ) says in all seriousness  “WE HAVE NOT HAD A FAMILY CHRISTMAS  TOGETHER SINCE 800 AD …”   (  Her Dad got into Egyptian Archaeology in retirement - she last of 13 children born in 19^th century )  

 

 www.greta-ransom.com 1937 SUMMER etc a vast initial scaffolding  has much family information under the paragraph always beginning with the year  -    NB:  there are 3 files I have made on these 5 girls of TERESA CARROLL & ANDRE MALRAUX 1937 SUMMER onwards to his death … There is no fine INDEX on 1937 SUMMER but a `film trailer` type index is helpful I am told :   But the year is always printed in big type-face & I began a colour code - so that Esther and Fred Potter & life at Clacton 1945-1946-1947 can be found by the year - some pieces in detail  : 

 

…   I have used colour purple for years 1945 and 1946 and headlines in purple as Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX the Roman Catholic WIDOWER returns to us May 1945 & is distressed to find Mary Gordon dead June 1944 … he has lost Josette and his two brothers in the War years - Bessie & Annie steadied him at this terrible time … Also our friends Professor and Mrs Winnclemann of the Chemist `Murrays` … AT THE SEAS EDGES 

 

Nota bene :    The smaller pieces of Work beginning to appear on JIMDO site, as well as the shorter pieces on main site (also work editing on WORDPRESS and some pieces on TWITTER and FACEBOOK

(  you have to request my computer for permission FACEBOOK to get into it so it rather defeats the purpose for this kind of work … )   are helpful to the beginner perhaps … the whole Work is FAMILY HISTORY …

 

There are some nice happy stories `ACE,  ACE and ACE - Life at The Pillar House 1970s-1980s :  Stories for Pete born 1970 - lived there until 1993 - died 1998 …

 

I think the new colour site JIMDO will alternate with pieces `NICE` and then `NASTY `   The message is given at the beginning of the initial Work on www.greta-ransom.com (first issued January 2011)   

…  YOU CAN LIVE LIKE WE DID SUMMER 1937 … TRY NOT LIVE LIKE THE MONSTERS THAT CAME ABOUT US …

 

RANSOM ANCESTRY Part I is the CENTENARY of the birth of my father FREDERICK JOHN RANSOM 1911-2011 :   Part 2 is still editing - parts will appear  :

…  I have been restoring his great finished work on we RANSOM SEATRADERS down the centuries … he and other scholars had to say it could never be published in his lifetime because of the British destruction of THOMAS GROTE HOMES  in the 2^nd World War around the globe … the children nearly all missing …

But the human qualities of good families is revealed in his great work :  there is also our lives with GORDON grandparents 1932 onwards and all branches 1930s and 1940s …  

 

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To here is on JUMBO  19^th May 2012  AD - OK - also Twitter linked/wordpress/Face Book/My Space/all lined to main site - but JUMBO not indicated on  www.greta-ransom.com

 

 

EDITED ABOVE TO THE LINE ABOVE - Is posted on new site/L & Hebe

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This is the GORDON WILLIAMS site

There is also WILLIAMS GORDON … necessary use both …this is p. 6 … up to page 5 has been used first on JIMDO

MAY 2012 … more issued June 9th

 

HESTIA ?  I think we issue this file too … with STATEMENT that it will sometimes repeat … but over places will dovetail …

 

 

 

Nota bene:    ANDRE MALRAUX  (born 1901)  from  1937-1976 his death refers again & again to these five daughters of TERESA CARROLL CLASSICIST as   “ … MY INTELLECTUAL EQUALS … ”  …www.greta-ransom.com/ WORDPRESS/FaceBook/Twitter … My Space-refs. to Family ancestry & where to find them on GR sites web …   

 

 

 

MEMO :   Teresa Carroll probably got her Classics degree in Southern Ireland or Germany ?  - German Classical Studies were well funded - there were excavations by German archaeologists Greece,  TROY, Babylon, UR, Egypt … other places ... 

 

Annie Agnes artist Miss Williams b 1880  of `Stella Maris` 10 Granville Road Clacton-on-Sea, where elder sister Bessie and she came to live 1923-1972 … Visiting 1921 -  seeing the PLANS for the impressive Catholic Church to be built on the St Clare Convent land close the Clacton-Holland-on-Sea seafront :

 

Speaking to her great-niece Greetha Ransom 1943-1944 :    ( she has LUCRETIUS de rerum natura with the BIBLE beside her bed )   is telling Greta Ransom family history  -   “ OUR MOTHER a Miss Teresa Carroll before she married our father John Williams, she travelled well beginning age 12 years & writes of a visit to Malaya but she goes no further perhaps, as well as seeing all the famous ancient sites on the Continent & in Italy & Greece … I do not think she ever got further than Malaya ?  But I will ask our Bessie, your aunt Bessie  -   But our mother you should understand …  she did not go around the world like your Aunt Miss Margaret Ransom … whom your great Aunt Bessie & I went to see when she was taking a rest at Lerwick - she said how much she enjoyed the BBC wireless & what a marvellous invention it was …`

 

I am going to try capture their manner of speaking, carefully, slowly usually, very `little Misses from Victorian Religious Tract novels … never old spinsters … Bessie Martha had such energy and her light figure scarce touched ground … I have described them more as we get on … As I said, this DOCUMENT of Family history is in 3 pieces owing to death of Cousin RICHARD Potter … DICK the kind boy …  of the very GOOD HEART & soul …

 

ANNIE Agnes continues :    “  But, our mother,  before she married our father,  she could travel … on big ships in comfort & safely with the family of her dead mother … or respectable friends that they had.   That is, you should understand,  the family Murphy of DUBLIN because they,  family MURPHY of DUBLIN were `well-to-doo`  …   & they had shipping interests … & connections all over the world …`

 

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(  MEMO :       READER should understand here a family joke about WILD HEATHEN DUBLIN  :   and that Miss Margaret Ransom, and family sailed down from West Greenland and  met all the MURPHY family of Dublin in the 1850s  :   Father Fred Ransom and their mother Gertrud nee Poulsen  (her brother Count Poulsen Norway)

 

 

( Gertrude Mrs Fred Ransom marries 1830/she grand-daughter of the genius-polymath-trader-Catechist Gotharb POUL Gronlander … the ancestors of his father are direct from 1601 Chinese Scholar who settled West Greenland travelled between Spain, Italy, Venice  POUL is 6`5ins, dark hair, dark blue eyes & married Frederickstown to Margaret Yates shipping Carlisle Witnesses the sons of Gotharb Missionary Pastor Hans & Gertrud EGEDE of Norway : 4 vols HISTORY of GREENLAND Finn Gad 1968-70s … )

 

c  1855-1859  Fred & Gertrud RANSOM   (grandparents twice back to Greta Ransom)   had their children Margareth, John, Poul Ransom & Tiggy Grote Ward, lecture them that   “ dear Father … you cannot go to DUBLIN … ”   …     why their geography teacher had just taught them it was a wild heathen nation inhabited by savage tribes  …They, family RANSOM and POULSEN relatives live on the very civilized West Greenland JACOPSHOLMEN Island :  Delacroix came up to paint JACOP the Angela and the LADDER in the church, and the first great bell has been cast alongside by Ransom family with help from Italian ancestor line …The Island is off XRISTENSHARB, our island in name of POUL GRONLANDER & family given 1770   “  … to keep as a Holy Place and to erect when you may a University in the name of POUL/ that Danish King & his Ministers written up as MAD 20^th century while the abuse of Greenland went on  /   -  We are family Ransom East Coast Britain Suffolk up to Montrose Basin from 1500 : moving up from 92 AD Suffolk, Dulwich  - present Suffolk RANSOM are 2^nd cousins 1249 - I GR stayed with them June-July 1936 …  :

 

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The WILLIAMS sisters know from 1934  … that late 1850s  FATHER Fred RANSOM,  put ALL his family in the family tall master ship `Mary Rose`  & with straight face said that they should come to see he was OK …   “ WE SAILED INTO DUBLIN & had a wonderful time … met the MURPHY Family at a BALL ”   … my great-great aunt Margareth GIRL of the SNOWS has been telling me 1936-38 family history on the telephone when we speak for 20 minutes sometimes from the Continent :   and Bessie and Annie 1934 visited her & stayed 3 days - she gave them the key to her Welsh cottage for the families to use … 

 

1930s it was now a little JOKE of Families WILLIAMS GORDON RANSOM …

 

` “ … Wild heathen savage Irish inhabit DUBLIN & the land  … ” … 

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(  Memo :   Teresa Gordon, after 4 years in Holloway Prison 1921-1931, made the best marriage of 10,000 years - Unfortunately her noble chums crowded around her again patting their back pockets - but George & Mary (nee Williams) Gordon had troubles with this PACK since 1915 when they eyed the 8 pieces of Gordon lands in Scotland & caused trouble with Teresa,  especially 1920 Southern Ireland when Scots Earls following 12 years Teresa an exceptional “ horse woman ”  - they thought they could get horses for cheap from the Irish cousins of Mary Williams Gordon = O`Brien/Carroll/Murphy …

 

TROUBLE REIGNED on a monumental scale after the marriage Ransom-Gordon of 1932 … Elders all the families coped - young children had to be protected from British and Scandinavian noble coin-less dope-soaks …Teresa collected them at a London Riding School where her father put her from age 6 years …believing she was the one who would be a good `horsewoman` … MEMO:   Her father and his brothers went to Dr Bell Academy Greenwich Heath/Anna put the heir and brother to SIAM here     … so the GORDON families kept the birthday of the King of Siam and collected some memorabilia …  )

 

West Greenland :  The education on our just within Arctic Circle Island ` the Holm` is, according to Captain Alan Villiers  “ … the best in the early 19^th century world -  GREENLAND SHOULD HAVE HAD INDEPENDENCE 1790s - 1800 the latest !   … one SAIL Margareth gave us the KEY … biggest house ever put up in Greenland - he knew what he was doing, built like a tall ship … ”    … NB:     Our great gilded oak 1 tier Theatre puts on plays in several languages from 1830s - Greek classics, Medieval, Racine, Shakespeare, first performance of Schiller ROBBERS … the Orchestra can be 40 players or more … half of them the so-called `Eskimo` … An Emperor of Ethiopia sailed in … first season to last 6 weeks lasted 7 months 

( Island bombed by air to smithereens 1960 June by Gross Britain & Denmark - before General de Gaulle and Andre Malraux GUARDIAN could make their visit in August … ) 

 

18^th-20^th centuries … we call ourselves GREENLANDERS … DENMARK refuses Independence  - Alan Villiers and others condemned Imperial Debts and lack of education in what matters … science/medicine/technology and GREEN EARTH and BLUE SEAS used with RESPECT … ( Captain Alan Villiers 1967/1970s - 200 years commemoration James Cook RN voyages - much useful work was done 1960s-1970s … ) 

 

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1943-1947 …ANNIE Agnes artist  Miss Williams b 1880 :

“ So our mother, christened Teresa,  she is born  (?) 1838/9 to a 

  “ well-too-doo ”  a clever Blacksmith, of the Carroll family,  & his wife Teresa a former Miss Murphy, but she died at the birth of her only child … our Blessed mother.    Our mother, the baby,  is raised by her father, in a well-too-doo household …  & she is Miss Teresa Carroll … but the family Murphy of her dead mother help with her education as well … they did not neglect her …    I cannot recall our dead grandmother Carroll, the former Miss Murphy that is, the maiden name of her mother - but I think your grandmother Mary Helena knows it …?

 

Your grandmother Mary, she went to visit them when she married George your grandfather Gordon  … they, the newly married pair met everybody, and stayed with them … it was all arranged before they left for the honeymoon in old Ireland … they all rode horses about the countryside of Old Ireland … Then your grandfather George was stationed there a year with his Army … and the first child born in the old country … your Uncle Arthur Gordon that is …  

 

… When I was 10 years, because I had lost my mother when I was only 2 years old, then my father,  I was invited to stay with the family O`Brien … they had farms & were also very well-too-doo …  & they are the family of our grandmother ANNE, the first Mrs John Williams …After her husband died she became  `A Little White Nun` … but when our mother, her daughter-in-law died, she took Release and came to Manchester to look after all of us …we stayed in the big old Merchant house … your Aunt Bessie can tell you more about the life of the family when our parents were alive :   but she, our grandmother, the mother of our father that is, a former Miss Anne O`Brien, died after two years …I was about 5 years old … Our nephew  O`Brien comes to London and we all visit … It is from this line that we are descended from Brian of BORU … it has been proved … ”    ( Sir John Edmond O`Brien … son dies 2^nd world war … 1954 March trouble from Noble Britain and cousin Teresa Gordon ) ”

 

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 NB :     See inter-net for world-wide Genealogies - & connexions =  it is only during 20^th century that ancestors have got badly lost … 19^th century were used to visiting graveyards, churches, places where family had been last few hundred years - not much excuse to lose your ancestors to-day with so much local record collecting …   :     Our genealogies have our families with teas-luncheons in the Vatican gardens 18^th-20^th centuries … letters to Mary Gordon from `young Pacelli` =   read on : 

 

 

(  The O`Brien history 1954 is on SITE   www.greta-ransom.com/  mainly for historians & sociologists /  It is called  `1937 SUMMER-  Andre Malraux, Josette Clotis and Greta Ransom Clacton-on-Sea & West Greenland :  `scaffolding` in 3 Parts :  3,000 pps plus & photos etc. dates before most paragraphs - a colour system is useful as it travels on & my use of  type-faces improves  /coming from 3 typewriters about the house to Computer first time was tricky :  to begin with I fell off the chair because of habit of swinging out arm to draw the carriage back as on typewriters  …

 

… Other pieces of work related are on this web site  www.greta-ransom.com/and editing and assembling work goes first on WORDPRESS/    Part 1 of the restored RANSOM genealogy is for family around the globe - This was issued 2011 the Centenary of my father, only 22 when I am born 1933, FREDERICK JOHN RANSOM November 1911 - killed March 1969 … 

 

 

 ( ARTHUR GORDON born 1891 Southern Ireland = = = INSURANCE City of London with his Uncle ARTHUR GORDON … 1^st World War RN/Merchant Navy/m Nellie Maxstead, Birmingham area …

1940s his only daughter Eileen begins training at REUTERS Fleet Street - she worked for them 42 and a half years, she tells me 1989 … MEMO :    Auntie Nellie nee Maxstead Mrs A. Gordon  had a Cousin in the Army in France 1^st World War … I am given some French Xmas and greeting cards made of organza with embroidery of flowers and the French flag - sent by this cousin …Eileen also added to my paintings by grandpa George Gordon - I send enlarged coloured poster size to family & also of photographs …  ? ask   )

 

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1943-1947 - ANNIE Agnes Artist - Miss Williams b 1880 - Manchester

 

“ … The mother of our mother, our grandmother that is,  died at her birth , so we never knew our grandmother on that side - Her husband,  the father of this first baby, to be our mother, was so grief stricken he did not marry again until she, our mother, is 10 years old.  Then he made another happy marriage …  & that gives us your great-cousin Brian Murphy & our niece Teresa Butler writes to him …” 

 

Lots of letters were written and received at `Stella Maris`  … who was the grandmother of `little Danny` ?     

 

 

 Annie announced XMAS 1943/1944   … `  We are arranging a midnight supper … as we did in the old days … when we lived in Ireland on our Farms … because we are winning this War … ` ...

 

I have photocopied a page of a Wartime winter newspaper and put the MENU on it - sent to family a XMAS in the 1990s - the originals of my montage I keep - it’s a useful memory aid …so will add it to this/first on my FACEBOOK site or my TWITTER site which takes photos etc to open by the viewer  …

 

Esther helped to remember this Wartime supper table , even though she was not present that Midnight after Church … a clock was striking 4 am as we walked down Vista Road home to `Pearly`, the house at the end of the REC  - A jolly crowd appeared - Annie had put holy statues amongst the food to create a crib …  a Priest, a choir member, neighbours, we three Ransom children, Teresa … we were at one time about 16 persons …  perhaps Win ATS ? … Granny Gordon had gone up to Manchester for XMAS perhaps … ?   Guests brought a dish of something … but it was surprisingly satisfying considering there was Wartime RATIONING …

  

 

 ( Records :     Brian :    His parents burned to death, a baby, the servant … she managed to drop 6 years old Brian Murphy to safety from a window then she collapsed … it was arson  :   Irish Police said   ` … Noble British … had lost on the gee-gees at the Races …`   Teresa age 13 years put on boat to Liverpool immediately and telegram sent to Mary Gordon to collect her …) 

 

 

1943-44 the WAR YEARS 2^nd World War  :   I GR like to listen to my great-aunt Annie Agnes = her saints name chosen by her mother = Teresa Carroll Williams  gave all her daughters meaningful names =  because she is so careful with facts about family history.    Aunt Annie also will read me poems from INGOLDSBY LEGENDS & explain them - & I can occasionally bring in a friend from school if I ask Aunt Annie-Agnes first … “Stella Maris ”  is 2 minutes walk to the Seafront & is a romantic looking house built c 1880s with 3 floors up to an attic where a Missionary woman  (not Catholic) stores her things & her 17^th century Italian sculpture that may be a Saint Anne that she got in Italy in the last century …The sea can be glimpsed from here when it is winter and all the leaves are off the trees  … I used to have to stand on a spare table to glimpse the SEA distant from the Clacton cliffs and seas edges … But this was my idea of  A ROOM OF YOUR OWN … it was a great treat to be allowed to come up to these `store` rooms … age 10 years I once wrote a few lines of poetry up here in the grey air, the sheen of dust …    

 

I will show the `Stella Maris` attic view & the stone Saint Anne to Georges Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX   (it was he labelled it 17^th century and not early Roman Christian times as I had hoped … )   He returns to us at the SEAS EDGES where he learned of himself and from EAST ANGLIA what he wanted to do in life SUMMER 1937 … He now a  tragic Catholic WIDOWER of Josette …with their 2 baby boys left in France with relatives …

 

…  `Stella Maris` is named after the Canadian wife of the Australian artist Charles Conder - she died in a fireplace accident - Annie carved her tombstone & she & Bessie told her when she was dying they would never forget her … it is this household/heimat    (what is the Irish-Welsh for `home place of your heart` ?)   that will restore his HUMANITAS … with other groups of persons about this seashore town and the ancient lands about … recall his mother traces her ancestry from her 9^th century SEA TRADERS line - `HISTON` her first family name, Castle Rising fishing & drawing up ships wintertime supported by farming etc.  …

 

The SEA MISTS SUPPER 1945 June …

 

… that Bessie and Annie Misses Williams  gave him,  Georges-ANDRE Colonel MALRAUX,   just the three at table `Stella Maris` ,  helped save his sanity :     This year from May 1945,  2^nd W.W. Europe ended April,   has he return to his own ancestral lands of  `gospels acted out`  …  Stride again about  Clacton-on-Sea, walking on the pavements of happiness  SUMMER 1937 … he has now two Wartime dead brothers and JOSETTE dead November 1944 her legs run over by a train near Tulles … 

 

:   ( GREEK poems Greek/French = Georges Sefris  KING of ASINE  `feeling sometimes … his very touch upon the stones … `   translation Rex Warner 1960 ) 

 

…  FAMILIES  :    For additional family histories of the 20^th century the READER must turn to my initial web site, a `scaffolding` histories requested not be lost by good persons, some our family members :   = = = =  www.greta-ransom.com  `1937 SUMMER etc`    followed by more detailed, & computer polished work,  added after worldwide issue of January 2011  :    Additionally for the historians-sociologists, etc. WORDPRESS prints out the editing assembling work … & there is more Families histories added, adding here …

 

…   ( MEMO :    my father FJR was my pedagogue 1933-1939 & out families the globe,  & I have gathered more from work 1952 onwards Colchester Museums & British Museum N.H. … & dwelling upon our ancient lands … )   

 

NB :    We of the early 20^th century are born into most dangerous times -  The old IMPERIAL privileged grasping for BIG TIME = I will sometimes drift about in these pages giving the READER the quality and ambiance of our families …

 

MEMO :  `FIGURES from A MORGUE` said my startled great-grandma MINERVA Olivea nee Hesketh, composed ballads and a hymn book `EVENSONGS` (5 editions)   at the wedding of her daughter 1909 to Frederick Charles Frobisher Ransom …  

 

Ÿ  Daughters of TERESA CARROLL WILLIAMS  :   …  ` … The young should not fail to know the PAST, the PRESENT … or you will not know what is best for the FUTURE …`  :  … 19^th century reasoning, philosophy,  of John  Ruskin and many humanist persons of the 19^th century  - Bessie and Annie and friend, helpers, had read aloud at Manchester and Liverpool evening gatherings 1880s-1890s, 1900s  FORS CLAVIGERA - Letters to the Workmen & Labourers of Great Britain … Annie explaining  ` Mr Ruskin could be difficult for many simple people we were helping … but reading the Letters slowly, discussing with our audience, they could now frame their own thoughts … understand matters …

Ÿ   

I never heard enough - and Colonel ANDRE not being told of the intellectual status of the RANSOM families encircling the globe still did not fathom that what I spoke SUMMER 1937 about travels was true … the Convent School had no idea that he did not understand the full GUARDIANSHIP to me he had undertaken October 1937 … telling Mary Helena nee Williams Gordon that he was glad to accept Guardianship of Greetah & had received a letter from her aunt signed Margaret Grote … it said he would be hearing more …

 

 ( 1970 his 2 sons dead 1961,  he,  their Georges-dear ANDRE, now retired Cultural Minister of France,  says   ` Once I SAW at the end of a long Salon in PARIS A GODDESS - she was with eminent men - I was not introduced - I was very young … I did not ask her name … I turned and left … (1920 - he 18-19 years)   BESSIE & ANNIE speaking of Margaret aunt to Greetha 1940s, had no idea he had not received the Will - and that their niece Miss Win with a courtesy copy January 1938 had not informed Andre or Professor Winnclemann of the great piece of delicate flower garden philanthropy encircling the globe since SEA TRADER marriages to Palestine 10^th-12^th  centuries AD …               

 

Annie has help from Bessie her sister:  “  TERESA CARROLL, our mother - she marries (1865 ?) an educated young man John Williams training as a Superior Silversmith, for there is still a demand at that time for silverware of high quality and design.  It is a well-to-do wedding because his mother is a former Miss Anne O`Brian & they are descended from Brian of Boru who is buried in Rome I believe .

 

Our mother, she did not have a gold ring put on at the altar because it was the custom of girls of good education to give the money for the gold ring to the Poor of the Church - put it in the POOR BOX at the wedding … the young husband would then earn sufficient to buy the wedding ring.  They had a scarlet skein of silk put on the wedding finger … It was a custom of Ireland I think … 

 

His father, our grandfather is Welsh but he had died but I go and visit my father his sister & she had two girl children, my cousins Gladys my age & her sister in Wales.  Gladys took me to her Welsh church and explained their service. We were both 21 years old.   So I have learned to speak the Welsh tongue & can listen to the BBC programmes.  But my sisters have not had the time.  But your grandmother speaks Gaelic & tells me every week what is happening in the DOIL …

 

(Colonel Andre Malraux felt he could not learn Welsh after looking at the newspaper Annie has sent to her …& hearing some on the BBC )

 

TERESA CARROLL :  John Williams is trained as a superior silver worker & designer.  They marry in Dublin c 1865.  They go to live in No 12 or 13 Sackville Street, a big house, & a pig was kept in the back yard.  ( This street is now re-named O`Connell Street ? ) 

They have 5 daughters & one son.

 

1878/9 - Teresa & John move to Manchester.    She buys a big old former Merchants House in the City.  Her daughter Bessie

( Elizabeth Martha )  has described to me GR the lovely old place … “Our mother felt she would be able to get a Teaching post in the new University, the Colleges …but married women with children were not given employment in England.  She could afford a nursemaid and a housekeeper for us … She could only find private families and they only wanted her to teach simple ancient history or a little Latin - nobody wanted to employ her to teach about her Greek advanced learning.  Her work was especially PLATO & HARMONY.   There is a FILE we have received of her PAPERS … her writing on this … I keep them safe …  ”   …

 

“  Our beautiful mother she worked with a young sculptor who wished to carve the ancient Greeks in the manner he felt they thought about nature and life.   He did full size sculptures of her - she did the writing that goes with the sculptures he now began to make … 

 

Nota bene :   the name of the young sculptor ?  … something like Pen/um/… bra ?     Or is this the name he used for himself in this PROJECT they were engaged on to further her work and his in teachings at the time of  PLATO and the GREEK MIND … ?

 

…   I may find the name  in the red files I have labelled `Stella Maris` and 1930s  :    but it may have come from my young Uncle Lennie  (Len Immanuel Ransom)   artist-musician-FLYER,  who could call in on `Stella Maris` 1934-1939 … he and ANNIE talked about styles in ART … & linked to social conditions …

 

LIR - Len has travelled the globe since age 4 years old with RANSOM families & at 13 years has four languages - Spanish/English/German  and French … some Japanese, Greenlandic, Arabic … he is put in schools around the globe … Ransom families all have several languages because of their worldwide philanthropy Estate 18^th-20^th centuries …    

 

“  One piece is she full size … in Greek robes with her long hair spread out … You do not see her face …and she is sitting by the seashore in Greece, her back turned and her long hair spread down out all over her shoulders …He did other statues of her in the Greek clothes .. As you see the Parthenon figures … our relatives in Manchester know of her work with him … and our Irish relatives …

 

 

“  But she died when I Annie am 2 years of age  (1882) .   It was very hard for her to earn enough money - and our father found that there was little demand for exquisite silverwork - there was not so much money for people to spend.  He helped with the decorating of some of the new buildings .  Our brother John was a FREE THINKER & went to meetings.  Our father was not pleased with his views sometimes.  They had arguments.  After our mother died he was restless and went to Panama & to Brazil … he would write lovely letters home … Annie has letters from him & he describes the beautiful countryside  that he will get rich and then we will all join him or visit … ( He dies Panama ? when Annie is 7 years old, 1889 )

 

Records :    names  here were known in the 1960s - careers in Welfare - Catholic Mission Walton Liverpool - also career of Aunt Terry Butler who began age 16 years & with the Manager of her first job they set about a Welfare system modelled on that of her Aunts Bessie-Martha and Annie Agnes Carroll Williams that they had begun with Catholic help at Walton LIVERPOOL … a Refuge for Seamen … it began to include quietly much work to find shelter, beds, jobs for those crammed in Cellars … often 20 or more, the same if they could find a room … THE 2nd BIBLE of Great-Aunt Bessie was NORTH SOUTH Mrs Gaskell …The 2^nd BIBLE of the youngest sister the artist Annie Agnes was LUCRETIUS de Rerum Natura …

 

… (NB :    a Greek book translated into French 1720 read by the Eskimo-French mother of Great POUL GRONLANDER married Margaret Yates of Carlisle, he Catechist/Trader/Genius/

correspondent with the HUMANIST POPE Benedict 14th 18^th century … 

 

… The above are my grandparents 4 times back RANSOM-Poulsen ancestry … The tiny mother of POUL 6`5 inches tall half Northern Chinese …she visits Venice with her Eskimo-French Trading family beginning of the 18<sup>th</sup> century :   her GREENLAND name is `Little white squirrel soft Snow paws`   = I cannot yet locate her Christian world name …  

 

 

 

 

 ( The house bought by TERESA CARROLL and her Superior Silversmith & Inventor husband JOHN WILLIAMS  is A BIG MANCHESTER MERCHANTS HOUSE of the 16^th-17^th century - I GR only recall seeing newspaper photographs of it being pulled down,  either 1948 or early1950s,  when the area was being gutted for development - of course it saddened the two sisters - both Annie and Bessie could remember living there -  Aunt Winifred showed me but JULIE insisted I be kept informed of FAMILIES NEWS … She wanted Teresa Gordon Ransom my mother PUT IN THE NUT HOUSE … as 2 Courts had ORDERED be done by Miss Spinster Winnifred Gordon … but a bastard of my Mother Edward du Cann 1924 wanted HER KEPT FREE … for she let him ROB my father and the great RANSOM GROTE PHILANTHROPY estate WORLDWIDE … Both `Treasa`, ED and all their shady Noble chums were HIGH HIGH HIGH on DOPES … Uncle Potter would say to me, Greetah … Bloody Treasa !   Keep me informed … we can`t tell the women in the family … they have FLUFF in their heads … Bloody WIN !   She does not tell us what is going on !    And JULIE is dismissed as  `youngest cousin` … The MASONIC Lodge want your mother back in PRISON … we have all had enough of it since she got out in 1931 … and now I have just learned that she went BACK INSIDE in 1941 and 1942 … Your father did not learn this until the MARITAL COURT TOLD HIM … he won Custody of all of you … BLOODY WIN messed that all us … with this BASTARD … JULIE says he was calling when she was up in MANCHESTER and promising he would find a husband for WIN !     Uncle Fred POTTER whose father is Secretary of the Life-Boat Society … owns and runs the CLACTON NEWSPAPER and a successful PRINTING WORKS … :   WE MUST NOT TELL THE YOUNG WOMEN … this has developed from 1932 into being  A RANSOM MATTER as well as a GORDON MATTER from 1919 … when Teresa age 12, and her NOBLE CHUMS, burned down the MURPHY HOUSEHOLD killing the young couple and a servant and only young BRIAN MURPHY age 6 was saved by the faithful servant dropping him out of a blazing window to people below … then she collapsed from smoke …

 

POLICE REPORT  ;   Noble BRITAIN had LOST MONEY AT T HE RACES … the Murphy Carroll and O`Brien families RAISED SOME FINE HORSES … THEY WOULD NOT GIVE THEM FOR NOUGHT TO NOBLE BRITAIN of SCOTLAND … GLAMIS CASTLE/LINDSAY Premier Earls Monsters/ a half Chinese JONG CAREW JAMES and other   S C U M … ) 

 

…   Annie Agnes, my great-aunt,  may have made a visit 1945 to Manchester with Andre MALRAUX WIDOWER 9 November 1944 of Josette  … They both liked pilgrimages of this kind & would view it as a mark of respect to the dead, especially Mary Helena killed June 1944 & that a shock to him for he came to Clacton-on-sea swiftly May 1945 to speak with her & take up his duties as GUARDIAN to her grand daughter Greta Ransom …

 

 Living in the town since 1944 were Professor & Mrs Winnclemann whom he has known in Paris 1920s/30s … and always had correspondence with …  A letter from ANDRE MALRAUX arrived to Professor WINNCLEMANN before Christmas 1944 - it told of the death of Josette … and that he would be calling on them in Clacton-on-Sea when the WAR ends  …  Mr professor Winnclemann told Greta …

“ … a young friend … if he does not get killed before the end of the WAR he will come to visit us  :  you will find `Elsa` Greetah that you are very much alike …” 

 

…  Mr Prof. Winnclemann sadly and gently smiled to himself … A photograph he had taken himself of this young friend who may get killed is show me … I said  “…but I have seen him before the WAR …”    Mr Winnclemann said  “ … you have probably seen a picture of him in the library of your father … in books, Elsa …”    The matter was left … late May or early June 1945 I call for tea … a tall figure in a Glenn Miller raincoat rises …Mr Professor Winnclemann says “…this is Greetah the niece of Miss Gordon who has served in the ATS …”  

 

… MALRAUX say`th nothing … but picked me up by my elbows and stared into my face !

I felt silly !   I am just 12 years old and sing in the Church choir.

Both Mr and Mrs Winnclemann looked shocked … and the Professor said in slight anger  “ PUT HER DOWN ANDRE !   She is not a doll … you can pick up and throw away … PUT HER DOWN - we play on the gramophone the music of Richard Wagern !

She is NOT a doll in tissue paper !

 

MALRAUX, Colonel, said slowly as he lowered me carefully to the floor … “ I HAVE MET HER BEFORE … she was with JO and me…before the WAR …”     The Professor with perfect German manners said  after a sad  `OH` at the mention of JOSETTE …

“  Mrs WINNCLEMANN … I think we will have tea …we all need a cup of tea …”    He said  ` I will hear more later … `

 

After tea the grownups felt I should take their old dog for his seafront walk … accompanied by Colonel ANDRE … So as to not attract attention to the WIDOWER it had been agreed he be called Colonel ANDRE …soon I and my school friends are told to address him as Georges, Colonel Andre … or say `Andrew` if strangers are present … a few holidaymakers have appeared this first summer at the end of the WAR in April 1945 … 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr John RAY Ransom …  ( employee NASA & USA State Department Washington 1945-1969 - he is killed on duty at Montrose Basin our farm  of 1500 … )

 

« … do you remember when you were 5 years 1938 … 1938 going to call on your great-aunts Bessie and Annie Misses Williams … with Len (LIR)  my younger brother 17 years old… They had a cousin on the Welsh side staying … from Australia where she lived … she had a husband a grown girl and boy … she came to represent her Union … she said that Australia was alarmed at the secrecy of the British Government determined to DESTROY the GROTE HOMES … and they had already begun picking at the Estate in the name of the owners RANSOM … She said NOTHING COULD BE DONE … Australia would like Great Britain and its EMPIRE got OUT of Australia … it took MONEYS out of the country for itself … to bolster up its Noble Classes … »

 

READER should turn to GROTE HOMES (RANSOM)  File/Sept. 2. 2011 AD … pages approximately 30-32/ with editing these page numbers will be approximate/     NB:  The fate and well-being of GORDON-WILLIAMS and branches of the family   (through marriage of Teresa Gordon to F.J. RANSOM 1932)  are connected/subjected to violence and break-ins/  by the criminally insane of the NOBLE CLASSES, those in-bred of the CROWNS, t& the worst Tribes of Scotland EARLS of LINDSAY Crawford/Bethune … And Bowes Lyon of Glamis Castle (ANGELA-Elizabeth become a Queen 1937 her brother-in-law kicked out with help from she and her MEN (runts they are called by the civilized)   And their accumulating relatives and in-laws are to be allowed portions of this great PHILANTHROPY ESTATE …

 

 The British Government knows from 1930s it CANNOT BROKER A PENNY … so all is conducted by MOONLIGHT from Westminster by BRITISH GOVERNMENT LORDS & their SONS …  Then another WAR … enables an easy GENOCIDE of GROTE HOMES CHILDREN to occur during 2^nd World War … planned and plotted 1929-1939 by the above and its coin less Prince-ling GHOULS those in-laws of Norway and Denmark etc.    (Commentsby top medical world 1950s on the Noble Royal in-breeding was  ` … if they do this again they will be born with tails and trunks … `

 

The GORDON WILLIAMS and branches of our families engaging with these Records should bear this GREATEST CRIME OF MANKIND in mind  = but not get involved :     It is being dealt with as much as possible from 1960 by human beings/  The decision was 1961  « the LAW cannot deal with this crime - you must despatch them where you may …» … 

 

… 1979 one big leading monster    (Louis Playboy Mountbatten RN - no sailor-all Orders had to be carefully gone over … he was always drunk and on DOPE …Reports by old top NAVAL men )   was  BLOWN UP by British Territorials and others/it had been hoped to get another younger who had cold blooded continued to employ murderers from 1946 and given its moonlight permission to use the entire British Nation infra-structure to hide the crime and BRING IN MORE stolen and blood dripping DOUGH for itself and its Monarchy  families …NB:  It was said it might have stayed sane had it been left at SEA with good men …

 

 

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REMEMBERING COUSIN RICHARD `a sunny boy`

 

Born 1939-2011 AD … Clacton High School - Imperial College London … marries 1964 - see local newspapers - 2 sons/twins … with issue : 

 

Great-grandchild of TERESA Murphy CARROLL CLASSICIST  = Mrs John Williams,  he a Superior Silversmith & inventor  :  Dublin and Southern Ireland/buy a big old Merchant House in Manchester 1879 = she hoped to find employment in the Manchester or Liverpool Colleges - she studies PLATO and HARMONY … worked with a sculptor on `Greek thought` ...

The policy of the new Colleges to become Universities was to not employ women with children … She had 5 girls and a son and was well-off to employ help in the big old house … She dies in an INFLUENZA outbreak 1882 …

 

I WILL WRITE ABOUT THE SETTING ABOUT US AT THE SEAS EDGES 1930s - 1940s … my day to day memories of RICHARD sunny boy are from his christening 1939 and throughout  the Wartime years 1941 - 1945 … into the late 1940s … 

 

 

I begin this APPRECIATION 7^th January 2012 AD  :   RICHARD Neville POTTER died on Christmas Day 2011 AD  …  7^th January is the Feast Day of 6-7^th century Saint CEDE Bishop of Londinium and Othona ESSEX  = a great Roman Britain Fort of the Saxon Shores =  important matters to CAMULODUNUM Colonia Victricensis  and we STAFF of the COLCHESTER & ESSEX MUSEUMS 1950s - & to Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX my LEGAL GUARDIAN ( from October 1937 until I am 25 … )   MALRAUX  French Man of Letters is also GUARDIAN to the great RANSOM GROTE FAMILY ESTATE worldwide -

 

I and Richard cousins born 1933 & 1939 to two sisters Teresa Elizabeth Gordon (Ransom 1932-2-001)  and Esther Mary Gordon (Potter 1937 onwards ) … they are two of the daughters of Mary Helena nee Williams and George Ernest Gordon  :

 

RICHARD and cousins  :    we are children of the STEAM AGE … puffer trains were of great interest - a delight to travel by for me 1930s … and of importance 1940s to us all in WARTIME Britain … Clacton-on-Sea had a big Railway terminal from the 1860s … 1930s and Wartime it is manned by staff who were part of the small town life out of their hours of duty …

There is a lot of TRAIN MUSIC early 20^th century … dramatic and jolly … we were familiar with it, grown-ups and children ...

 

… Also Claude Debussy LA MER  - the Sea Pieces conducted at Eastbourne by the French composer 1905 … East Anglia adopted this Work - a rival came along 1940s called Ben Brittan, Aldburgh,  with his Opera PETER GRIMES … 

 

… Clacton & the ancient lands about us had music of all ages … there were WAITS at Christmastide,  the Salvation Army Band was very good and played by the town centre TREE once a week, various other Bands were in the villages & small towns.   A farmstead had a harpsichord in an unused room of a great-great-great Aunt of the family.    Our music teacher 1944 was young Raymond Salt from The Royal College of Music, a composer too.

 

Second cousins of composer HUMPERDINCK had come to live in East Anglia 1^st World Wartime … 1945 they put on his `HANSEL and GRETEL`  in Clacton town & a Repeat towards Manningtree in a School … My French Guardian appointed October 1937 joins in events with the varied interesting people that make up this small town and its ancient lands about it … He now a War Widower and with 2 dead brothers - killed by the Gestapo …  He has come to us again in May 1945 to our SEAS EDGES …

 

… He had to tell many people that “ Josette his young lady”  was dead November 1944, she mother of his two tiny sons born 1940 & 1944 …    1937 Josette had been very much part of Clacton town life August-September 1937 … seen shopping, at the Blue Lagoon dances …& ORDERING Andre and Greetah  called  “ you two ”   to STAY PUT on the bench around the town TREE.   Andre likes to investigate small town infra-structure … We tend to disappear …  and Uncle Harry Gordon sends out a SEARCH PARTY by telephone to where he thinks we might be …

 

   He had spoken of us in this small town Clacton & East Anglia generally    (when we go visiting 1937 where his maternal Ancestors lived 9^th century to the 19^th century <sup>)    `</sup>WHERE I FOUND THE GOSPELS ACTED OUT` …

 

 

1937 late SUMMER :   the future mother of RICHARD, Miss Esther Mary Gordon, was arranging her October wedding in London … where she and her young man Frederick Potter   ( he is 6 feet 4 and a half inches tall)   train and work in the 1930s …

And Miss Winifred Mary Gordon her sister spent the summer with her Manchester cousins, often at Saint Anne Beach … But we had the still unmarried Uncle Harry brilliant young mechanic at the garage Thorpe-le-Soken …

 

…he is very glad that we can help get his mother Mary Helena through her first summer of Widowhood  … She and Andre Malraux spent hours talking about old friends in the Arts - some in Paris/politics/Southern Ireland & its Freedom from Britain 1932/ WARS & DISASTERS  … Granny Gordon feels discussion not fighting :   but agrees with Andre a little after hearing his SPAIN experiences that `perhaps A STATEMENT HAD TO BE MADE` …  Josette found it such a waste of life … she was making a bolero in black with a big RED CROSS embroidered on the back … she will wear it at a meeting in PARIS in the autumn.  

 

… I being 4 and a half years had to `take a nap` afternoons overhead on Granny and Grandpa`s bed … I drifted off hearing many things … I AM THE ONLY CHILD AT THE SEASIDE … ( brother John is only 2 nearly 3 years and often has to be put in the Doctor Barnardo Home down the Old Road … he has learned to pull table clothes off tea tables & poor Granny has lost two lovely tea services … but this Summer the kindly Barnardo Home took him with them on holiday - his mother is attending all the Celebrations for the new reign - she was away from May to November - she has met Andre in 1924 in Paris … she did not know he was coming to stay with us …so he got the peace he needed …

 

…  She, Teresa Gordon Mrs R,  sent a man in August to get some money because she had been gambling - I said that I had a DRAWER in the Bank and could get him 50 pounds … he said OH IT IS MUCH MORE THAN THAT SHE OWES - do not bother … ”  And he went back on the train to wherever he had come from … I should explain that she is my mother …& calls me Ape & Eskimo because of my Ransom ancestry.   It had to be explained by Uncle Harry to Andre and Josette that I am trained to cope with the difficult member of the family as all of them are ...

 

 1937 last day of July , my 26 years old father FJR and Ransom men had to dash to SPAIN to rescue a 22 years old cousin … so they did not join us in all the things planned =  the rescue ended in terrible tragedy … I did not know this until late October 1937.   I know his mother - she is a Missionary from Ethiopia for the London Mission Society  …

 

 

The Saint Clare Convent School close by the Clacton Seafront teaches us in the Kindergarten to run a house simply - do the basic things - be neat and tidy all Sundays with a hat and visit the Cemetery … Andre and Josette are Roman Catholics too so they joined in all these things …Here in Clacton they have found PEACE … They intend to returns to us for Easter 1938 - however another WAR is planned … the last one only ended 18 years ago … The 1912  TITANIC disaster is not forgot and all seven Churches say a Prayer on the Anniversary - Catholic townsfolk CROSS themselves when speaking of it =  (Sign of the Cross)  …

 

This is a little of the world of the parents of RICHARD Neville POTTER … he to be born 1939 … His future grandpa Potter runs the Lifeboat Society, owns and works like a Trojan at the Clacton Town and district newspaper … and has a printing works too … His wife and her sister have some French ancestry … his wife on Sundays wears Edwardian style black frocks with very good delicate white lace collars and cuffs and some nice pieces of old jewellery - including a cameo brooch … her long hair gone white is in a loose bun and she has a still pretty face and lovely pink cheeks  … I Greta Ransom always curtsey to her …     

 

 

 

1945 June onwards - The WIDOWER Colonel Georges-ANDRE Malraux is taking me & small boys, RICHARD, Colin, sometimes John,  to the Clacton Cinemas, on the Pier, or swimming from the beaches  = we get tea from Miss Auntie Win and sometimes from Auntie Esther Potter …

 

Orders to show ANDRE Widower normal life come from his old 1920s friends Professor and Mrs WINNCLEMANN … The town and our Schools, especially our Nuns have to give him the will to live.

For a few weeks we in Choir and at school did wonder if he was going to TAKE THE ROBE …  Other families have dead from this War … it is noticed that some do not return to our ancient lands and small towns and villages of Essex, Suffolk   :   The families bereaved must be helped through their loss, shock,  and given the will to create a future …

 

 1945 Summer -  Greetha can still hold his hand as 1937 SUMMER when he is with us with his young lady called Josette … that was 6 weeks August-September and we lived in the house of the grandpa of Unity aged 10 years …  1937 MALRAUX a young man come from the BLOOD and GORE of SPAIN finds comfort and intelligent discussion with our grandmother Mary Helena Gordon …   He will call her  `still a young woman & his intellectual equal`    …  1945 May onwards, 2^nd world War has just ended but it is an unreal time … we had become so used to WAR … newspapers to be read every morning, at school too, the BBC News broadcasts … everyone hoping the 9 pm BBC news would have good news so that we could sleep without too many worries …

 

So that summer we have some days Colin Frederick, sometimes John,  and Richard our responsibility - Auntie Esther can do her shopping in peace and we meet her at an appointed time …

BY AUTUMN 1945 I am growing UP AND OUT of clothes -  and Esther Gordon  young beautiful Mrs Potter   loans me clothes & shoes … Richard gives little smiles, almost grins,  at Cousin Greetha no longer a boy-girl carrying her homemade bow and arrows to school …   or showing him how to hang by your legs in a tree WHEN YOU ARE OVER 10 YEARS OF AGE and good at GYM at school   !    

 

…  MY GUARDIAN Colonel Georges-ANDRE MALRAUX Roman Catholic WIDOWER of Josette    (father of two tiny boys 1940 & 1944)    after the tragic 1945 August of HIROSHEMA JAPAN … the town filled with white sea mists part of the days that week …  made thoughtful announcements     “ Greetha, she is too BIG now to hold my hand …people will see I am a mature man and talk … ”    

 

…  He had no need to consider the matter  !!!  … …  … … …

 IT IS KNOWN THAT HE IS STILL A BOY … with excellent English learned from reading CONRAD when 12 years of age in English translation … He also reads our HOTSPUR comic … and looking like an ARCANGEL … he is quite clever-very clever-very pure of heart and soul … yes … and now given to ACTING FATHER to us all … 

 

Having been raised a Catholic by THREE GRACES, his grandmother, his mother and auntie,  he understands very well the state of the SOUL … When Auntie Esther Mrs Potter says to him    “  …it’s a lovely Cemetery Andre …we have a Catholic part …I SHALL ENJOY BEING BURIED THERE …YOU CAN SEE THE SEA …my mother and father and my sister Kitty are buried there … I AM GLAD YOU WILL TAKE THE ROSES UP FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF KITTY …  yes … you can say a few words to our Mother … Mary Gordon … … … ”  

 

As we say … he is raised by THREE GRACES in France … they ran a corner shop when he was a small boy … they only had him to care for … We know their names well … Adrianna/Adrienne his part Italian Granny … his mother Berthe/Bertha with her ancestry reaching accurately from 9^th century AD to the family HISTON at Castle Rising, along the SEAS EDGES to Kings Lynn, to Saxmundham in Suffolk …and her sister his Aunt Marie/Mary … 

THE READER will follow that that between him and us there is an exchange of HUMANISM … a book he wrote at 26 years of age called `The CONQUERORS`  tells his good intentions … to bring PEACE and happiness … this book, and the one he wrote 1933 year of my birth, are known to our small town, the Elders of our families … In 1937 he is awaiting publication of his book on the SPAIN experiences …he also has begun a film … we see a reel from this in a schoolroom 1946 … 

 

…  Georges as some of we school children call him … the adults say Andre …   says he believes he gets his mind from his Grandmother … the stories she read him, her conversation, her own ancestry Italy  (a big house of her grandmother 1968 is seen in Italy - and he had bought or rented an upper floor )    … but his Grandmother died when he was 7 years of age …  His ancestry is in places as familiar to us as our own via TERESA CARROLL …and the GORDONS … Richard and I know histories, POTTER line too …

 

Genealogy was always of interest to the Anglo-Saxons … and it was necessary to hold on to it after WILLIAM of NORMANDY thumped in … on our SEAS EDGES … 

 

1945-1947 -  ANDRE-GEORGES Colonel WIDOWER of Josette ,  tells us children stories of when he was young … visits to countryside outside Paris, and THE SEAS EDGES for his family holidays … This small town of Clacton that he feels at PEACE in has sounds of the SEA and the TRAINS that take you to THE WORLD …a big Recreation Ground stretches from Railway to Valley Road taking its way to another road rising to the Holland-on-Sea cliffs =  these are Ancient Lands with histories … on your left at the end of the Valley Road is a NEOLITHIC CLACTON MAN discovery site … Old Manor Houses still stand from Norman French times … 

 

 

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2012 January  :      I, Greetha Ransom,  am remembering Cousin RICHARD … named after an Australian/New Zealand Uncle, born Britain,  went to Australia 1921/22 … RICHARD almost journeyed to meet his HUMANIST Uncle Alfred Richard Gordon … older brother of Esther Mary Gordon his mother  -  she born 1913 is the last of the big family of Mary Helena Williams Gordon - her elder brother ARTHUR GORDON born Ireland 1891   … in between are 14 children …

 

…  5 die of an Epidemic 1904-5 … we Cousins are descending from 4 of the 16 children … None of them forgotten … We are taught to be joyful that they had lives, knew happiness, gave happiness to all around them …

 

 THUS the understanding we have of our Gordon aunts and uncles dead before Richard and I are born … ( Elizabeth-Anne-Edward-Cyril-little Mary- Stephen ?- Thomas, Gerald and George twins …)  Granny Gordon who has a magnificent voice rehearsed the Debussy Opera Pelleas and Melisande through her connexions … it was a vehicle for her grief … HEAR IT …  she also had names you know , Bud Flanagan is one of them, who would insist she help them get bookings by coming along to sing …

 

The FAMILY & the world RICHARD is born into … 

 

1939 WAR has come :    GRANNY GORDON & her world of music  : 

…  `Fine Musical Comedy actress she could have been your Grandmother Mary - Bud Flannaghan Music Hall star  

( Flannaghan  Allen )   is telling me 1939 of events Gordon family 1900s …  ` We used to smuggle her dress out … GEORGE WAS NOT TO KNOW … but it all helped KEEP HER SANE after she lost them three all together … WE KNEW THEM … So we insisted SHE HAD TO HELP US … sing between our Acts … `Darling Mary`  she sang a lot in choirs … since she came over from Ireland …

 

…  all wonderful children … wonderful family … except one … Teresa … never give her a BET for a horse … it will NOT leave the stable … Noel Coward complains if she TREASA gets in the green baize door …` 

 

 

…  I, Greetah Ransom,   only granddaughter at the seaside, am 6 and a half years old outbreak of WAR 1939 September -  and used to coping with the FAMILY PROBLEM … I receive instructions from the grown-ups how to handle matters … ` not to go near her when she has a bottle of spirits in each paw - tell a grownup - and beware when she has been getting at DOPE … she believes sometimes she is a big black horse gone mad … `     It was not funny … but Uncle Harry was always jokey but as well solemn serious … when she raged he would simply call her `Old Girl`  & say `calm down`  …

 

 

1945 Summer …. Uncle Potter will give clear instructions from 1945 onwards when he comes back from the 2^nd World WAR ...   ` … CHRIST !   I have just learned of …   (the latest DISASTER)   do not tell the women Greetah - they have fluff in their heads … `  (We can get Clacton Police to put her in a CELL 2 nights in a row if she is too bad … )     (  Grandpa Potter Lifeboat and Town newspaper keeps it out of the weekly Town News  :   And Frederick Potter, father of Richard,  gives advice to RICHARD from then on :   we should be polite but not be alone with her …

 

… Twice Uncle Potter fetched me G.R. off her in 1946 … saying

…  ` CHRIST GREETHA … `BLOODY WIN … she did not tell me BLOODY TREASA had hold of you again - pack your things - you are leaving with me now …  NOW !  NOW !    `  … Thus I had a little room with young married Beatie and Ernie Napper family of Nurse Connie Napper Clacton District Nurse and Nursing Home Holland-on-Sea Cliffs … 

 

 

… The much missed sister of Esther Gordon Potter is the pretty Kathleen Kitty Gordon =  she is Mrs Guy Vansittart d 1929 Roman Catholic marriage - Guy cries in 1973 when he sees little Peter G. RR. W. Whitehead age 3 years … 

 ` WITH THE HAIR OF KITTY`  … A sad man he had called with kind intentions at Colchester Museum the Castle February 1954 … the 21^st Birthday party my father FJR was giving me in LONDON was tragic - I too ill … Miss Aunt Winifred Mary Gordon and her sister Teresa Elizabeth Gordon Ransom did not give the INVITATIONS to Guardian Andre Malraux and to me …

 

(that TRAGEDY can be read on www.greta-ransom.com  document in 3 Parts `1937 SUMMER`  a scaffolding of family history) 

 

1900s -1920s :   THE WILLIAMS-GORDON DEAD CHILDREN   ? - not unusual in 19^th century-early 20^th century Catholic Families … epidemics, accidents took so many young lives … Grieving parents replaced children to help their anguish -

 

 I, my age group, RICHARD somewhat too, allow the Elders to tell us that the dead of the families were in HEAVEN and will greet us when we go …  This implies they believed that we too will live holy and HUMANIST lives  :  

We do not confront this … yet we know MANKIND goes to the STARS … there is no other way to survive … we are well ahead of NASA … this understanding reaches back to LUCRETIUS … RADA is invented 2^nd World War … `MOON IS EASY`  Its just a matter of Research …

 

ANDRE MALRAUX Summer 1937 does not laugh when I say that one day I will write Letters to school friends living on the Stars = and I may send him a letter from a Star if inventions continue =  He now set about designing STAMPS for the POST OFFICES on the STARS … Josette laughed when she found he had PUT HIMSELF on one stamp …          

 

…  8 of 16 children of our grandparents live beyond 13 years of age … We RANSOM and POTTER cousins, our children,  descend from 4 children of Mary and George Gordon = Arthur/Teresa/Esther/Harry … 

 

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MEMO :     We will gather up the honourable history of ALFRED RICHARD Gordon … (  he features in the Document 3 Parts `1937 Summer` 3,000 pages plus photos/this is a `scaffolding` of Records for historians - I released it worldwide January 2011 AD - )

 

 …  ALFRED RICHARD who protected his parents and younger sisters in the 19-teens, early 1920s … and lived at home for they had collected undesirable coin-less Aristocrats who were after THE eight pieces of GORDON LANDS SCOTLAND and a Peninsula New Zealand  … The GORDON LANDS were eyed via Great-Aunt Edith Gordon Mrs Tad-hunter … she tells of a near-death for her  evening -  when she went to a respectable intellectual gathering … Lambeth Palace I think it is :   I have included her RECORDS in my Works … I knew Edith sister of my Grandpa Gordon, visited her, Esther too …

 

…  THEFT FRAUD of GORDON LANDS  :   We are updated 1961 by the other Great-Aunt Annie at Kingston Mrs Frederick Henry Gordon widow since 1939 - he, eldest son of 6 of John Frederick and Matilda Kellow GORDON,  had a fashionable Painting master to teach him at Greenwich & exhibited paintings - portrait of daughter Betty was in Summer Exhibition Royal Academy 1930s

 

1961 Summer - Great Aunt Annie Gordon is telling LAW Detective Arthur Malone (our POLITAN = Tutor to the Medici Children as he calls you all ) …I am present … ` COIN LESS Earls, LORDS and their SONS , especially of Scotland, were a nasty problem to RESPECTABLE FAMILIES 1880s into the 1950s … and these DOPE SOAKS could play the old RACIST card =  With our Murphy-Carroll-O`Brien  Southern Irish ancestry and cousins coming and going from Manchester and Clacton SEAS EDGES  we had to suffer FOUL NOBLE MOUTHS & FRAUD … She says that Thomas Gordon & children (Police) may have got his land back … but they had to go to Court … The two cousins, children of Betty Gordon, are called Sandra and Gordon - 1961 they are in the London Police …

 

 

(((( …  Frederick Henry Gordon, great-uncle to RICHARD and me, and our cousins, can be found in a novel called THE CASK 1920 … his friend at work is writing it … one morning he said   `I was in need of a character last night Henry … so I had to write you in as Henry Gordon of Glasgow …`    This book is called the first serious Detective novel - the author, colleagues, friends in Railways and Police had so much FUN getting all the details right … it was necessary to cross the Channel … READ IT … often in print & in libraries  … ))))    

 

…  UNCLE ALFRED-RICHARD GORDON - Esther named her son RICHARD after this brother she could not remember - but they spoke every Christmastide on the telephone …   he helped in WELFARE along the River Thames where his Aunts Bessie Martha and Annie Agnes the Misses Williams introduced him as a young man … they of important Welfare work from the 1890s Liverpool & Manchester, London …   Alf-Richard taught boxing … a popular fashionable pastime … said to improve the character of the young … there were photographs of him when I was a young child 1930s … one existed until 1940s … He was too young to enter the carnage called `THE GREAT WAR` = 1^st World War …  

 

 

I may roam about with this APPRECIATION of my kind sunny cousin Richard … it is not nice to lose a cousin younger than oneself … and one with whom I had 2^nd WORLD WARTIME shared memories with  : 

 

…   We two children have a far from simple undercurrent to our young lives … ELDERS make decisions for us and give instructions how we should handle the matters …  in those past Decades of the 20^th century  :   

 

…  NB :  called in literature turn of the centuries 20^th/21^st  `THE EVIL CENTURY` …

 

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APPRECIATION of Cousin RICHARD

Born 1939 - lives to Christmas day 2011 AD

 

 

I am living in Clacton those years January 1942-1945/ before I am fulltime Colchester College 1948-1951 … the Family men away at 2^nd World WAR 1939 - 1945 …

 

Grandma Mary Helena Gordon dies June 1944 … and so visits to all the older generation are now to The Cemetery … but it is a nice walk and there is a Catholic section …  From 1944 RICHARD no longer a toddler or small boy but calm and articulate, a real schoolboy … Jennifer born 1941 and no Kathryn born until after the end of War …  my brother John Gordon born 1935, and little brother Colin born 1938 …

 

…  A Clacton-on-sea town with a quarter of its pre-war population 1942/1944 … empty roads all leading to the sea, beaches barbed wired off until 1944 when the War is going badly for HITLER … Good fellowship and camaraderie - Many men and women come out of retirement to fill jobs, and old men who fought in the Great War the 1^st World War spoke sadly that they had thought that carnage would end all Wars … We could talk with them, hear comments …

 

…  I could recall Sunday after Mass at my Gordon grandparents late 1930s, coffee, sherry, Harry with beer, and recalling the dead and the happiness of days before they died in THE GREAT WAR  :    There was also the TITANIC disaster … sometimes I had a nightmare I was sinking down and down to it … but this was usually after hearing other sadness’s - like the Great War and the TRENCHES … Two choir men had been in France  !    Many people knew someone who had been on THE TITANIC …  and not got off :  a Gordon woman did get off - rowed away … but she was only married-in.   Richard might hear of this … certainly RICHARD heard tales of valour from his Grandfather Potter who went out in The East Anglia lifeboats when young …

 

1945 August - Town of solemn people, us too, HYROSHEEMAH JAPAN … no one approved it … I have written how walking with Colonel ANDRE in the town that week it was full of white sea mists … as if in mourning … Auntie Esther very solemn and beautiful and still as a classical statue  …   The barbarism of that first ATOMIC bomb could not be accepted by human beings … Colonel ANDRE with 3 tiny boys in FRANCE accepts three a little older boys in Clacton … and me … HYROSHEEMAH presented to us all a world that might be soon going to demolish itself … NOW THAT WAR HAD SHOWN THAT IT COULD END the WORLD …

 

 

RICHARD born 1939 - female ancestors :   he is a great-grandson of TERESA CARROLL CLASSICIST born 1838 Dublin  

 

…her mother Teresa nee Murphy died at her birth :  the very well-to-doo family MURPHY of DUBLIN SHIPPING gave their grand-daughter a good education = she could go travelling with relatives and friends on the Family Murphy shipping lines and steamships   ( she becomes Mrs John Williams Superior Silversmith/inventor) …

 

RICHARD a grandson of Mary Helena nee Williams 

…  (Mrs George Ernest Gordon … Grandpa Gordon is one of the 6 sons (Frederick Henry/Arthur/Thomas/George/Walter/Edgar  ( & 2 daughters Edith & Alice)    of JOHN FREDERICK GORDON of Edinburgh & Greenwich & his second wife Matilda Kellow of Edinburgh   ( her Great-aunts kept the Post Office Warminster & raised her - there were still KELLOW family at Warminster in the 1980s )     Our grandmother Mary Helena born 1870 Sackville Street, trains as an expensive Milliner in Manchester for 8 years, she is a Catholic choirs singer, & rehearsed the OPERA Pelleas and Melisande  (Mary Garden rehearsed with English musicians)  to help her over her terrible grief at losing 5 children 13 years - 2 years in an unexpected 1904-5 Scarletina epidemic Highgate and London …

… Mary Helena is one of the five daughters of TERESA CARROLL WILLIAMS … CLASSICIST -   SHE STUDIES PLATO and GREEK HARMONY …

   

 

1945-1946  :   Georges-Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX Widower of Josette Clotis …  who leaves him two tiny boys …    & I ,  Greta Ransom his Ward,  take the boys,  who are the great-grandchildren of TERESA CARROLL Classicist  …  to suitable cinema  =  Tarzan   (the real one Johnny W )  , all sorts of Cowboy films, Laurel and Hardy … George Formby … even a FLASH GORDON …  (  no Hans Ruhmann films as I recall pre-war … he has banned himself by meeting Hitler … until the Father Brown series of the 1960s … )  

 

…  RICHARD does not learn music … and this is unusual in Clacton town & area - it is the intervention of the WAR …

 

…the musical teaching however is superb and the activities, and many professional musicians … composers visiting to Frinton-on-Sea -  At school we have MUSIC outside the British Empire …  Villa Lobos/Les Six/ as well as divine William Bird and Tallis and Vaughn Williams … and there is a newcomer young Ben Britain with his SEAS EDGES Opera PETER GRIMES 1944 …

 

…WAITS sing, as 18^th century,  about the villages at XMASTIDE  : Second-cousins to Humperdinck put on `Hansel & Gretel` … & by then Colonel ANDRE MALRAUX is a familiar figure again about the SEASHORES town ...   Grand daddy Potter forbids any publicity of ANDRE with ease :   he owns The Clacton & District newspaper and presumably can forbid Colchester Newspapers & Ipswich and others …perhaps they fear he will have LIFEBOAT dump them out at sea if they dare disobey  :    It is an ancient town   ( in Little Doomsday Book called CLACTUNA)  and a county of good manners and common sense  : 

 

…   In 1937 ANDRE says 1970  “…here I found the Gospels Acted Out,  Peter…  and I discovered what I wanted to do in life …we had come out of SPAIN and bloodshed … I talked to Mary Gordon evenings and afternoons about it … she had much experience of Ireland … I looked at the photograph albums …I have been able to tell much of what I saw in them … I heard that they were destroyed at the outbreak of WAR …”

 

RICHARD has a good habit of listening to good men - he will  learn much from his Grandfather Potter and his old friends … and from familiarity and hours with Colonel ANDRE who visits us every fortnight or three weeks at first … Uncle Harry Gordon 1945-1946 loans us cars, finds petrol, and Mr Armstrong Geographer races about Schools,  including the Oratory Suffolk,  taking ANDRE with him … Armstrong, Cambridge,  is a friend of Uncle Potter …  Armstrong briefly knew Lawrence of Arabia in the RAF …The connections of this SEAS EDGES society are mostly to people with good principals & common sense … Uncle Harry Gordon takes us out to places we visited with ANDRE and Josette 1937 … Dedham, Orford, Mistley Towers, Saxmundham …

 

This is part of the the setting, the ambiance, about us …RICHARD growing up amongst good fellowship & camaraderie  …

 

My father Army Captain Frederick John Ransom is expected back autumn 1945 - he was sent to Philippines & then Africa  (he speaks Japanese and fluently about 12 languages …  20 or more sufficiently to handle the great Philanthropy Estate of GROTE HOMES RANSOM `Joyous Venture` nations A - Z outside the British Empire … ) …

 

Meanwhile, since the early death of Granny Gordon 3^rd June 1944, Miss Auntie Winnie Gordon ex-ATS is to receive all communications …

 

Auntie Esther Gordon Potter, mother of Richard, is telling us 

… “ before the War I thought him,  young Fred Ransom,  very like a young TEUTONIC KNIGHT … always so courteous … but having to dash off for his Aunt who had property about the world … I think there was a Russian film, black and white, we all saw before the War … ”

 

1945 onwards  :      Miss Aunt Win said that she was in charge of much to do with the family because she was still unmarried … She got on well with ANDRE and Professor and Mrs WINNCLEMANN …she would say she was born before the others in November 1910 and therefore in charge … that her brother Arthur living at Woodford with his family , he born 1891 was retired …   ((( I think that she and Andre have the same birthday 3^rd November … Saint Malachie Day, he the Saint of Apprentices … an old Irish custom is to allow the Apprentices to play jokes on their employer on this day of the Saint … )))

 

(((  Arthur and Nellie nee Maxted Gordon from 1945 onwards :  Their only child Eileen Mary Gordon works at REUTERS Newsagency Fleet Street = she is employed there for 42 and a half years … she is speaking to Cousin Greta in 1988/1989 … I, 10 years younger,  hear from her much adult family history …  )))           

     

 

1939 - I am 6 years when RICHARD is baptized Clacton-on-Sea - His cake was a light textured sponge with green and yellow icing and a Swan, probably a Stork,  in white icing … War had just begun …  1939-1945 … 

 

 

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COUSIN RICHARD Neville POTTER - 1939-2011 AD  :  

 

Richard is THE FIRST CHILD and only son of his parents  marriage - 2^nd World WAR comes September 1939 & his father joins the British Army  - Richard the first two years will be raised by his mother and the Aunt to his father … she and her husband live in the countryside beyond Woking I think it is …  

 

Esther Mary nee Gordon last child of 16   ( = 8 grow beyond 13 years - a large family because of tragedy to 5 1904-1905 and misfortunes, accidents,  of late 19^th century early 20^th century medical knowledge …)   

 

Marries Frederick S. Potter only son of his parents - he has an older sister Miss Gladys whom we all like … 

 

((( … she will talk to WIDOWER Colonel Andre Malraux 1945 into the 1950s … they speak about books …Clacton town life …and deaths …Auntie Gladys Pottere lost her `young Man` in or after THE GREAT WAR … was it from War wounds ? …)))   

 

The marriage of Esther Gordon and Frederick Potter is at Saint Bridget Church, Marylebone October 1937 … Richard is to be my only boy cousin on our Mary Helena & George E. Gordon line …

 

…  Our sad Grandmother Mary Helena is widowed March 1937 …son Harry, me granddaughter, and Andre and Josette call and talk happily with her afternoons or early evenings … Winifred away with cousins at Manchester, Esther working with a Buyer at Selfridges, Uncle Potter still in training at BOOTS London, are busy with preparations for the wedding … they have found a small flat at Putney …

 

…((((  1930s a young solicitor to Boots has Esther and Fred attend his acting performances with a Wimbledon Amateur Theatre …during the Wartime he turns full time to acting - his name LEO GENN … See him in a film about NERO with Peter Ustinov … he is very `dishy` … I meet him but cannot recall him … in 1957 November he calls on Andre Malraux at the R.C. General de Gaulle Charity Mission and residence 50 Lancaster Gate Square … I am asked to come to the drawing room … he calls me `GREETAH`  ( the correct pronunciation of my Greenland name before 1950s )   and remarks `YOU HAVE GROWN` …  …  …   ))))  

  

 

After her wedding Esther young Mrs Potter  and friends took a bouquet to the Clacton grave of her father George Ernest Gordon in November 1937 …

 

 

1939 - September/October -  the new baby named RICHARD had his christening TEA … with a cake with yellow and white icing and a `stork` …   :    A small families gathering in the long narrow Walton Road house … Granny woke up to find herself here …a nurse taking care of her …It was discovered that Teresa her daughter organised this move so that her mother could easily take care of her three children at the big house AT THE END OF THE CLACTON REC … `Pearly`  112 Vista Road   : 

 

1939/1940 … The Clacton RAILWAY reported that TREASA GORDON R.  was off to London …`dressed as a Duchess as usual` to her Nobles having WAR time Parties with big `nosh-ups and slosh-ups` ( = food & strong liquor ! )   She was a known Black Shirt 1930s with OZ   (Sir Os Mosley) and we had to phone him urgently 1937 and ask he get her truncheon off her for she had it rolled in a newspaper and was hitting people … He was very obliging - she should have turned it in at the Depo … Both he and my father agreed  “ SHE WILL GET HERSELF BACK IN PRISON AGAIN … ”  

 

…  This is the Family PROBLEM known to Uncle Fred Potter and his Dad Lifeboat and town newspaper …  So when you heard dear Uncle Potter begin with   “ CHRIST Greetah … I have just heard from the Masonic the latest … Bloody Win did not tell me this … Julie did not know either !!!   Do not tell the women … they have fluff in their heads … … …  ”    This is matters the younger generation are not to know … RICHARD was instructed how to respond to her by the late 1940s … and NOT worry his mother Esther …

He was to REPORT to Dad … 

 

… 1939 October -  Clacton Hospital were angry over taking Mary Gordon out of her little home - the Gardener reported he was called to bury Sooty the black cat of Miss Winifred … and that there were piles of burned possessions in the back garden - he could report it was the Photo Albums of Mary and George and family … & that JIMMIE Jong James had been in the house and garden … It is known that this `little bit of vermin` has been a nuisance to the Gordon family since 1919 when he was insisting on HORSES for free from Cousins Murphy, Carroll, O`Brien … threatening them with `Treason Charges` … They are very well-to-doo and have 3 Baronetcies  (I have them in A Debrett 1953 & have put photo-copy out on my FACE BOOK & JIMDO Ancestry & True Tales site - this is all linked to TWITTER/MY SPACE/ and www.greta-ransom.com = colour code work … with RANSOM ANCESTRY  Part I & Part II still editing … Restoration of his genealogy Work done with others, including retired Heralds,  for his CENTENARY =  my young father Frederick John Ransom born November 1911 - killed March 1969 … 

 

1939 WAR begins September :    RICHARD is in his first days and weeks  - his parents will give up the London Putney flat  :

 

… During autumn 1939 Officer Ransom was away on and off on Army duties all over England - He, my father Frederick John Ransom,  had been in the British Army of Occupation Germany 1928-32 and had been asked to `stand by` for WAR since 1937 - he spoke German well  =  With his Army Duties he had looked after the family ESTATE Germany/Austria/Poland  Grote Homes Ransom Estate in 3 Parts worldwidefor his Aunt Margareth nee Ransom Mrs Thomas Immanuel GROTE   ( = the mother of `our dear TIGGY`  is of the Family of F. Immanuel KANT 18^th century philosopher  )  :  

 

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  Nota bene :    WARTIME -  and our  FAMILY CONNEXIONS  : 

…  1942 the Polish HUMANIST young Jan KARSKI came down to Clacton for a few hours to the Catholic Church and town Elders - he was impressed by the great Church    ( …   “please design something like something we see in Rome ”    said the two Widows who commissioned it 1921 & plonked down 20 thousand to get going with  !  It was complete for 29 thou & `young Pacelli` sent his old Italian friend to be Chief Priest …and a splendid pulpit came and an ancient Font …  ) 

 

…  1942 Wartime Clacton -  Granny Mary Gordon and I were called to the MASS and went to the TEA in Montfort Lodge the Priests House … she spoke with Jan KARSKI and she will write immediately to her Irish cousins MURPHY/O`BRIEN/Carroll and see if they can call at the VATICAN and speak with `young Pacelli` whom the families all know … I have a tea-engagement with him - a letter to Mary Gordon reads   “ he could not go out to tea that afternoon when her grand-daughter asked him, after their talk, but next time Greetah visits he will take her out to tea in Rome where there is a hurdy-gurdy that he thinks she will like …  ”   He is not yet Pope … there is an Irish-American cousin a Dominican lives IN at The Vatican … and Aunt Mag Ransom Grote has a grandson a Priest in Rome …there are no lack of connexions to what Julie calls THE VAT …  (there is a video/DVD of Jan KHARSKI telling of his Wartime journeys to try get help for Poland and alert the WORLD to the horrors going on in the WARSAW GHETTO … I advise family, Readers, see it … not the way he uses his hands to express his SOUL …

 

1943 Auntie Esther returns to the town … she rents the pretty house with the Pear tree outside the dining room French windows, Wellsly Road … HERE RICHARD is the MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE and takes his position seriously in this WARTIME … and Jennifer coming 3 years a doll … then suddenly getting tall … I now sleep in the double bed that Esther and I used that year 1944 after the death of Granny Mary Gordon … it’s a comfortable bed and the mattress bought for Kathryn later on … Uncle Potter said 1960s that for the price she paid  “ I COULD HAVE BOUGHT A NEW CAR … ”   

 

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1939 October - Great-Aunt Edith  nee Gordon  (widow Mrs Tadhunter)  came from London away from the bombing …She told her sister-in-law Mary Gordon to go to Manchester with her sisters Bessie and Annie who were closing up `Stella Maris` Granville Road & going to be with their sister Teresa Mrs Butler and the nephews and nieces - ( their sister JULIA Mrs Butler had died early 19-teens leaving 4 children, John,  Teresa/Terry, Winifred and `little Bessie` Butler … )   Edith returned in November to her house on Shooters Hill Greenwich, fetched by her great-nephew Donald Gordon who was in the Red Cross … This autumn 1939 was known as THE PHONEY WAR … serious bombing had not yet begun - but it was expected that HITLER and his forces might cross the Channel and enter Britain by the East and South coasts …Uncle Fred Potter will send Esther and baby RICHARD to his Aunt in the countryside …RICHARD A WARTIME BABY … the nation did not know what to expect that autumn …        

 

Granny Mary Gordon had not wanted to leave the little house `Crail`  Skelmersdale Road,  three doors from the Doctor,  where they came in 1930 and had in MAY the luncheon for their RUBY WEDDING - 40 years  :    I got the menu from Aunt Winnie and Auntie Esther 1944/45 …     I sent an Easter broadsheet montage of this to our families a few years ago - I can print it out into this Work - I recorded too the SUPPER after MIDNIGHT MASS 1943 given by Bessie and Annie - I was there !    Annie described it as `a SUPPER as we used to have after MIDNIGHT MASS when we lived on the big Farms in Ireland ` 

 

…  I am always very interested in FOOD of all AGES & the early 19^th century TOP OF THE POPS book  The INGOLDSBY LEGENDS that Great Aunt Annie reads me have FOOD in them - of interest in RATIONED Wartime Britain, of course … 

 

  …  The occasion of the May 1930 RUBY WEDDING luncheon was described for me by Uncle Harry too … Esther and Win gave them two little Japanese vases come to me - memories flood back when I look at them …

  

 

1939 - RICHARD and his christening TEA - there is a small families gathering in the Granny Gordon long narrow Walton Road house … this is the year of a second World War September 3^rd 1939 … My father had to dash about Britain and the Continent for the family Estate & as a soldier he must help with recruiting/stores/gunnery …  Essex-London-Salisbury Plains … Auntie Esther so beautiful …  the real beauty in the families,  is a nervous but practical mother …

 

 

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