AS I REMEMBER
Frances M Deacon 1975

FOREWORD

Back in 1990, out of the blue, Frances Deacon got in touch with John Lane (formerly Ramsbottom), who lived near her in Western Australia and had published elements of his life story in Fairbridge Kid – starting with being a Barnado's child in a Gloucestershire household about 1923-31. He was sent to Australia after that. For just one year in her childhood she lived in the same valley – indeed, next-door to where John was just four years later – and remembered it with equal affection. Her family lived in our house, now called Honeyhill. John showed me her letter while revisiting his beloved Bismore, so I got in touch with her and we enjoyed a penfriendship until her death.

She too had written her life story – but did not find a publisher. She gave me permission to use any of her material; and it happens that what she wrote about Edwardian Cheltenham, schooldays, life during the First World War, trips to and from Australia and working and marrying there, all have the aura of remote history for us that is more fascinating than her later experiences, varied though they were. Early 20thcentury history is very topical at the moment. She seems to have had a lively mind from an early age, and almost total recall, so I have not edited out the rambling minutiae but am making this warts-and-all version available to anyone who is interested, having previously used extracts from her decade-long correspondence with me in my book What I Know About Bismore.

I hugely admire the accuracy of the forgotten typist who originally prepared Frances's memoir for publication. Tackling the same job (at long intervals) myself, I ached to edit it but largely resisted the temptation. About 15 years ago I heard of Frances's death in a telephone call from her nephew in Australia, and am eternally ashamed that I mislaid his telephone number and could not stay in touch. I hope, if he or other members of the family ever come across this publicity that I am giving to Frances's words, that it is understood that I am doing what she asked me to do (both directly, and in letters). We talked on the telephone from time to time and I was amazed at her continued zest for life in extreme old age. Just recently, after preparing this text, I noticed that her autobiographic work was deposited with the university library in Fremantle, but as far as I know it has not been published in any other way.

Muriel Brooks
October 2016

AUTHOR'S DEDICATION

To the memory of three men in my life: my father, my brother Geoffrey and my husband Edgar.

CONTENTS

Introduction: why I am writing this book!

Preface

PART 1. TRAILING CLOUDS OF GLORY

PART 2. SHADES OF THE PRISON HOUSE

Introduction. Why I am writing this book!

I am what I understand is known as a sweet elderly lady of over 70 years of age. I may even be called charming, pathetic, or an old bore. I may be a 'with it' female, even a women's 'lib' – except that I refuse to throw my bra away. But nevertheless I am elderly in years. I live in the very beautiful district of the Darling Range in Western Australia known as Kalamunda. Some 15 miles west of Perth, Kalamunda is 1000ft above sea level overlooking the Swan River basin, and Perth, with the Indian Ocean on the western horizon. My husband used to say the 'City of Lights' was like Vanity Fair lying sparkling and twinkling at our feet. The advances made in every branch of science and the swift changing pattern of life in these 70 years is so terrific and almost unbelievable that it is a miracle that I am sane. If I am! When I add to this the adventurous life I have lived in two countries, experiencing two world wars – and before I was 14 years old I had been to 14 different schools in two countries, four of them visited twice, making 18 changes... As well as two trips to Western Australia, I have migrated three times. The first was in 1912 when I stayed 18 months; the second in 1924 for 10 years when, before marrying a farmer in the northern wheatbelt (when that was just opening up), I was teaching near Brookton, then worked with Sister Kate at Parkerville Children's Home. Between 1934 and 1962 I travelled extensively in England, finally returning to WA on 1 January 1963. My husband died in March 1969, after 40 years of wonderful companionship in marriage. As I can remember from the age of two and a half in the Edwardian life in Cheltenham Spa, England, I feel my memories may be of interest across the generation gap. That is the one called by me 'before and after nylon and plastics'. The other real gap, the behaviour and understanding gap, has always been with us. Only sometimes, as after the 1914 war, it was not openly discussed. Everyone tried to pretend it wasn't there. And, like the immorality and hypocrisy of the Victorian age, it was swept behind the screen of respectability. I was a flapper (my nephew, young enough to be my great nephew, tells me he doesn't know what a flapper was, and advises me to have a glossary) [I omitted it. MB] in the early 20s: a subdued, retarded schoolgirl flapper, but nevertheless I had the same mental troubles of the 'oldies' not understanding, and often not trying to understand. Today I find that I have no trouble with that gap, perhaps because I am old enough to be a great-grandparent and I listen; and I listen with an open mind trying to see life from the other's angle. And I have not forgotten my youth. Sometimes I have the feeling today that grandparents are not ready to be grandparents. They can't be bothered to listen, or try to remember their youth, because they are so busy trying to still live the excitement of their prime in the 1939 war. They are not really grown up! Only don't tell them I said so!

Preface

Britain, in the year I was born, 1906, had hardly recovered from the Industrial Revolution, and settled down to its new classes, and intended to stay that way for years. Or so everyone hoped. In spite of the law forbidding children under 12 years old being employed, and until that age being forced to go to school, there was still plenty of cheap labour. If people were too old or ill, they went into the workhouse. Cheltenham, in the Edwardian days, was like India in Clive's day, and its apparently easy, comfortable and ideal life was only a faint veneer, and underneath was often great frustration and unhappiness. And, like an interesting quaint book, it is good to know that when you close the book it is the end.

[At this point Frances quoted 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood' by William Wordsworth – which I have decided to leave out of this version. MB]

Back to Top