Family words

I have been in communication with a delightful lady called Rosemary Roughter, an historian who is writing a piece about Louisa Coade, who was my great grandfather Howard's sister, known to me in family tales as "Aunt Louie". An enquiry by her regarding a novel written by Ganna's sister Rhona has lead me to reading Rhona's books, which I'm ashamed to say I have not done so far.

Rhona Katherine Rowe as a young girl

Rhona was the youngest of the three Rowe girls, and took after her mother Alice rather than Howard. This meant that she and her daughter Cecil were untainted by the genetic condition Osteogenesis Imperfecta, much to their benefit. She was, according to family tales, a very charming young woman who enjoyed the good things in life. You can see her here, in her youth, looking very sweet and pensive. She married Herbert Guy Dunning who ran a garage in St Leonards called Dunning Marriott and Smith. She and Guy lived a more extravagant lifestyle than her two sisters, and Guy was much disapproved of by Ganna and Mum, being rather too "hail fellow well met" in their view; prone to borrowing money and not paying it back. This was borne out after he died and Cecil took over his affairs; the business was deeply in debt. I remember her saying "I always wondered whether Daddy had another family somewhere - otherwise where on earth did all that money go?"

Rhona and Ethel published their novels at very similar times and I always pondered how much they were in competition  with one another. Rhona's first novel Stephen Sherrin came out in 1932, and the central character is a tender portrait of their father.

Stephen is a doctor in a small town in England, with a deep concern for the poverty in which some of his patients are living. His wife is dead and his two daughters, from whom he feels estranged, live with their smart young friends in London. The story moves between Stephen and his daughters, contrasting the rather shallow lives of these two London girls, all cleverness and appearances, with his own quiet but deeply felt devotion to helping those around him and appreciating their more human values.  It also focuses on a friend of Stephen's, an old man who is dying, and who is responsible for three young grandchildren whose adventures punctuate the comings and goings of the adults. Her writing is more sensual than her sister's; the books contain long passages describing the natural surroundings, often elaborately personified, which reflect and echo the thoughts of the characters. The novel also portrays a completely unconscious snobbery, which chimes with family comments about Rhona. There is an assumption of the superiority of the central characters and the ignorance and superstition amongst those poor with whom they come into contact. The house servant who cares for the old dying man is described as being "dirty shiftless and lazy, but her heart was in the right place", yet this woman does everything for the old man for no pay, just her board and lodging. Modern readers would balk at this, and also perhaps at the lack of action and excitement. I thought it a beautiful read; her attention to the motivations and feelings of the characters I found very engaging, and Stephen's heartfelt concern for his patients and his friends drew me to him as a character. At the end of the novel he makes the momentous decision to pass his practice over to his young assistant and fulfil a long held desire to travel "before it was too late. Before he got old and bitter". he takes himself off to Tilbury docks to "walk up the gangway to that great, magnificent boat and be carried smoothly over the seas - to what?" I wonder if Rhona here was releasing her lost father, who died when she was just fourteen, into a better place of freedom and fulfilment.

This is a short novel, I read it in the space of a day, and enjoyed it a great deal. Perhaps that reflects my sense of entering a very familiar space with a familiar cast of characters and attitudes - a family space in fact. I have since read her next publication, The Spring Begins; very risqué indeed for its time, but more of that later!