Spring indeed Begins

If you read here at all you will know that I take great pride in the fact that both my grandmother (Ganna) and her sister (Rhona) had novels published, first in the 30s and then, after the war, in the 50s. I have written about them before here and here.

The British Library have marvelous initiative where they are republishing novels by "forgotten" women writers. To be republished the novels have to illuminate women's lives at the time they were written, and have at least one female protagonist.  There are all sorts of wonderful names that I remember from my early days working in the library, and from my grandmother's shelves: writers like Norah Lofts and Elizabeth Von Arnim. It is a "curated collection of novels and anthologies by female authors who enjoyed broad, popular appeal in their day". I am thrilled to say that my great Aunt Rhona, Ganna's younger sister, has joined this throng of voices. In April I received a package of 6 paperback volumes of The Spring Begins, which was republished that month. The three main female characters are all, in some way, moving towards their own sexual experiences, but from very different perspectives. It is the novel about which Rhona's rather staid Methodist Aunt said "Rhona is very clever, but I hope her next book will be different." I'm not sure she felt that awakening sexuality was a "nice" subject for her niece to be writing about! 

I have here to give a shout out to the rather wonderful Simon Thomas, keeper of the equally wonderful blog StuckinaBook (and what better place to find oneself stuck?) who has been the chief mover and shaker in getting Rhona's book republished. He declared it his "favourite read of this year", having come across its virtues being extolled on Furrowed Middlebrow's also rather wonderful blog. Without Simon and Scott's enthusiasm The Spring Begins might never have seen the light of day again. Thank you both gentlemen for your praise of my Great Aunt's book, it has given me untold pleasure.

I drafted a "pen portrait" of Rhona for the British Library to draw on for the very brief bio on the novel itself. I include it here for any curious readers who might want to know more about who Rhona was.

Rhona Catherine Dunning, born in June 1900 in Arklow, County Wicklow, was the youngest of three daughters of Howard Colman Rowe and his wife Alice (nee Atkins). Her father, a practicing pharmacist in the town, was politically active, a supporter of women’s rights and also a writer, having worked for Kier Hardie, writing articles for the Labour Leader newspaper when living in England. Alice was a very talented amateur painter and their daughters, Connie, Ethel and Rhona, lived quite a free life for girls of the time, roaming the town and countryside or wandering down to the beach, often accompanied by the family’s maid. Rhona was the most robust of the three girls, her sisters both being affected by brittle bone disease, inherited from their father. This may have given her more of a sense of her own strong physicality, which permeates her writing.

A charming child listening to the sea on the shores of Arklow

The family grew up Protestants in a Catholic country. My grandmother Ethel (Rhona’s sister, and  also a published author) remembered gangs of little boys chasing them down the Arklow roads shouting “proddy woddys”. Their maternal grandfather was a Methodist Minister, and in later life all three sisters became involved with, and devoted to Christian Science. It formed a significant element of their life as a family. Letters between the sisters, and my mother’s diaries all reflect a life lived with varying levels of spirituality. I think Rhona was considered the frivolous one by her sisters, which paints a picture of a fun person, but Christian Science certainly played some part in her life, as I recall copies of Science and Health in her daughter Cecil’s house when I cleared it after her death.

A portrait photograph of a sweet faced young woman

Howard died in 1914 of heart failure, aged just 44.  Losing their father affected all three girls deeply and is reflected in Rhona’s novel Whatever the Heart Appoints. The central character, a girl of eleven whose father has been absent as a prisoner of war, declares with great joy

“I have been without my father for years and years … tonight we are going to meet again and I shall know everything about him“

Alice tried for several years to keep the business afloat, but this wasn’t possible for a widowed woman in conservative Ireland. It was the time of the Troubles and, on finding a Sinn Feiner with a drawn gun hiding out in their home one night, Alice decided she and her girls needed to move to a safer place. A map of England was brought out and, with her eyes closed, Ethel, the middle sister, popped a pin into the map on St Leonards on Sea, Sussex. Somehow a property was located and they moved there in 1921, along with Alice’s sister Annie. The girls were then 25, 23 and 21. 

Looking rather exotic in her velvet dress in the garden

All the girls had to find some kind of employment as there was no money and Alice rented rooms out to “paying guests”. While her elder sisters were musical, Rhona found work as a secretary in a local garage, Dunning Marriott and Smith. Love soon blossomed between Rhona and Guy, the son of the garage owner. They married in 1923 and had one daughter, Rhona Cecil Grace, known always as Cecil, in 1925. Rhona and Guy had a slightly precarious existence, moving several times in Sussex and Hampshire, due to problems with Guy’s businesses, and money was often short. Rhona wrote novels and numerous short stories for women’s magazines under various pseudonyms – I recall Cecil saying that sometimes all the stories in a particular edition had been written by Rhona under different names. Her writing both supplemented the family income and provided her with an outlet for her creativity. She would write every morning for several hours, and then go for a walk on the seafront with Cecil in the afternoon to plot the next sections of the story. She was also very fond of imagining the lives of people around her when, for example, taking afternoon tea in a café. She and Cecil would speculate on who their fellow tea takers were and what their lives might be like. Rhona published five novels in all, from 1932 to 1952, one less than her sister Ethel, who was also publishing during the same time period. I would image there was some rivalry between the two. 

Rhona was a lively and flirtatious character, rather glamorous, deeply loved by and loving of her husband, enjoying company and outings in the family car, great fun and described by her niece as easy going with a sweet intense voice. My one clear memory of her is when, while staying with her and Cecil as a child, I found her standing in the bedroom wafting her arms and hands to and fro. Mystified, I asked what she was doing. “drying my nail varnish darling” was the reply, which speaks of her sense of glamour. 

With her beloved husband Guy

Guy died in 1964 and Rhona moved to live with her daughter Cecil in Henley on Thames, where Cecil was working as secretary for the Brunner family of Grey’s Court, and later custodian of the house when it was transferred to the National Trust. They lived in “the Keep” part of a group of associated buildings just behind the main house. 

in later years, chic as ever, with Cecil

Sadly, over time Rhona developed dementia as a result of a bang to her head, becoming increasingly confused. Eventually, after her mother wandered out to where Cecil was showing people round Grey's Court and invited everyone to tea, Cecil had to take the difficult decision to move her into a care home where she died in 1975. 

So that is my Great Aunt Rhona, novelist and warm and glamourous soul, now republished for a fresh generation of women. Cecil would have been immensely proud to know that one of "Mummy's" books had found its way into the world again. My mother, on the other hand, would have felt that her "Mummy's" books should also be republished: in fact, should have been republished first. That sisterly rivalry most certainly extended to their daughters!

I have, of course, passed one of Ganna's novels, For Flute and Piccolo, on to the relevant people to see if the British Library might consider republishing her story of women's lives and concerns. I give a brief outline of this here, if you would like to know more. You can image how over the moon I would be if they said "yes"!

Family words about fathers

Howard Colman Rowe

I have read through all of Auntie Rhona's books now and have gone back to Ganna's for comparison. In both of their writings there is either a recreation of, or yearning for their lost father Howard.

Rhona would have been about thirteen when Howard died in 1914. In her books, as in Ganna's, the father figure is sometimes a man of gentle thoughtfulness, occasionally so much so that he is not entirely in the present moment. Rhona's novels also always have a small family of children, either at the heart of the story or firmly embedded in it. In one of them, Whatever the Heart Appoints, Candida Cornell has been waiting for her father to return from the war, during which he was badly injured, so delaying even further his return. In one passage, towards the end of the book, we see her inner musings and deep hope. That plaintive cry, "I have been without my father for years and years" wrung my heart with its poignancy

In Ganna's novels the father is never absent. often the family is entire and secure and there is deep and abiding love at its heart. Here, at the very beginning of Look on the Fields, Anny is travelling from London to Abbot's Ford, a loose rendition of Arklow where the girls grew up. Anny's father and mother have both died and she is coming to her Aunt and Uncle to live with them. She arrives at the station and her Uncle Jonathan (Howard) is so deep in his own thoughts that the travellers gradually clear until Anny is all alone with her suitcase, wondering at the waiting man further down the platform. Again, that gentle voice and ageless smile speaks so deeply of her love for the man who died when she was about 15.

My little Mum, although she never lost her father, felt all her life that she was a disappointment to him, that he hadn't really wanted a child at all, and that she was in the way.  Here they are when she was around 8 or 9 I'd guess, looking very happy together at the beach hut in St Leonards, which was visited every summer.

As I am transcribing her diaries, I find that, for the most part, mentions of Daddy involve playing a game with him, getting him a meal, or being bought a gift by him for a birthday or Christmas, happy things. However, this little entry below, when she was 13, tells its own story of her need for his love and attention.

Daddy being cross was obviously a deep sadness for her.

And finally me - I too lost my "Daddy" young, he died the year I turned eight. I still, as a woman nearing the end of her 6th decade, find myself deeply moved by mentions of lost or dead fathers. It rings a chord in my heart. The film The Railway Children was released in 1970, two years after he died; our neighbours a family with four children, took me to see it. I have never forgotten my struggle to keep my tears inside as the father returns and Jenny Agutter, running through the clearing steam at the station, cries, her voice jubilant, "My Daddy, my Daddy!".

In my teens I took to writing poetry, mostly poor, but heartfelt. The words below were initially written aged 17 after I had again been moved to tears by something which touched on lost fathers. The words were revisited later as I turned 44, the age he was when he died.

For Dad

I often used to think of you Dad, when you'd gone,

And when I had to tell folk you were dead,

They'd start or look ashamed, apologise, and some

Would turn and laugh it off, one crass boy said

"Not dead I’ll bet, I ‘spect, he's just on holiday

He won't be long away"

I cried myself to sleep at night for many years,

And in my childhood’s sorrow called your name,

I reached my teens, but time still hadn't dried my tears,

I stood and cried for you again that day.

My loss still caught my heart, its tender edges frayed

You were so far away 

And now I’ve grown beyond the days that life gave you

Can see your loss, these years of mine you missed.

My darling girl, your unknown grandchild, sweet and true,

You never met her, never felt her kiss.

You're gone, but still it’s hard to keep those tears at bay,

You’ve been so long away

Daddy with his little "Dumpy"

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!