THINGS TO REMEMBER BEFORE I FORGET

My Grandmother – Lucy Vipond (Adamthwaite) Mawson                         

I will refer to my maternal Grandmother as Lucy to avoid confusion, although my brother and I called her Nanna. My great Grandmother Leeanna was known as Grandma. 

Lucy was petite, only 5 feet 2 inches tall, with very small hands and feet, In fact her shoes were only size “2”, which meant that the only shoes she could ever find were salesmen’s samples. She was a very warm loving person with unusual blue grey eyes. Always well dressed she never went out with out a hat. She had fine white hair; “thin and miserable” was how she described it, and the bane of her life. As it was as straight as a poker, she slept with the sides twiddled up in rags.

Although not strictly a Cockney, [she wasn’t born within the peal of Bow bells] she had the wit and humour for which they are renowned, no one ever got the better of her verbally.  She would often play the piano, was an avid reader she loved the cinema and gardening. Her favourite flowers were fuchsias and roses. In the summer there was always a large hanging basket in the porch of our house full of red geraniums white alyssum and blue lobelia. Lucy was forever rushing outside with a bucket and spade when the coalman’s horse and cart passed hoping to collect any steaming piles. Her other passions were Kenneth McKellar, particularly singing My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose, Lord Byron’s poetry and the Band of The Royal Marines playing Sunset.

the family home in Earl's Court Square

Lucy

Lucy was born in July 1886 at Stockwell London, the eldest of John Alexander and Leeanna Adamthwaites’ four children.  Her brother, John Allen (known as Laddie) followed in 1887, a sister Florence in 1891, (who died age 5 months), and a second brother Lionel Willie was born in 1894.  Lucy loved reading which sometimes annoyed her mother, so she often hid behind long drapes on a window seat so her mother could not find her. At the time of the 1901 census, the family lived at 10 Earls Court Square (see left) not far from Kensington Gardens and the Round Pond where Lucy and her brothers often played.  At this time, her father John Alexander's occupation was described as 'musician and caretaker'.

Lucy attended St Mary Abbotts Higher Grade School For Girls in Kensington, one of her achievements  was a prize she won for French when she was 14 in 1900. [The prize was a French Dictionary published in 1899 which I have complete with the citation] She was also an accomplished pianist; she had the honour of playing for her school at the Albert Hall. I imagine she inherited her musical talents from her father, who was a military bandsman.

In her teens, Lucy suffered very badly at the hands of a dentist. Through infection caused by the lack of hygiene in his surgery she ended up in hospital and had to have a piece of her jaw removed. This left her with a facial scar and a great fear of doctors and hospitals that lasted all her life.

Some time after 1901, the family moved to Litlington, near Royston in Hertfordshire, where they ran a pub called The Royal Oak.  This was where, in 1907 her brother John Allen died of TB, he was just 20 years old.

'Laddie' (1887-1907)

Lionel Willie (1894-1979)

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