Alison's Memoir, page 4
it was trying, working all day and especially when 'Carr’, the owner's son, was seen to be going on the river with a girl friend. This did not last long as 'Carr’ was showing me a lot of attention and my mother did not approve. My Uncle Corry[1] was consulted and I was sent to Duncan House, a private school in Clifton, Bristol. Miss Wilson, the Head Mistress, had agreed to have me, when urged by my Uncle Corry, to teach the younger children. (In order to?). Miss Wilson was a kind and wonderful woman and my years there were happy.
While I was living in Cambridge I met Arthur Grant Morris, a young man [four years older than her] who was training to be a priest. We saw a lot of each other and he fell in love with me. He fascinated me partly because he was so different from my conventional family and because he was an excellent violin player. He asked me to marry him and I thought it was a way to escape from my impoverished family. My mother did not approve but she never liked my friends so this did not dismay me. I don't think his parents welcomed the idea of his marrying, but like many rich people they did not want their sons marrying girls with no money. His mother was American and always nice to me. So on 17th January 1924 we were married in Toft, and we went to live in Edwinstowe in Nottinghamshire [where Arthur had been appointed Curate]. The first years produced three sons and I was not unhappy; having money - not that Arthur was free with it - made life unstressful. But more and more I realised that I was not happy, and I had affairs with other men. Cecil Day Lewis wrote a beautiful sonnet and then flew off with other women. Then I fell completely in love with Richard Marriott[2], a love that brought me complete happiness in every way and which lasted on my side for ever. We had a cottage in the Chilton Hills at Checkendon and a flat in Devonshire Street, London. Arthur refused to divorce me but he did not object to us being together and welcomed Richard to East Quantoxhead in Somerset where Arthur had by now a living. My three sons were at boarding school, Anthony at Eton, Michael at Gordonstoun and Adrian at prep school.
Then the war broke out and Arthur's American aunt, his mother's[3] sister [4], invited me and the boys to go to America - many children went to Canada and America and were urged to do so by the government. Richard [Marriott] was a linguist and worked for the BBC and when war came he was sent to Evesham to be head of a branch of the BBC where 600 foreigners listened to and translated foreign broadcasts from the world. Parting was a terrible sorrow and as I got into the taxi he put on dark glasses to hide his tears. Arthur came to Glasgow with us and we spent the night in the basement of the hotel while bombs dropped on the city.
[ Ends here, alas! ]
4
[1] This was Alison’s father’s elder brother, Rev. Henry Lawe Corry Vully de Candole, known as Corry, who was Dean of Bristol from 1926 until his death in 1933.
[2] “Isa Benzie did recruit a second Assistant, in 1935. This was Richard Marriott, then 24 years old. His personal file shows how Benzie kick-started what would be an impressive BBC career. Having spotted his potential, she nurtured him and put him forward to be her replacement when she left the BBC on her marriage in 1938." from here.
[3] Alison's mother-in-law was Lucy Augsburg White (1863–1943) who had married Arthur’s father Percy Copeland Morris (1861–1927) on 27 Apr 1886.
[4] Alison's mother-in-law had two sisters, Margaret May Whitlock White (1866–1941, never married)) and Violetta Susan Elizabeth White (1875–1949) who had married John Ross Delafield (1874–1964) on 14 June 1904
That is where Alison's own Memoir ends.
We have added to it in the following pages from memories of conversations with her by various people.
If you have anything to add, please contact us.
