Fanny (Fay) Marie Ash. (Nee F.M.Smith)

I will commence this story by including notes given to me by Fay’s only surviving sister, Christabel Wright (nee Smith), when she was aged 88. These notes give an insight to the Smith family as a whole and also mention Fay’s eventual husband, Harry Ash.

Aunt Chris thought of these notes as ‘a peep into a bygone age’ and her thoughts relate to her memories as one of the babies of the Smith family and as a growing but still young daughter in a post Victorian, patriarchal and non-conformist family in a small cathedral city [Peterborough] in eastern England. A rural fen area hardly yet touched by the motor car but already a partly developed centre with good railway connections to London, York and the industrial north-east. One of its main industrial companies was that of Peter Brotherhood Ltd, which during the early days of the century made torpedo parts for Louis Brennan ( see Harry Ash memoir ) and which produced munitions during the first world war.

Aunt Chris wrote:

“My Father was Frederick George Smith the eldest of 4 boys and 1 girl. He was an industrial Blacksmith in a large and growing commercial company. A strict Methodist and Lay preacher, a teetotaller and something of a martinet, in my memory. He never lifted a finger to help his wife in the day to day upbringing of the family or in the kitchen but regularly led his family to church each Sunday.

He married Frances Jane Osbourne, one of 11 children, who came from Norfolk. I was one of 6 sisters and 2 brothers, coming 5th girl in the family and between the 2 boys. I am the last living of the family, now aged 88. I was called Christabel Frances after Christabel Pankhurst the suffragette – a big believer in votes and ‘rights’ for women.

My parents were married on Easter Saturday April 22^nd 1897 at Bircham village in Norfolk and the farm hands formed a guard of honour over them with guns, as Grandad Osbourne was farm manager. My elder sister Fay, the first born in the family, was born on Feb. 24^th 1898. Dad was very proud of his children and my Mother was the loveliest person ever born: how she coped with the large family, all the washing, ironing, sewing, cooking etc and never a hands turn to help her, I’ll never know.

Fay was Dad’s favourite as she had a good voice and was tutored by a Mr Roberts, a top Peterborough musician. She was in a choir and went to several places singing; of course, we all looked up to her.

Fay left school in August 1912 and shortly after went to live and work at Warwick, at a boarding college where she was employed as a fairly junior kitchen maid. When the war started (1914-18) Fay, then aged 16, came home and started work at Brotherhoods, making munitions, and came home with more pay than dear old Dad. My younger sister Winnie went to work at the same place, as a crane driver, but her pay was poor in comparison. Fay’s money was very good; she used to meet her friends in town on a Saturday and have tea etc, but never once was known to take Mother out.

[It was while working at Brotherhoods that Fay met Harry Ash who also worked there, see the Harry Ash story for more information. Chrissie continues with more memories of the Smith and Ash families, which have a rightful place in this narrative. [V.A.]

When Harry came home from the war in 1919, he came straight to No. 337 Gladstone St., Peterborough to see his Fay. Five girls trooped downstairs in their nightdresses to greet him and the one he had rushed home to see was not there. Fay didn’t appear till a day or so afterwards. Harry’s family lived in Buckle St Peterborough at that time and I was friendly with Harry’s sister Violet [who was a girl guide] and his brothers Cecil and his daughter Leslie and the other brother Bert. Harry’s Father was crippled with rheumatism and shortly after, his Mother went off back to London with Leslie leaving the others behind. Violet was at camp with the Girl Guides and only had the clothes she stood up in, so Harry took her up to Mirrie [a younger sister] who worked at the Co-op shop to fit her out.

Sister Winnie brought Bob Hacker home at about the same time as Fay brought Harry home. I remember saying I liked Harry the best. I was about 10 at the time but when Fay and Harry got married on June 27^th 1920 I was aged 12 and sister Edna about 8 and we were bridesmaids in dresses of pale blue satin. Brother Lloyd was a page boy, aged 10, in a smart suit with a stiff collar and bow tie. Bob Hacker was Best Man.

Fay and Harry went over to the town of March about 18 miles away and lived in rooms with a Mrs Gay. During early 1921, Fay had a miscarriage and came home to Peterborough with Harry and they then got a house in St Paul’s road. Win was married to Bob shortly after this and initially shared the house with Fay who was soon expecting again.

Win and Bob then moved to Wisbech as they were travelling for a tailoring firm.

Fay gave birth to a son, Denis, on the 11^th Dec. 1921. He was a lovely baby and I can remember him cooing in his cot at the same time as Eva, then aged 19, saying “hark at that little love”. Evelyn , or Eva as we called her, died of rheumatic fever on July 1^st 1923.

This was the same summer that my brother Fred, at the age of 17 and half, decided to go to Australia. My dear Mother said when she got back with Dad from seeing him off on the boat, “ I shall never see him again”, and she didn’t. He married in Australia and that put him, in a sense, even further away. Brother Lloyd was ever so sad for ages about his big brother going.

So the smaller family jogged on. Dad had a nervous breakdown, then Mother was ill, so Edna and I went to live with Dad’s sister, Auntie Rose. We soon hurried home when Mother was fit again.

I got a job on leaving school in 1923 at 2 shillings a week rising to 3 after 6 months and then got a job in Leather Factors at 15 shilling a week. Edna was by then trained as a hairdresser and had her own shop in the village of Wittlesea. Dad however was made redundant and after going before a tribunal, they gave him 7 shillings and sixpence for him and Mum. He was told that his two working daughters could keep them. That was after bringing up 8 children. Dad was a strict teetotaller but his mate who drank and gambled was reinstated on full pay.

Arthur Wright and I were going to get married in 1932 but couldn’t do so because they needed my pay at home. As it turned out, when we decided to get married in 1933, Dad was at that time put back on full pay.

Fay was very highly strung and a funny experience remains in my mind. She came over to Peterborough and we decided to go to the swimming pool. After a good swim we couldn’t see Vernon and I said “where’s Vernon?” Fay was in a panic, jumped up, and rang the Pool Alarm Bell. The lifeguards got everyone out of the pool so they could see if anyone was lying on the bottom. Then a half naked little lad emerged from the dressing sheds and said, “who’s nearly drowned then Mum?” I think she could have pushed him back in the pool!!

Another time Fay thought Godfrey had come over to Peterborough on his own to go to the local fair. Fay came over and asked “where’s Godfrey?”. We hadn’t seen him nor had Win who lived along the road nor Mum in Gladstone St. So Fay rushed off to the Police Station. After contacting the March Police they called on Harry and found Godfrey asleep in bed.

I think in concluding, Fay and Harry had a clash of personalities, but they remained together for 66 years and had 3 lovely sons.

My Mother died in 1953 and my Father in 1956

Christabel Wright at age 88. Jan.1997”.

Vern Ash continues...

I was very happy to receive the narrative above from my dear Aunt Chris as it reveals a lot more about my Mother and the Smith family than I previously knew, excepting that I distinctly remember the incident at the swimming pool and some of the other facts about the family history. In this, I also knew a lot of the history from my Fathers story. Therefore, my personal recollections of my Mother commence from about the early 1930’s.

March is the town where my younger brother, Godfrey, and I were born in 1930 and 1926 respectively. March is situated in the county of Cambridgeshire in an area of the Fens known as the Isle of Ely. The Fens is a very flat area that had to be drained by canals etc in order for it to become a highly productive agricultural place. My Father was a Fitter and Turner on the Railway, which was the main industry at March. These times must have been very hard for my parents, with two children to rear whilst the world was moving rapidly towards the big recession of the early 1930’s. That year also saw the birth of my younger brother Godfrey.

As can be seen from early photographs, Fay was a very attractive person, and from what I could gather, was very much sought after at this time of her life. Her sisters have told me that she often came home from work or from going out with someone, with a gift. It appears that should she have a box of chocolates given to her, the sisters would have a hard battle trying to get her to share them around. Fay, apparently, wasn’t too keen to let the younger fry of the family share in her goodies!

I never actually saw my Grandfather working as a blacksmith but do remember him working very hard on his vegetable garden, no doubt trying to grow enough to feed his large family. The whole family appeared to be very close and very supportive of each other. This may have been the result of the death of one of the sisters (Evelyn, known as Eva) at age 19. I can remember my Grandfather relating that when they took the whole family out visiting or shopping they were continually counting heads to ensure they hadn’t lost one or two.

It appears that as a young girl Fay showed promise with her singing and had occasional tuition from Peterborough Cathedral organist Malcolm (later Sir Malcolm) Sargent. More about Fay’s singing ability later.

My Mother told me later in life that I was born in the house they lived in at the time, 158 Wisbech Rd, and that at about the time my younger brother Godfrey was born in 1930, they had moved to a house at 28 Elliot Rd. However, the house I most remember was situated at 158 Elm Rd, and was named ‘Allways’, after a house owned by the author Beverly Nichols. This was about 1933 or 34 and I later learned that it had been designed by my Father, so my parents must have been industrious enough to be able to have a house built at the end of the recession. Of course they would have been cheap to build by later standards, however I came to admire them for the hard work they put into making it a nice place to live. The house had a long room running the full length of the building, (which we called ‘the Big room’), kitchen and laundry downstairs. Then upstairs there were 3 bedrooms and a large bathroom with an internal toilet, almost unheard of in rural England at that time, there was also an outside toilet. My Father added to the house, built a nice enclosed lawn complete with fishpond, had a large area for vegetables etc, then built a workshop and garage and then added a swing along one of the paths.

My Mother was quite religious and took us to Sunday School on a very regular basis. The favoured church at that time was the Congregational, after apparently switching from the Methodist since she couldn’t get on with the Minister there. She got on much better with Rev. Perry at the Congregational Church and was soon involved with the choir and the March Choral Society as a soloist in the annual outpourings of Messiah, Elijah and so on. The early training and exposure to the big occasion gave her confidence in the 1950’s to take the big G & S contralto leads including ‘Katisha’ in the Mikado and the ‘Duchess’ in the Goldoliers. She continued singing at competition level right up to her late 70’s. She won awards in eisteddfods and sang in the Messiah in Peterborough cathedral. It was a remarkably expressive voice that retained its freshness into her old age.

When all the men went off to war in the early 1940’s, Fay saw a chance to forge a second career, taking charge of a ‘book’ of clients on behalf of the Refuge Insurance Co. The very idea of visiting about 200 clients a week, on her bicycle, to pick up a small premium was right up her street. By the late 40’s when the men returned from the war another opportunity stared Fay in the face, that of Corsetiere. The wide clientel on the Refuge books was too much to pass up and she continued with this work right up until the end of 1963 when they were to come out to Australia.

My elder brother had joined the Fleet Air Arm and in 1943 I volunteered for the Royal Navy. My Mother was horrified, she didn’t even want one son in the armed forces, let alone two! I took my discharge from the navy in Sydney Australia towards the end of 1946 without returning to England, so any further actual contact with Fay was delayed until my parents came out to Australia in December 1963. I’m sure that my decision to remain in Australia was a great disappointment to her, but she had no hesitation in telling me at the time to go ahead if that was what I wanted to do. She knew that I had met a lovely girl in Sydney with the intention of marriage at some time later.

We kept in touch all this time mainly through the literary efforts of my wife Valda, as I was not a very good correspondent. Probably just lazy!

We knew that from time to time Fay changed her church affiliation, at one time even becoming involved with the Quakers. She also became very active in the Peace Movement; this was as a result of me sending her some photo’s of atom bombed Nagasaki that I had taken when my ship visited there just after peace was declared in 1945.

My parents came out to Australia on the ship S.S. Iberia in December 1963 and they stayed with us for almost 12 months. This was of course the first time they had met Valda and our three children. I well remember going to Sydney (from the city of Orange) to meet the ship in at the overseas terminal at Circular Quay, and as the ship was inched in to the wharf we spotted Fay waving to us like mad but actually standing on the top of the guardrail with three men hanging on to her. I thought I might have to dive into the harbour to rescue her at any time. At this time she was almost 66 and was very excited about seeing me again and all the rest of the family for the first time.

Having got everyone back to Orange and settled in, it didn’t take Fay too long to find herself a church and be accepted in their choir. On one occasion the Sydney Symphony Orchestra came to the area and on this particular night they were performing at a small town about 40 Km away. She decided to go there on the train and when I pointed out that there were no trains to get back on, she responded by saying that she would get back somehow ! Her attitude was ‘where there is a will, there will be a way’. It turned out that when she got to the town in the middle afternoon, she found that she didn’t have enough money with her to buy a cup of coffee or get home in any case. Not worried by this she went to the local police station and the kindly officer there lent her some money!! Later on at the concert, she found one person in the audience that was driving back to Orange after the performance and he brought her home! !

Following her visit to Australia, I went to England for three months in 1974 and both my wife and I went again in 1979. On these occasions, my parents were living in the village area of Shelford on the outskirts of Cambridge. During our 1979 visit we went to the continent, including Scandinavia, and rang them to let them know where we were and to enquire how they were. Fay told us that she wasn’t well and had been to a Doctor who had put her on a course of antibiotics but that as soon as she started feeling a little better she had stopped taking them. We told that she should complete the course and take all the tablets as directed. When we got back to Cambridge she told us that following our phone call she had gone back to the doctor to complain that she wasn’t getting better fast enough. When I asked her how she got to the doctor whose practice was in Cambridge itself about 5 miles away, she astounded us by saying that she had ridden her push bike both ways. She was then aged 81!!!

Another little story I must relate concerns her desire to visit us again in Australia. So at the age of 82 she applied to Addenbrooks Hospital in Cambridge for a job as a nurses aide. She got the job by putting her age back, indeed so far back that she had to pay income tax again!! She wrote and told us about a ‘poor old chap’ at the hospital who was in his 70’s and had no one to visit him. She felt so sorry for him that she made some nice cakes and took them in for him, only finding out later that he was suffering from diabetes and consequently was supposed to be on a very strict diet. Be that as it may, she achieved her aim and at the age of 84 she flew out to Sydney on her own as my Father didn’t wish to come.

My wife and I booked her into a hotel in the city, where I was doing a work related course, thinking that she would be very tired and suffering from jet lag. When I went back later in the day it was to find that she hadn’t gone to bed as expected but had been going around some banks trying to find out how she could replace her travellers cheques which she had misplaced. She had neglected to tell me about that problem when I picked her up at the airport, so had gone out and fixed it all up herself.

Her capacity to maintain a home and feed herself and her husband started to wane during the next two years and finally they had to move in with my elder brother Denis and his wife Margaret who lived in the city of Hove on the south coast. That was where we next saw them when we visited England again in 1985. It became evident during our five months stay that Fay was deteriorating mentally and physically at an alarming rate so it was no great surprise on getting a phone call from my brother Denis, but to our surprise it was to advise us of the death of our Father. Shortly after this it became necessary to have Fay booked into a nursing home where she finally passed away at the age of 88, on December 14th 1986. While it could be said that she lived mainly in a world of her own, she was also a very loving person with an indomitable spirit.