Family Of Four: 57 - Epilogue
Raymond Prior provides an epilogue to his aunt Mrs Vivien Hirst's vivid account of her childhood days.
Mrs Hirst, who died some years ago, is remembered by her family and friends as a lady who brought happiness to those she encountered.
Now, thanks to Raymond's efforts in gathering her memories into a book, she has posthumously brought happiness to people around the world.
To read her book from the beginning please click on Family Of Four in the menu on this page.
Many would-be authors suffer the disappointment of rejection by publishers, and this sadly was Vivien's fate when she submitted her manuscript to several in the 1960s. The events she tells in it entertained me as she told them to me in my childhood and I enjoyed helping her to set them down in a permanent record. So I shared very much in her disappointment and now that she has died I am having the book published in her memory.
"The unknown future" of the ending has now become the past and it would not be appropriate to relate Vivien's adult life in any detail. Obviously she has a very special place in the affections of Patricia, Vivien (Bobbin) and myself as our aunt who, though single herself, represented family values and associations.
The pages of "Family of Four" bring out over and over again the love and admiration which Vivien felt for her father and the closeness she felt to her younger brother Bob. So the sudden and early deaths of both of them must have left an impact on Vivien: however, this and other reverses did not prevent her from being remembered as a person who brought happiness.
In August 1925 the Hirst family was already sad since Uncle Jack, who lived next door to The Hollies, was dying of cancer. Will, now 63, had already played a round of golf when to his delight Bobby arrived at the Club: Bobby had been away on a visit and was due shortly to return to Eastbourne College as Head Boy. With his usual enthusiasm, Will insisted on playing nine holes with Bobby and after that would not be deterred from continuing with the round. Will's sudden death from a heart attack on a fairway left the family bereft as can be imagined.
In 1941, when Rex and Bob were both serving in the Army, it was again the elder brother who appeared at risk, on his way to the War in the Desert and at the mercy of U-boats etc. So when a policeman arrived outside Flo and Vivien's home on a Saturday evening with "bad news", naturally one of them exclaimed "Oh! has he been torpedoed?" The poor policeman no doubt felt his difficult task now even worse, as he replied "No, this is a land accident". So it was Bob who had gone, in an accident on manoeuvres in Lincolnshire.
Vivien had many constructive interests and two may be mentioned here. Either side of the Second World War, she was first correspondence, then membership secretary of the Huddersfield Women's Luncheon Club for good spells, and in 1967 she became President of that Club. Particularly as President, but also at other times, she would thus meet many well-known people who came to speak at the fortnightly lunches.
Vivien's friendship with Rene, mentioned at the end of "Family of Four", led to the longest journey of her life, to South Africa in 1959. Rene and her husband were then living out there and Vivien paid an extended visit. On her return Vivien composed a speech about her visit (South Africa was especially in the news at that time) and this she gave to several organisations in Huddersfield. Vivien had always been interested in politics, and I think that she might well have developed that side of her life, given the right encouragement at the right moment.
As it was, Vivien's long intention to set down her childhood memories produced "Family of Four" in 1961/62.
The first Introduction to "Family of Four" would have been longer if Vivien had known then what she learned ten years later. In my following comments, "Elizabeth" means Vivien's great-grandmother Elizabeth Rutter who became Mrs Metcalfe, and "Helen" means my second cousin who is descended from the marriage of Blanche Thomson to Stanley Crosland.
Having removed to a new area in the west of England, Helen met near neighbours introduced to her as Mr and Mrs Rutter. Helen mentioned casually that there were Rutters among her forebears. To her surprise, Mr Rutter's eyes lit up, and he invited Helen to examine an old Genealogy, or Family Tree, of Rutters, which had come down to him and which he was keeping up to date as far as he could. It measured something like 60" by 18" and was supported by two long pieces of wood so that it could be carried rather like an empty stretcher.
It was Helen's eyes which in turn lit up when she read "Elizabeth, mar. Will Metcalf of Malton". Despite the difference of the omitted "e", these could only be our ancestors.
Later, Mrs Rutter very kindly allowed me to have a professional photographer out to photograph the fragile document, which he did in three sections in the open air.
Elizabeth would not know of the document as one has to trace back many generations, indeed centuries, to find common ancestors of the Rutter branches. By great coincidence, therefore, after all these years we learned what Elizabeth never knew, that through her we can claim descent from Robert, Earl of Gloucester, illegitimate but politically very important son of Henry I and so grandson of William the Conqueror. "The Lady Godiva" is shown as a legitimate ancestress as her great-grandson married Earl Robert's daughter.
Perhaps it was the spirit of William the Conqueror which enabled Vivien to stand up to the Horror at her boarding school!
