Open Writing

Our last brother, aged 15, was christened Philip Beven, but for some reason he has always been called Peter, or Pete. He started at King’s School in 1907 after his early years at Toddies. Pete was the only one of the boys to go to a local secondary school, Kings, but it has a very good reputation, and the Day boys and Tom Stinton all went there He was a boy who developed late, but the gospel of practical Christianity which was set before him at school fell on soil which later gave forth a hundredfold. This last year, Pete was confirmed, and it was then that he began seriously to set his mind towards equipping himself to enter the Church.

All three boys have been brought up to be helpful in the house. Mother is a strong believer in training boys to be as useful as the girls. For one thing, one never knew when it might be of use to have a little knowledge of such things, and also she considers that it is a great training ground for unselfishness. Some of the male sex consider that they are lords of creation, and that women were made to wait upon them hand and foot. Mother determined that this should not be the attitude of her boys if she could help it. It is their duty to wait on their sisters just as much as the sisters' duty to wait on them. This teaching bore good fruit, and the boys' thoughtfulness in little ways for us is really quite touching.

Charlie really seems to have a bent for domestic work. He brushes down the stairs with great vigour, and remarkably well, too. In spite, however, of Charlie's energies in the house, he considers that mother's standard of cleanliness is far too high, and when she appears duster in hand with a businesslike air he declares that she would even keep her funeral waiting while she rose and dusted her coffin!

Charlie inherited the family love of music, and though he never became a performer, he spends hours at the piano amusing himself with thumping out tunes he has heard, and then in his own way harmonising them. He really is most quaint about it. Very often, after being away for a whole term, he walks into the house, goes straight to the piano, and instantly loses himself to all else, leaving his loving family to find out that he had arrived by the familiar strains which Charlie alone could produce.

As is usual with boys, our brothers found nicknames for most of us. Janet was, I think, christened by Charlie who took the name from a foolish little ditty then in vogue.
Poor pussies now the dafine saw
Of going for ningies to the law.’
(Let him who reads understand!)

Ningy, I am informed, means ‘a trifle,’ so, of course, obviously the name for Janet.

I was honoured by two names, Frank and Pete each having their special one for me. Pete called me ‘Towks,’ derived, I think, from some character in Dickens whom he thought I resembled.

Next in our family is Janet, who at 18 is bubbly and bossy. She wants to be involved in everything and with everyone. She is still at school at the Worcester High School for Girls, also known as the Alice Ottley School. All we girls went there from the age of 11. Up to that time we had a governess who taught us at home.

So that is the round up of our little road for this year. I will gather details for when I next officially bring it all up to date in a year’s time.