Open Writing

Epilogue for Lansdowne Crescent Report

Jessie Tree – the character who was writing this book (and did write much of it) never married. She and her older sister Margaret continued to live in Lansdowne Crescent with their mother and their old nurse who they called Wowo until their mother, Julianna, died in 1938.

Then they bought a little house in Hanley Swan, near Malvern and the three of them lived there until the mid 1950’s when Margaret died (I presume the nurse had also died by this time) and then Jessie moved back into Worcester to live with her sister Mary and brother-in-law, Tom Stinton.

Her sister Beth married the widower Malcolm Rowntree (his father was the chocolate giant) and they owned a hotel in Scarborough. They had one daughter, Ann, although he had two daughters by his previous marriage. After Malcolm's death, Beth moved back to Worcester, and she died tragically by falling down the cellar stairs in 1968.

Mary, or Carrie Tree and her husband Tom Stinton had 3 children, a son, Tom as well as Betty and Margot who are mentioned in the book. Tom was headmaster at Newcastle School until he retired and they moved back to the Worcester area. Tom died in 1957 and Mary in 1974. My greatest personal memory of Mary was how she put the water from her hot water bottle into the kettle to boil up for her early morning cup of tea. Mrs. Eliza Stinton lived in Lansdowne Crescent until the mid 20’s but I don’t know when she died.

Janet, the youngest Tree daughter married Ralph Brown who was a second cousin. He too had Arrowsmiths in his background. I only recently heard that he originally had been courting Margaret, but changed his mind and married the youngest daughter instead. He was a civil servant in Burma for many years, and Janet told many funny stories about her life there. They had one daughter, Dorothy.

Muriel and Harold Day moved to Ryhall in Rutland, where they had a small holding. I have been told that Harold had a “bad war” but no details were provided of how this happened. He didn’t appear to be physically injured, but may well have sustained a mental illness relating to his war experiences. He never did any more work as a mining engineer. Sometime later, the family moved to a farm near Bury St. Edmunds and again he raised chickens and pigs. Muriel died in the early 1960s and Harold died in 1968. They had 4 children, Jan, George, and Mark were all born during the time of this book, but Marion was not born until 1925. Mrs. Louisa King, Muriel’s mother lived with them until her death in 1923. She was buried with her husband in Worcester, and Muriel’s first baby who died in Malaya is also commemorated on the grave stone.

John and May Day lived in Stamford where John was a headmaster until his retirement. They had their son, Tom and then two more daughters, Joan called Joanna and Patsy, and the elder daughter became a ballet dancer of some importance. One of her children, Andrew Lycett, (who gave me quite a lot of help in writing my stories) has written widely acclaimed biographies of Ian Flemming, Rudyard Kipling, and Dylan Thomas. He is currently working on one about Conan Doyle.

Mark and Gwenllian Day came back from Canada, and then after a short while went off to Burma where Mark was a mining engineer. They left their daughter ,Rosalind, with the Bests, her mother’s parents.

George (Jimmy) Day stayed in Egypt until about 1925 and then he taught at a private school in Nottingham. His wife Ann died in Egypt in 1922 of tuberculosis. They had one son, Patrick.

Una and Dick Richmond came back from Canada and went into a small holding business in Suffolk. They had two children, Peter and Nancy who was born in Canada.

I don’t know anything more about the various odd names of other residents mentioned who lived on Lansdowne Crescent. I got the details about them from the census records and Worcester Directories. I hope the information I gave about them was reasonably accurate.

Thanks to the following for providing me with some of the details for the book.

Rosalind Lyle
Andrew Lycett
Charlie Rogers
Chrif Day
Ann Rowntree
Jane Collier
Peter Duncan

Of course the main thank you must go to Jessie and Janet Tree, now deceased, who wrote the book Orate Fratres, and from whom much of the material of this book in taken, especially the information relating to the Tree brothers who were killed in the war.