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My father was born in London but his
father 'Lou' died shortly afterwards. In my father's photograph album is a page from his
mother's diary showing that on Monday 31 December 1917 she visited the dentist and that on
the Saturday the 5 January 1918 Victor was born. My father qualified as a dentist during
the Secon World War. I'm afraid the crease was put in by me over 80 years later as I was
clumsily scanning it from the album. |
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Lou went to South Africa for a while to
improve his health. I have a letter written by him to Floss telling her of his plans. The
letter seems to have been written while he was on holiday. There are also a few
photographs of that holiday. It looks very much as if it was in Shanklin on the Isle of
Wight which is where my father and mother set up home after the war and where I grew up. |
After Lou's death my
grandmother, Nell, moved down to Hove with her son, to run a boarding house in 'Ventnor
Villas' and that is where my father grew up.
Ventnor, is of course a town on the Isle of Wight. My father was a dentist and every
Thursday for many years he ran a surgery at Ventnor Hospital. Recently I accompanied a
friend to a concert at Sussex University in Brighton and on the way we picked up a
colleague. I was amazed to find that she lived in Hove, in Ventnor Villas (although not
the same Villa). |
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My mother lived in Brighton as a girl.
She had been bought down to Brighton by her mother who went into service in Adelaide
Crescent. Both father and mother went to the same school, although they only got to know
each other when they were stationed at the same naval establishment during the war. My
mother loved living in Brighton and used to wander around at will with her friends, the
best of whom was called 'Phyllis Smallbone'. Phyllis Smallbone lived in Ventnor Villas. I
have a photograph of my father playing in the sea with Phyllis's sister. |
| This is not about my father, but is a coincidence:
My mother came to stay with us recently and we took
her to Brighton Museum. She used to go there with Phyllis as a girl and always enjoyed
looking at 'the coach'- an early victorian horse-drawn affair.We were directed upstairs
and to her pleasure we found the coach, now with a plaque declaring it to have been a gift
from Lady Somebody-or-other. that was a surprise for my mother, because Lady
Somebody-or-other used to live in Adelaide Crescent at the same time as she did. |
| Another coincidence (stretching it a bit though)is that I live within a
mile and a half of where Floss gave birth to Olive...but that is another story. |
