Linden Blake
(
née Ellis, daughter of
Joan Mary Ellis, née Watney
): The piano player might well be K, but I was more interested in the girl behind her. Looked very like my Mother. Then came the tea party. Four girls here, and again one appears to be my Mother. She is the one on the left at the start of that section. She is also seen later on, sitting on the ground, near your Father's feet.
If the film were made in 1930 my Mother would have been 23, but I think she looks younger than that. She had worked as a nurse at what was then St Nicholas Children's Hospital (later Rowley Bristow Hospital) at Pyrford. Whilst she worked at Pyrford she would have spent much of her free time at Merrymead.In 1926, when she was 19, she contracted rheumatic fever. This affected her heart and left her unable to continue nursing (ultimatly leading to her relatively early death at the age of 63). After her illness, and when she had learned to walk again, she moved to central London where she met and married my Father. After I was born, in 1931, trips to Merrifield were once a year, every Easter.
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Francis Humphreys
Francis Humphreys
.jpg)
© Kurt Müller & the Humphreys family 2020
This is a film taken by Francis Humphreys (and family), showing the Humphreys' family life in early summer 1930, with
Francis Humphreys
, his mother
Annie Richey
, his brother Brian, his sisters Kathleen (Kay, nicknamed K), Patricia (Paddy), and Joan, K's husband William (Bill) Goddard, and his cousin (once removed)
Joan Mary Watney
(the young woman next to the piano player).
Francis Humphreys
born on 6 July 1905 in Cork, Ireland
died on 6 May 1967 in Bicknoller, England
died on 6 May 1967 in Bicknoller, England
Selsey Bill
, West Sussex ?
Robin Goddard:
[Possibly] the tea party was at ... Selsey Bill where the family used to emigrate for the holidays.
John Humphreys
:
Selsey B
ill
is a headland on the south coast (West Sussex) occupied by the town of Selsey, and very close to
West Wittering
(where I remember that our family used to go in summer holidays when I was little).
Early summer 1930: The Humphreys' Family Life
Patricia Humphreys
Joan Watney and Patricia Humphreys
Annie Humphreys, née Richey
, with daughter
Where the scenes are set is not quite certain, even after quite a bit of searching and speculation. There are two favourite assumptions:
The most likely place is the garden of the house where the Humphreys family lived from 1928 or earlier, and until 1931 or 1932, that is before moving to the house Merrymead (see below) where the family lived until 1958. This house, where they lived in 1930, is the house Elmstead, Waterden Road, Guildford. There is no doubt about this conclusion as John Humphreys discovered by searching and evaluating historical phone books (phone number Guildford 1169). Also the
general look of Waterden Road
seems to bear some similarity (in parts) to the location of the film. With additional information from the 1911 Census, there are hints that it might be the house which now has the
number 18
, or the very similar house next to it. From the look of it in Google's "Street view", one of these might be the right one, but we have no pictures of the back parts.
A second, less likely possibility of a location would be a summer holiday house near the beach - as the beach scenes in the film suggest. In this second case, the house might be in Selsey (see bottom) or possibly in West Wittering, both in West Sussex and close to each other, where the Humphreys family used to spend summer holidays from the 1930s to the 1950s. Whether this was the case from 1930, already, is not clear. What speaks against this assumption is the shape of the coast line. As far as it is recognizable in the film it looks like a cliff line there and different from the apparently more flat shape of the coast at Selsey Bill or West Wittering. Bexhill / East Sussex where the 1927 beach scene of the picture further down on this page is set seems to have been one of the preferred beaches, as well, similarly near from Guildford, and another place where the beach events of the film might have happened.
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From left: Joan Watney with
Kathleen and Patricia Humphreys
John Humphreys:
It has to be summer
1930
- when Brian would have been just 28, Dad [
Francis Humphreys
] would be just 25, K was 22, Paddy was 21 and Joan 20. Their mother was 59. By then K and Bill had been married for 2 years, and Robin would have been 1 year old. Linden's mother
Joan
was born in 1907, between K and Paddy; I don't know the month.
The Humphreys family moved to
Guildford in about
1922.
I think there was some story about the IRA making a threat to grandmother (what a shame if something should happen to one of her daughters). As with most such threats there is no telling if it's realistic or just somebody being nasty. The date puts it after independence, when the new Eire government was at war with its former supporters. Joan (who was about 10 at the time) was particularly distressed at being forcibly moved away from everything she knew. "That was a black day", she told me.
I am very prepared to believe that's Paddy at the piano. However I watched that clip of film many times before realising that Bill Goddard was in it. Robin Goddard ought to be around somewhere at the age of 1 or so, and since babies are the universal subject of photography I'm surprised he got missed out.
Richard Humphreys
: As you can see from my list of the films, that film was labelled by Dad [
Francis Humphreys
] as 'Family at Guidford 1930'. According to the table John supplied, also included in my film notes, Dad took leave from February to July 1930. The first Nigerian film is Katsina 1931-2 Or
Nigeria
1930 – 31. I think Dad bought the camera on his 1930 leave, perhaps having found that he couldn't explain the sights he had been seeing on his first trip to Nigeria. It seems pretty definite that the film is from early summer 1930.
John Humphreys:
The three girls pictured in a boat near Guildford on the river Wey
(see above
) are identified as - left to right - Joan Watney, daughter of Rhoda Watney, "my aunt Nan Allport's granddaughter"; Paddy Fox; and "a friend of my brother Brian she was staying with us".
Paddy Fox was Patricia's god-daughter; born in 1920, the daughter of 'Cous'
Gertrude Mahony
. Paddy Fox later married James McCall - she was married in Guildford in 1945, using our old home Merrymead as a base.
The beach (
see below
) turns out to be "at Bexhill one summer holiday" and shows Paddy herself, Joan, Bill and K. It's one of Dad's earlier photos, and is in his album with photos identified as from 1927; this fits, as Bill and K were married in 1928.
(Quotations by Patricia "Paddy" Humphreys, "Colorized" with "DeOldify" licensed by MyHeritage)
Robin Goddard (
Kay / "K" Goddard née Humphreys' son
): As far as I can remember, Stow Thorna* was the name of the [
Goddard, not Humphreys!
] family house in Guildford... I have a picture of my Mother and Father's wedding group which I think was taken in the garden. I will try and dig it out and take a copy for you. Having just had a quick look at the film, I can tell you that it is Paddy, not K, who is playing the piano. The big smile is unmistakeable.
*
Stow Thorna, 86 Epsom Road
Above: Brian and Kathleen
(Kay / "K") Humphreys, mother of Robin Goddard
House Merrymead, back side
Robin Goddard (right), mother, aunt
at Merrymead
House Merrymead
House Merrymead, front side:
before 1958 (above) and in 2010 (right)
42 Ganghill
, Guildford, where the Humphreys family lived
from about 1931 to 1958
John Humphreys
: Henry Kingston Allport (1857-1944) married our great-aunt Hannah Mary Humphreys (1861-1954) and they had 3 children, one of whom was Rhoda (1883-1959). She married Charles Wanford Watney, and they in turn had Joan, Dennis, Doreen and Peter. Joan (1907-1970) married John Watkin Ellis and they had one daughter Linden, later Linden Blake. Joan appears in the film made at Guildford in about 1930.
Pictures from the film:
Pictures from the film:
Read what
the family says:
The film can be started by clicking on the little white triangle in the bottom left corner of the player.
