Edith Haylett

Ernest married Edith King who came from Winterton in Norfolk. This picture of Edith must have been very special as it was the one Ernest kept in his wallet, which my father gave to me, and it was also....

....used in a pair of small paintings of her and Ernest, done on ivory in 1956, long after Ernest was dead.

The only pub in Winterton today is this one, The Fisherman's Return, so perhaps Edith worked here.

Edith and Ernest had five children. Frank was the oldest, and my father Cecil was followed by Kenneth, Dorothy and Hilda. The family lived in Leytonstone, East London, where Cecil and the younger children were born, but when Ernest became master of his own ship....

....they moved to a much bigger house, 57 Belgrave Road, in Wanstead. My father said that he could remember a zeppelin coming over the Wanstead house, picked out by searchlights, during the First World War.

In this picture, I don't know who the two ladies are in dark clothes but Dorothy (Dolly) is at left, Hilda is sitting, Edith is at centre back, and the lady at right is Ernest's sister, Katie.

In Cecil's ‘Life’ which my mother wrote, she describes the undercurrents in this household in detail. Edith had a hard time controlling five children when Ernest was away at sea for weeks at a time, with Kenneth the most difficult. I think these prolonged absences of his father's was one reason why my father was so against my going to sea.

To give some idea of the regime, at mealtimes Edith would sit at the head of the table with a cane at her right hand. Their plates had to be cleared otherwise they weren’t allowed to get down from table. Serious transgressions, which mainly involved Kenneth, were reported to Ernest when he came home. Picture shows Edith with Dolly, right, and Hilda. It was taken in June 1919, in their garden in Wanstead.

Cecil seems to have got on well with Frank but had a particular affection for Hilda who was, physically, very similar to him. I remember Hilda well. She was a lovely lady, very elegant and always smiling. She is seen here at right, with her mother Edith. She worked in the same company as her oldest brother Frank, the Prudential. Sadly, she died at a relatively early age, of cancer.

While I do not remember my grandfather, I do my grandmother. She lived her last years with her oldest son Frank and his wife Grace (above, with Edith) in their flat at Rivermead Court in Fulham.