Avis Graydon Interview

AVIS GRAYDON on Edith Thompson in 1973

SIDE 1

Edith’s and Percy’s wedding day, 15 January 1916, with Avis Graydon as bridesmaid and Richard Thompson (left) as best man

AVIS: … and I remember her … because I don’t remember anymore.

Audrey Russell (AR) Mmmm

AVIS But I was very sad at her getting married, very sad.

AR Now you said that Edie said to her father the night before her wedding that she didn’t want to go through with it.

AVIS No, no, no, no, that was the day she was getting married.

AR Did you hear her say that?

AVIS I was sitting up in the bedroom. I was waiting. I was the last … I was her only bridesmaid, of course; and everybody else had gone to church. None of the Thompson family came to the house. Now, I can’t remember if Richard Thompson was Percy’s best man. I can’t remember about that. If so that’s about … he’d been to our house once or twice, because I’d been out with him several times but … I didn’t like him and apparently he didn’t like me which is a good thing, isn’t it now? and … I was sitting up on the bed where Edie was sitting and Dad came up to me and said ‘Come along, they are waiting for you! The car was waiting to take me to the church and she said ‘I, I can’t go through with it, I don’t want to go ….’ Well, I think if I, if my daughter had said that, I don’t think I would have let her go. And Dad, I remember my father saying ‘Oh, you must do, everybody is at the church waiting for you …’ I think if my daughter had said that to me, I don’t think I’d have let her go.

AR Did she seem distressed

AVIS Well, she wasn’t herself. As far as I can remember, she was not what the … the bright and breezy and fair and airy, an …

AR excited bride. She wasn’t excited.

AVIS No, it wasn’t …. which you’d expect a girl to … who was getting married to [be], wouldn’t you be … and especially the first in the family.

AR And you said she wore a navy costume?

AVIS Navy costume; and, as far as I can remember, I think she had a cream blouse and … the collar came over the shoulder and she’d worked flowers on the front of it; and she had – they were new then – what was known then as Russian boots. And they did up on the inside, out – on the outside with big tassels hanging on; they were black patent and they were only just come into force in those days. I have not the faintest notion what I had. I only know I had a huge bunch of artificial Parma violets that she pinned on me before I left the bedroom. And what flowers she had, I just couldn’t tell you.

AR What time of the day was this?

AVIS Oh, it’d be midday.

AR And then you went off to the church – and was there music at the church and so on?

AVIS Now, I believe the choir was playing; and I believe the bells were rung. This was in the Browning Road, do you remember.

AR Well, I’m going to take you there.

AVIS Yes, yes [laughs]

AR Next week [AVIS laughs] Because I’d like you to show me [AVIS laughs] And I intend asking the vicar to get out the register sometimes so I can see it.

AVIS … to show it.

AR Yes, yes.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR How many people were at the wedding?

AVIS Well, there was a lot of people inside the church, but I think there’re only twenty at the breakfast.

AR Yes.

AVIS You see, because we had the breakfast at home.

AR At 231?

AVIS Yes, beg pardon

AR At Shakespeare Crescent.

AVIS Yes, yes, we had the breakfast at home …. ‘twas wartime!

AR Were there food shortages then?

AVIS Oh yes, we were rationed!

AR So can you remember, how did your mother manage to prepare the meal?

AVIS Well, I have never known how my mother gotten the money, or the piece of beef that we had cooked. I think we had beef – did we? I think we had beef and ham – my mother cooked it – and all the vegetables and the neighbour next door looked after it while we were at church, you see; and so there was somebody there to …

AR Oh, a proper big hot meal that she gave you.

AVIS Oh yes, yes, yes, champagne, we had it all.

AR And then, how long did that go on for?

AVIS Oh, I think they left somewhere about 5 o’clock, 5 or 6 o’clock at night.

AR Can you remember what Edie’s mood was then? I mean, how did she behave, how did she seem?

AVIS [laughs] Well!…

AR Do you remember?

AVIS She was much brighter than she was before she was married.

AR She’d cheered up, had she?

AVIS She’d cheered up a lot.

AR Yes

AVIS But I wouldn’t say that she was what we would call Edith Graydon.

AR Was Percy attentive towards her, were there shows of affection, or what?

AVIS Yes, yes, well, you see in those days you didn’t show your affections.

AR You didn’t hold hands …

AVIS No, no.

AR Nothing like that.

AVIS No, no. If … you see anybody holding hands, you thought there was something wrong with ‘em.

AR And when, and then how did they leave and when did they leave?

AVIS Well, they’d a car come for them, you see.

AR A hired car?

AVIS A hired car, take them to East Ham station, and then caught the train from East Ham to Westcliff. And they probably changed at Barking and then you get the through trains from Barking, to Southend, or to Westcliff as the case may be; and get out at Westcliff and you walk up the Canewdon Road and … Retreat Road is about the third turning on the right.¹

AR But that must have been a bit difficult for Edie to travel into town every day. Didn’t it make her tired?

AVIS About an hour? And of course they were very good to her. I mean to say, where other people had to be in at 9 they quite … mmmm … Carlton used to come up from Westcliff himself in those days.

AR Oh did he?!

AVIS Oh yes. Oh, they had a lovely shop in the … in the … oh what’s the name of the road, the main road from the station? [Hamlet Court Road] Mmmm …

AR In Westcliff. Is that how Edie came to go to Westcliff? Is that the association with Mr Prior?

AVIS No.

AR Mr Carlton! [Herbert Carlton]

AVIS It might have been, that I wouldn’t know.

AR And then she went straight to work, the next Monday.

AVIS and he went into the army.

AR And how long was he away? Do you know?

AVIS Now, he joined the London Scottish on the Monday and the whole of the people that were with him went over on the February. And I used to correspond with one of the men, you see, and they were all killed here in the last battle of Flanders, the London Scottish, all just slaughtered.

AR But was Percy considered to be unwell?

AVIS No.

AR By everybody?

AVIS No.

AR Because he apparently, I mean, why would he have been discharged from the army?

AVIS He did that himself smoking. He was as fit as a fiddle. He passed A1 to go into the army and he said when he got in ‘I’ll never go abroad. I’ll get my discharge.’

AR But what’s this about him having heart-trouble?

AVIS He never had any heart-trouble as far as I know; only through smoking.

AR Mmmm … So you are saying he was a coward really?

AVIS Oh, very, very.

AR The sort of man that women would have given a white feather to.

AVIS Anybody, oh yes, anybody could have gotten a fight by him, anybody.

AR Well, what did your father think of that?

AVIS Well, he didn’t think much of it at all.

AR Did he ever say anything about it?

AVIS No, he never said anything about it at all.

AR But was there a feeling in the family that –

AVIS Oh yes, yes.

AR that he was somehow not doing his duty?

AVIS Yes, why should my, his, my father’s sons go and he not go? Oh, there was a stand-up fight once in our dining-room between Mr Warren – this is the man that Mr Mason, that, what’s his name – said – if you got £100, your daughter will be free– this is the man whose two sons [Henry and Claude Warren] went and there was a fight between him and Percy Thompson in our dining-room.

AR an argument?

AVIS Yeah!

AR About the war?!

AVIS Yeah!

AR Do you know what Edie thought about the war, or what did Edie think about Percy not going to war?

AVIS Well, I think she was rather pleased that he didn’t go, although on the other hand it would have been a blessing if he’d gone and been killed, do you know what I mean. It would have been better than this, because I don’t care however bad or however ill a man is, or anything like that, I don’t think he deserved the death that he had.

AR No, it was a terrible death, it was terrible.

AVIS I, I, I wouldn’t say anything if he’d stabbed him once, but why didn’t he come and tell my parents?

AR Mmmm

AVIS If he, mind you, I think myself, what he must have seen in that house made him bitter like he was, but then he had no right to be bitter.

AR No. Well, do you think that Edie was goading him on?

AVIS Well, it looks like it by her letters, doesn’t it?

AR Mmmm

AVIS It looks like …. That, this is what I can’t understand. If he was writing to her, telling her to do this and that and the other, poisoning him, he must have known she wasn’t doing it because he couldn’t have lived, could he?

AR Mmmm

AVIS Now you see, there was no trace of poison in his body, or any …

AR Did you go to Percy’s funeral?

AVIS That I can’t tell you.

AR No?

AVIS I can’t tell you. I don’t think we did. I don’t think any of us went.

AR He is in the Manor Park Cemetery, isn’t he?

AVIS Yes

AR Have you ever been there?

AVIS No, he’s in the City of London.

AR Ah!

AVIS He was in the City of London Cemetery, and they didn’t like the place that we had put him in. So after his body was exhumed, for … forsenic [forensic] reasons, they had him buried in some other part of it.

AR Mmmm

AVIS You see, it was a shocking death. And whether the first stab killed him, or not, I don’t know.

AR Yes, I think so, it was, you know, the first two or three that really finished him very quickly. He died very quickly.

AVIS No person, doesn’t matter who they are, or however … what, however bad they’ve been, or anything like this, deserves a death like that.

AR Where are your parents buried?

AVIS In, in City of London.

AR Same cemetery?

AVIS Mmmm, City of London! I haven’t been there since I’ve been like this. I haven’t been able to see to it.

AR Would you like to go and see it?

AVIS Well, it may be in a shocking state. It’s, it’s very near those, remember those, oh, you probably wouldn’t – those three policemen who were shot in the City of London.

AR Oh, that was in the forties.

AVIS Yes

AR I don’t remember it , I mean, I remember reading about it.

AVIS Yes, in those days, it doesn’t convey anything to you?

AR No, they are buried there too, are they?

AVIS Yes, yes, but …

AR Do you remember, did Edie from the time she was arrested and knew that Percy was dead, did she ever express any feelings about it?

AVIS No, she was too upset! As far as we was concerned, them was concerned, you see they was, when she was down here at Ilford, there was always a matron there, and you weren’t allowed, she was further away from us than you are from me, even down here.

AR At the police station?

AVIS Yes, … and you see when we went to Holloway, there was a long table. She was this end and we were here. And, one or two of the people who were in charge of her when we went there were very good and let my father, and mother and I go further down the table and actually we went up and kissed her. And that’s not …

AR How often did you go and visit Edie when she was in prison for those three months?

AVIS Mmmm, every time we were allowed to.

AR And how often was that?

AVIS I think that was about twice a month.

AR [Is] that all?

AVIS Yes… we weren’t allowed to …

AR And how long were you with here, do you remember?

AVIS Oh … half an hour.

AR Can you remember the conversations that you had when you were there?

AVIS Well, we weren’t allowed to have any conversation, because if you asked her anything that they didn’t want you to, her to know, they’ll tell you ‘you mustn’t, you mustn’t say that to your daughter’, you see …

AR How did she behave when you first saw her, can you remember the first time you saw her?

AVIS Yes, well, she was in tears, of course, seeing us, after being kept away. But I believe she was in the hospital the whole time, wasn’t she?

AR Yes.

AVIS Yes. We, we never saw her in hospital. She was always in a room by herself with a wardress. And I must say, they were all very good, they all kept away, you know, a long way away from us.

AR Did she talk normally?

AVIS Mmmm, well, there was nothing much to talk about. We did …

AR What did you talk about?

AVIS We did the talking, you see.

AR What would you tell her about?

AVIS We’d ask her how she was, and where she was, and what she might have to eat, or something like that, did anybody come to see her, who’d been to see her. People used to write in to the governor and ask if they could see her.

AR What did she say about the food?

AVIS Oh, the food was very good. I rather doubt it myself, but still, it might be good to a person …

AR [coughs] Maybe she just wasn’t in … able to complain.

AVIS Quite, you see.

AR Well, yes … when, was she allowed to talk about the case?

AVIS No, she never spoke about it, never spoke … [about it]

AR She never mentioned Freddy.

AVIS No.

AR or Percy.

AVIS No.

AR ever again.

AVIS Never while she was in there, never mentioned them at all. Not once.

AR And the very, and now, who took the news to her of the fact that her appeal had failed?

AVIS Ah, the governor! The governor does that.

AR Were you allowed to see her straightaway?

AVIS Oh yes, we were allowed to see her straightaway and we were allowed to see her the night she was convicted. We went down to the cell or the room…

AR At the Old Bailey?

AVIS Yes.

AR And what happened there?

AVIS Well, we just spoke to her, you see. She was crying, but we weren’t allowed to go near her. I think they were afraid we were going to poison her.

AR Mmmm or give her something that she could …

AVIS Some dope. The government, or the police authorities were so sure that she was going to confess to doing this and knowing it, you see, that they were afraid to let anybody go too near her.

AR But when she was weeping after she had been sentenced …

AVIS Yes.

AR Was it hysterical weeping?

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR She was hysterical.

AVIS Yes, yes, very hysterical, yes.

AR loud screaming.

AVIS Oh, yes, yes, very, very hysterical. She wanted to come home with us.

AR Did she hold on to any of you?

AVIS She held on to my father. Hung on to him, you see.

AR That must have been terrible for him. It must have been really terrible.

AVIS Well, I…

AR Who was down there with her?

AVIS Mother, there were two policemen.

AR What, her counsel?

AVIS Yes, there were two policemen, very near her, and there was her counsel and mother and dad. Now I’m not sure if auntie Lily and uncle Jack were there, I’m not sure. I believe they were the last day of the trial.

AR And did she start screaming as soon as she saw you all?

AVIS Yeah, yes, she put her arms out to my father like that … [crying]

AR And what did he do, poor man?

AVIS He couldn’t, because the police stopped him

AR He was not allowed to touch her?

AVIS No, no.

AR So they restrained her.

AVIS Yes, you see, they were so afraid that we would give her something that would…

AR And how long did that go on for?

AVIS Oh, only a few minutes. As far as we’re concerned, we were bundled out. And I think, I think my father was so bad, his brother took him across the road to a public house right opposite the … and bought him something, whisky, he never touched brandy. I think he took him across there. I think he took him out there before he came out.²

AR But what, who, who was the most upset then, if one could say, between your mother and father?

AVIS Oh, I wouldn’t like to say.

AR I mean, which one appeared to be the most destroyed by it?

AVIS Well, you see, I think my mother, as a woman, you were always the stronger in those, in those times, and I think, you know, she hung on to my dad like a little child. And I was the other side of him. You see, we came out there and it just didn’t register!

AR No

AVIS It, it, it didn’t reg- … We came out there and we got on a bus …

AR Was there a crowd of people there watching you leave?

AVIS Yes, yes, and there was a lot of photographers about and I had a big fur hat that she had given me, a beautiful thing, oh, deeper than that, and oh, ever so long. And this man trying to take photographs of me; and I wrapped it round my face like that, and he got down on the ground to try and get underneath me. I nearly pushed him over. I didn’t know I had, but I nearly did.

AR So really, that, it didn’t really hit you?

AVIS No, no. You see. It didn’t really register at all. And then when you get the evening paper which my brother would bring, I believe my elder brother was in the court. I believe he was.

AR Newenham

AVIS You see, we got our jobs to look after.

AR Didn’t they allow you time off?

AVIS I was told I could go for this, and …

AR You weren’t there every day?

AVIS No. So long as the, their firm’s name didn’t come out, I could stay in the firm. But if it came out, instant dismissal.

AR So you were not in the court every day?

AVIS No, I wasn’t.

AR You had to go to work?

AVIS yes, and I wouldn’t get …

AR Could you work?

AVIS Well, what could you do?! You got to go there, hadn’t you?

AR But people were so inhuman!

AVIS Yes, yes, you see. It doesn’t matter, if doesn’t matter about you. You are here to, paid to do a job, and here you got to be!

AR So you really only went to court when you had to appear as a witness?

AVIS Yes, and I had to…

AR And you were allowed to go when Edie was sentenced?!

AVIS When I was called, you see; and I just had to go in and say ‘could I have the time off’. I had to go and ask if I could have the day off of the, the day of the execution, if I could have that … It was quite a toss up whether I was going to go or not. I’d’ve walked out, I’d’ve gone if I had been told ‘no’. This is, there is one director, there’s five others in the firm, you see, and this was this one. He said, all other directors had – I had learned from an engineer – and he said ‘they all say, except Arthur, ‘so long as you continue to do your work as it has been all these years, you can stay here.’

AR Now, I, on that last day, you told me before, that you really weren’t expecting her to, were you expecting her to be found guilty?

AVIS No, no, on the evidence! How, how could you convict her …?

AR So none of you were expecting it?

AVIS No.

AR And when it came, can you remember what you felt?

AVIS Well, I, I couldn’t believe my ears.

AR Were you sitting in the public gallery?

AVIS No, we were sitting down, down, downstairs … we had, a, here was the counsel, there’s the witness box, this Freddy, and, and, and two male warders, this my sister with two female wardresses, and we were sitting somewhere here.

AR Mmmm

AVIS Nowhere near the gallery.

AR You were sitting in the well of the court.

AVIS Yes, I think that must have been …

AR and can you remember what you … you were sitting there with your mother and father; and who else? …

AVIS I believe my uncle, uncle Jack and auntie Lily were there.

AR And would Mrs Bywaters have been there as well?

AVIS I, d’ye know, I never really remember seeing her. I expect she would be.

AR So you, neither of you, you, didn’t talk to each other?

AVIS No, no, no, no.

AR and the Thompsons?

AVIS I don’t think Richard Thompson ever went. I don’t think he is mentioned at all, you see, in the trial.

AR Yes, he is. He gave evidence.

AVIS Oh, did he?!

AR Mmmm

AVIS I never remember him going there.

AR And then when it, when she was sentenced, what did you, do you remember what you did, what happened? Did you look at Edie, or what did you do?

AVIS No, they took her away. As soon as she was sentenced, they took her away.

AR Did you watch her when they were sentencing her? What did you do? Do you remember?

AVIS We were sitting down there, you see, and I, and I am sure my parents had expected the foreman of the jury to say ‘she wasn’t guilty’.

AR Mmmm

AVIS He, they must have said he was guilty, but I thought he was a get away with ten, twenty years.

AR Do you have any recollection of them sentencing her to death?

AVIS Oh yes, yes! I remember seeing this man putting this piece of square on his head…

AR Well, who were you looking at, him or at Edie?

AVIS Well, I was looking at him, you see. And then, after he had sentenced her, we looked at Edie, and she sl- … more or less slumped.

AR and then they dragged her down the stairs.

AVIS Yes, they dragged her down the stairs, you see.

AR Was she silent or was she crying?

AVIS Beg pardon?

AR Was she silent when they took her out?

AVIS Oh yes, yes, quite silent, quite.

AR She said ‘Oh God, I’m, I’m’-

AVIS Yes, yes, yes, ‘I’m not guilty’.

AR ‘Oh God’ she said first

AVIS ‘I’m not guilty’.

AR Well now, the very last time that you saw her…

AVIS Yes, well, that, that would be …

AR Do you remember it clearly?

AVIS Yes, she got a green uniform on. Because each time we saw her she got a different uniform on.

AR Mmmm, prison uniform.

AVIS Yes, and this was a green one, I feel sure, the last one we saw her in.

AR What time of the day was it?

AVIS Oh, we went in the afternoon. We never went in the morning.

AR And can you remember what happened on that occasion?

AVIS Well, we went in, you see, and she was there … we went into a different place each time we saw her. She was not in the same room …

AR Mmmm

AVIS and of course they greatly guarded her that time. There was none of us going up to kiss her.

AR Were you not allowed to kiss her goodbye?

AVIS Well we did before coming out. My father asked if he could. He didn’t say ‘kiss her good-bye’. He said could we kiss her? you see. And there was this tall lady that was very, always very nice to us and two juniors. I should say they was either, I suppose they were, in case we gave her something. But we got nothing to give her!

AR No, of course not.

AVIS And what would have been …

AR But was Edie’s behaviour different on that occasion than from any other occasion?

AVIS She was very sad, but I think she was too doped. I don’t believe she knew who we were.

AR Did she, was she dazed?

AVIS very dazed!

AR Did she walk in when you were already in the room?

AVIS No, she was always sitting there, always sitting there.

AR She was sitting there?

AVIS Always.

AR And how did she, can you remember what she said, and how did she say it?

AVIS I can’t remember what …

AR Was she so doped that she didn’t speak normally?

AVIS I don’t think she spoke at all to us the last time. She was so thoroughly doped.

AR She just sit there looking at you?

AVIS Yes, yes, certainly. We just asked her how she was, and my, I can remember my dad saying, ‘well now, don’t worry about it’, he said, ‘you’ll be home with us tomorrow night …’ or something like that.

AR Your father said that. Why did he say that?

AVIS Well what can you say to her, what could you say, could you say ‘Goodbye my dear, this is for the last time I’m going to see you’?!

AR Well he knew it would be.

AVIS Well of course he knew.

AR And so did she.

AVIS Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think she did. Because they said the morning of the execution there was a great struggle. She was kicking, and frantic, and fighting them all.

AR So she knew.

AVIS Yeah, she must have known. I think then they’d let the drug die out of her, especially for the, for the execution. That’s what I think. They doped her so much for the, for us to see her the last time, and then they let the dope die out of her.

AR So you were all allowed to kiss her goodbye?

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Did you, do you remember what you said to her?

AVIS No, I can’t remember. I remember putting both my arms around her and kissing her like that [cries] …

AR Did she respond?

AVIS Yes! she responded. You see. Now you see, that man Ellis, he never did another execution afterwards, did he? when that woman, Miss Ellis, what’s her name, the last woman who was executed?

AR Ruth Ellis.

AVIS Ruth Ellis.

AR The last woman who was executed was Ruth Ellis.

AVIS Yes, well now, she had a different man from the man we had.

AR Well, she had Pierrepoint who who’se in fact a … a learner at the time of Edie’s death.

AVIS Who, who was the man we had?

AR I forget, I don’t know.

AVIS Didn’t we have Pierrepoint?

AR I think you did have Pierrepoint.

AVIS Yes and, and ours was the last he did. He said that after that he would never do another one. He retired, and they had to appoint another one for Ruth Ellis. He said …

AR So you think that they doped Edie in order to keep her quiet?

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR For that last meeting that you all had together?

AVIS Yes, I think … they did … yes, she was definitely, I would say, doped up to the hilt.

AR Where were you when she was executed? Where were you all, you and your mother and father and Newenham? Where did you wait for the execution?

AVIS We weren’t there in the prison.

AR No, where were you? Were you at home, or were you? …

AVIS At home.

AR You were waiting at home.

AVIS At home.

AR Can you remember what happened that night?

AVIS No …

AR Can you remember what happened when you left the prison? After you’d seen her. Did you come …

AVIS We came home.

AR and who was there? you, your mother and father, not Newenham?

AVIS No, no, no, no.

AR Why not Newenham?

AVIS I don’t know. He might not’ve been able to get the time off, you see. He might not have asked for it. And you don’t know what the firm might have said to him.

AR So it was just you three?

AVIS Yes

AR And then do you remember what you did?

AVIS Well, we came home and I remember making a cup of tea the very first thing. I remember my father sitting down putting his hat, his clothes on the hall stand as we came in, sat down, and made a cup of tea. And how many hours we were drinking this cup of tea I couldn’t tell you.

AR Were you silent all the way home?

AVIS Oh yes, yes, never said a word to each. We were so, it was out the, out of the blue that she was convicted; and then to think that these people, Christmastime, they hadn’t, they hadn’t got time to bother with her, with the, over the, the appeal. They just hadn’t time to bother with her. It was Christmastime, let’s get away, and get away with it all.

AR So you all stayed at home together. Did any of you sleep that night?

AVIS No, no sleep at all. My father, I remember my father going out and getting some whisky for my mother because she was in such a state. Whether he had any himself I don’t know.

AR Was Newenham there then in the evening?

AVIS I should think so.

AR Did anybody come to the house?

AVIS No, nobody came to the house.

AR They left you alone?

AVIS Just left us alone.

AR That’s what you wanted?

AVIS Yeah, but the people next door, a Mr and Mrs Bristow, they lived at 229, they came in to see how, Mr Bristow came in to see how we were, you see, and that was all. We had a gate [see below] that used to come at the back, that used to come in you see, and he came in. He popped his head through the window to see [if] we were alright – I suppose the house was quiet and he wondered what had happened, and he came in, you see; and I believe it was he, I don’t think my father went out, I think it was he who brought the bottle of whisky in and said to my mother and father ‘you must have a drink’.³

AR And then you, in the morning, I mean you all went to bed, did you?

AVIS Oh yes, yes, yes.

AR And you got up…

AVIS yes, in the morning

AR And what were you thinking about when you got up?

AVIS Well! …

AR Can you remember?…

AVIS We had to, we had to go of course to the inquest. My father had to identify her body.

AR Did he want to do that?

AVIS He couldn’t. He couldn’t help himself. No. He didn’t want to do it but he couldn’t help himself. He was her father.

AR So you, what time did you get to the prison? For the inquest?

AVIS We went in the afternoon.

AR I mean, did you actually take her death in in the morning? I mean, what were you, I mean, were you thinking it’s now nine o’clock?!

AVIS Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s now nine o’clock. And then you hear the bell go and you know you could hear it in your mind’s eye. The bell going to say that she had been executed. Then all the paperboys coming round, crying this, that, and the other. But I must say they were very good, they seemed to keep out of our road that day, our end of it …

AR So you all had to get in the public transport again and go all the way to Holloway?

AVIS Yes, we went from here to Liverpool Street station. And then, I think, we went on a bus, I’m not sure. My father would take us, of course. I wouldn’t know.

AR And what happened when you got there? Had the crowds dispersed?

AVIS Oh, there was crowds of ‘em mobbed us.

AR Still there?

AVIS Yeah. Enormous, outside the, outside Pentonville. I was wondering if they were going to be hostile to us, you see. Because after all you got to look at it from the point of view of Percy Thompson’s side, haven’t you? Have they ever been able to trace Ethel Hull as she was? Mrs Richard Thompson?

AR I haven’t tried, and I don’t, I don’t think Sylvia will bother. I don’t know that I, that I’ll try. I don’t really know what I’ll do about that.

AVIS Because they lived here you know.

AR Yes … She probably, … well, one could make enquiries.

AVIS I, I believe, I believe I saw in the Ilford Recorder some years back that he died.⁴

AR Mmmm

AVIS Now he seemed to me much more clever than Percy Thompson.

AR So then when you got to Holloway, what happened next?

AVIS There was a crowd round there and you know, these people don’t open the door like you open the door …

AR Oh, I know.

AVIS We went there, with, well a friend of mine to see a friend of hers in there. She knocked three times, and then she banged, kept banging on the door when the man opened the door, because she doesn’t know who I am, so this made me laugh, you see. She said to me ‘oh so you are here [laughs] … Yes, I can see the funny side of it. She said ‘she didn’t know who I was’.

AR But you knocked on the door and went through the little door?

AVIS Yes, and then –

AR and waited in the hallway

AVIS Yes, for some time. There was a box with another man in it here … you see. I don’t know what he would be and then a little further down there was another box which I thought was the governor’s room.

AR Mmmm … [the] governor’s room is way up in the …

AVIS Oh, I see, yes…

AR And then what did they do, how did they treat you, and where did they take you?

AVIS Oh, just called out ‘Graydons’, not ‘Mr Graydon and his wife’ ‘GRAYDONS!’. Another time a man called out ‘Mr, Mrs Thompson’s father’. That’s not right, is it?

AR And what ha[-ppened]. So you all got up?

AVIS Yes.

AR and went where?

AVIS We had a wardress come. No, he took us, a man, took us down to this room where she would be in, where we would have our interview, twenty minutes, quarter of a hour, you see; and then we would come out, and my father had been most polite to them and say ‘thank you’, ‘goodbye’ and all that kind of thing and he’d just look at him as though to say ‘You are just a lump of lead’.

AR But where did they take you from the inquest? Was it a different place or the same room?

AVIS No, no, we went, we went downstairs, I think, a long way out of what I call the prison, across a yard. I saw, I’ve never forgotten it, I never will, I don’t know what she done, poor thing, she was in a striped uniform, she wasn’t very young, she got a big truck, and she shovelled coal into coal, mmmm, what do you call them, coal-boxes – she was putting them from the floor into this lorry, and then she was pushing it along and she was chained by the ankle to the wardress. I’ve never forgotten it.

AR Was it raining?

AVIS No, it wasn’t raining.

AR Just cold?!

AVIS What’s that?

AR Just cold?!

AVIS Yes, yes and she, this woman, had got coal. She’d been shovelling coal into coalstacks. And then there was that other poor girl we saw – I don’t know what she’d done – the gate was opened; and she must have knocked her, the mug of water away and spilled all over and a lump of bread about that size looked like stale as hell; and I remarked about it and this wardress that was with us went and shut the main door, not the iron door, but the door that you can’t see.

AR Mmmm

AVIS Oh, it was quite shocking. Mmmm … what, what is this treatment like in prison?

AR These days

[BREAK]

So you crossed this yard and you saw these people and then you went into this room. All three of you?

AVIS Yes, yes, yes, all three of us. We were all three together.

AR And what, can you remember, what did you see when you walked into this room?

AVIS There was nothing in it but this one, this long table, and she was sitting at the end with two wardresses.

AR No that’s when you went to visit her. I’m talking now about when you actually went to the inquest, after the execution.

AVIS I, I, I as far as I can remember, I think it was a room full of men, I’m not sure.

AR Yes.

AVIS a room full of men.

AR Mmmm

AVIS Most of them shook hands with my father and mother. I don’t know who they would be.

AR They would be all sorts of government officials.

AVIS The government officials.

AR And the governor, and the sheriff of works and people like that.

AVIS who came up from that room, I think we came upstairs through another room. Then my father asked for his daughter’s fur coat and wedding ring. We were ages trying to get there. This man kept putting us off – couldn’t get the number.

AR Had you seen Edith yet by then?

AVIS No, but this was after she was executed.

AR Yes, but you went, you went and kissed her goodbye?

AVIS Oh yes, I asked if I could and she said ‘yes, but don’t touch her’.

AR But this was before you got, when you asked for the ring and the coat, had you already seen her?

AVIS Yes, yes, the inquest was over and my father was asking for her coat and her ring.

AR Well then you went into the room for the inquest, what was in this room?

AVIS …

AR Just, just Edie lying on a table?

AVIS No, no, in a coffin.

AR In a coffin?

AVIS Oh yes, she was in a coffin. Yes, in a coffin and all that nice white frilling around here, you see, and this lady, she, she’d been several times, we’d seen her several times when we went to see Edith there. I think she must have been somebody, you know, not just an ordinary wardress.

AR And what had they dressed her in and what had they done with her hair?

AVIS Edie? Oh, I suppose it’s buried with her.

AR But she just looked, she just looked the same as she always did?

AVIS Oh yes, yes, of course you can’t see any hair; they put one of these kind[s] of coifs around you, don’t they, to take your hair …

AR Well, they don’t any more, but they probably did in those days. So you didn’t see her lovely hair?

AVIS No, no, no. Only just her face, and not even her hands. Her face. And I said ‘could I kiss her?’, and she said ‘yes, only on her forehead’. And after that my mother and father did. If I hadn’t asked we wouldn’t have been told we could have kissed her.

AR Was that the first time that you could actually believe that she was dead?

AVIS Yes, and sometimes I can’t believe it now. Do you know, sometimes I think I’ll go to that door, and she’ll be coming in. I do! I know it’s fantasy, but I do sometimes think that.

AR Well even I find it difficult to believe.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Do you now? –

AVIS Yes, yes … I often think to myself one of these Sundays she’ll be at the door. You see, if she …

AR Where did you get your information from that Edie was dragged kicking and screaming to her death?

AVIS It said so in the paper.

AR Well, I know, but you know …

AVIS Oh no, I’ll tell you where I got it from. Most from, what his name, Pierrepoint, the executioner? He said he’d never do it again!

AR Did you talk to him?

AVIS No, no, I, I …

AR You read it.

AVIS When he retired after my sister’s case and then he was writing his memoirs and he said he’d never do it again, not for anybody, he retired, after seeing her …

AR Because, you see, I’ve read two different reports about what happened to Edie on the morning of her death and it is important, because I think that the way she behaved indicates her real innocence, because I know from the death of other people who have, had committed crimes like this …

AVIS Yes, yes …

AR like Ruth Ellis, their own execution comes as relief to them.

AVIS Yes.

AR Because it’s a way in which they feel they are paying for what they have done.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Now Edie, I’m told in the paper, that the night before she died, she was, had to be drugged to take her through the night and in the morning, one report says that she was, I mean, Filson Young says that she was pretty well insensible when they took her to die. They said that she struggled …

AVIS Well now, I read a memoirs [sic] of Pierrepoint, you see, because it was interesting; and he said, she struggled and screamed and kicked and he said he made up his mind there and then he’d never do anybody else, especially a woman. Do they have a different person for men? … No, so Edie…

AR Well, thank God they don’t have anybody anymore, but …

AVIS No, no. I think, I think though with the amount of crime that’s coming back they’ll bring back the hanging, won’t they?

AR I don’t think so ever. I don’t think they’ll ever bring it back.

AVIS Now the point comes, you take a man who gets 20 years, he goes in at .. [BREAK] so vivacious and she’d be in anything, oh yes, come on, let’s do, let’s do this, let’s have all we can.

AR I think that perhaps the terrible shocking thing for all of you was that there was ano[ther], she was leading a double life?

AVIS Yes, you see, I could never understand, my great point was, I could never understand why Curtis-Bennett didn’t bring it more to the fore. There was no poison in his body, there was no powdered glass, as they was saying, and there was no this and that, why didn’t he stress that point? He didn’t seem to stress that. To my mind he seemed to lose interest in the case.

AR Mmmm

AVIS I believe …

AR You didn’t go to the ca …[?] you didn’t go to the Law Courts in the Strand for the appeal or did you?

AVIS No, no.

AR Who went?

AVIS No, I didn’t go.

AR Did your parents go?

AVIS I think my father went. I think my father went.

AR Yes.

AVIS but I didn’t go … You see, I would never have got another job, not that it would have mattered. And of course there wasn’t the unemployment money in those days. I would never have got another job.

AR Do you know who informed Edie that Percy was actually dead?

AVIS Oh, must have been the police. I, I don’t think, was he dead when that doctor [Maudsley] attended him, so …

AR But they didn’t tell Edie that?

AVIS No.

AR and Edie in fact thought he was alive. She kept talking about when are they going to bring him back. She had no idea that he was dead.

AVIS No, no, see? I wonder what gave Richard Thompson the idea that Freddy Bywaters did it?

AR He must have known something about it.

AVIS Oh, he knew something, he must have done.

AR Because he also said to the police that he never understood how Percy tolerated it.

AVIS Yeah.

AR which implies that he knew something about it.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Maybe he saw them in Wanstead Park, or maybe they saw a lot of each other when Freddy was staying in the house with them.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR When Freddy was staying in the house with them, you know, from – oh, it was sometime in July through to the August Bank Holiday – for a couple of months, wasn’t it? …

AVIS Yes, yes

AR Did you ever go?

AVIS No, yes!

AR to Edie’s

AVIS Yes, I went down once. Edie and Percy were going to a theatre and they asked me if I’d like to go and have tea with Freddy, I said ‘well, he’s there by himself, it’s no entertainment for me, and’ … I think I stayed there till about 9 – then I came home.

AR Mmmm

AVIS You see, you didn’t …

AR But you did, you went there less often, did you, when he was there, because normally you went very often?

AVIS I, I always saw my sister one day in the week for a lunch. She, my father insisted that she came down once a week.

AR Well where did you meet for lunch usually?

AVIS We used to go to Fuller’s in St Paul’s Churchyard, and we had little lunches of coffee and a biscuit, and a sandwich and an ice cream, and a …

AR Then she’d come to the whole family on Friday nights?

AVIS and she’d come Friday nights. She’d sometimes come laden with shopping that she’d bought from the City, because you see, in those days we didn’t get Saturday off.

AR Did Percy ever help her with shopping or anything?

AVIS Not that I ever know of … You see we always used to do it ourself [sic]. You see, men didn’t do things in those days.

AR Did she show any sign of resenting it?

AVIS No! no!

AR She accepted that it was her job?

AVIS Yeah! that’s her job!

AR So she had two jobs?

AVIS Yes, yes, she had two jobs, you see. She accepted these things, well, I’m married and I want to go to work for as long as I could; and I must accept it.

AR Why did your father insist that she visited every Friday?

AVIS Not every Friday, he would see her one day a week. He would insist, and we never found out why he insisted; I don’t think he ever dreamed of anything like this.

AR No, he just liked seeing her. She was his favourite child!

AVIS She was his daughter!

AR Yes.

AVIS You see, she was his daughter!

AR and, and how did they behave towards Percy?

AVIS Oh, quite normally. They treated him very well.

AR They didn’t like him very much?

AVIS No, they, we never liked him.

AR Did Edie know, did Edie know that none of you liked Percy?

AVIS Well, I don’t know if she liked it or not. My mother was one of those women that if she didn’t like a person, she tried to cover it, as best she could. He was always made one of the family, there was always something for him to eat if he came down from the City, but that man sat in the City till 8 o’clock at night, every Friday night of the week, yes, I don’t think so. But my mother always made him very welcome, and so did my father.

AR You described Edie very well as being very vivacious and she spoke in a quiet voice.

AVIS Yes, very quiet.

AR and she had a sense of humour. Now, how was Percy? generally?

AVIS He had a louder voice than she had, a louder, a managerial voice.

AR Bossy?

AVIS Yes.

AR Mmmm

AVIS Managerial voice, you see. But he used to come in, and sometimes he’d kiss my mother, and say ‘how are you mother?’, or sometimes just blow in.

AR Did he always kiss Edie?

AVIS In front of my parents? Yes. Always on the side of the face.

AR and he always called her Edith?

AVIS I called, we always called her Edie as a child.

AR No, but him, Percy? Did he call her Edith?

AVIS Well he very seldom called her by anything at all.

AR and did she call him Percy?

AVIS Yes, and sometimes she called him ‘Tommy’.

AR Why ‘Tommy’?

AVIS short for Thompson [laughs quietly]

AR Ah! Did she have any particular expressions that were known to be Edie’s? Did Edie …

AVIS No, I don’t think so. I know sometimes she was talking about ‘Tommy’. I said ‘who is this man Tommy?’ She said ‘Percy’. I said ‘what do you call him Tommy for’? – ‘Well, it’s just an abbreviation of his name, that’s all’. ‘Mmmm’, I said, ‘that’s not nice, is it?’, because in those days you didn’t abbreviate anything. I mean to say, in those days, we didn’t call anybody by their Christian name. It was always Miss and Mister. Well until they were married, till the day they were married, I had to call him Mr Thompson. My mother would say ‘Go into the front room and say good evening to Mr Thompson. Don’t stay. Come out here’, you see. Now then, if it was all quiet, then she’d pop in to see if everything was alright, you see [laughs] … all that kind of thing.

AR On how many occasions did you see Percy and Freddy together?

AVIS Only on the occasions when I was with them.

AR And that was in Shanklin really?

AVIS Shanklin; and you see they, he didn’t come to …

AR He didn’t go to Bournemouth.

AVIS Bournemouth. No, no, he didn’t come. Only at Shanklin. That’s what I …

AR and that was two weeks?

AVIS Yes, in the middle two weeks of June. I cannot understand, because the two men went together, and my brother-in-law was nearly always drunk … every night.

AR Did you see him drunk?

AVIS Yes, well, drunk … he could hardly stand.

AR and what would he do? would he be taken off to bed or what would happen?

AVIS Just got my sister to go upstairs to bed with him and say ‘you better stay in bed’.

AR Did she ever mention that Percy was drunk?

AVIS No, well, you could see it; and that’s why they came back from Jersey before their time was up because he was always drunk.

AR You came back from Jersey …?

AVIS They did. They went to Jersey for a holiday and my sister didn’t like it. She said, I came, she said ‘why did you come back early?’

SIDE 2

AVIS who…

AR Percy

AVIS and told Dad everything about all the rows we have had over me.

AR Over Edie.

AVIS all the rows they’ve had over you! You see, me

AR Over, it means over Edie and Freddy; mmmm, that’s a quote from her letter.

AVIS (reads) ‘but she did not mention he said anything about the first real one on August the first. So I suppose he kept that back to suit his own ends. Dad said it was a disgraceful thing that you should come between husband and wife and I ought to be ashamed’. That means me.

AR No, no, but I think it means, it means Freddy.

AVIS ‘and I ought to be ashamed’.

AR It’s a quotation from, a direct quotation from a letter that Edie wrote Freddy. But what’s more interesting for the point is what you say about Freddy on the night of the murder.

AVIS Yes, wait a moment. Yes, this is quite right about this bottle. I remember it very well. But I thought I threw it in the dustbin where the police got it out, because they produced this bottle on the, in the, Old Bailey trial, and they asked me if this was the bottle and I said ‘yes’.

AR A sort of blue fluted bottle?

AVIS I couldn’t tell you what now it was but … it was that right en[ough?]. This is most interesting.

[BREAK]

AR … but, on what occasion was that that you went out with Freddy?

AVIS [h]e came down one night and he said to me ‘I’m fed up tonight’. Mother and Dad were in the kitchen dining-room. ‘Come and have a drink’, and I said to my mother and father – they were both there – ‘Is it alright for me to go round to … what was the name of the … it was in the Church Road … what’s the name of the place now? … the Avenue Ar … Avenue Hotel in the Church Road, Browning Road, and I went round there and I think I had a guinness – I don’t know how long I was there – but I wouldn’t have any more.

AR Well what do you think of that evidence that was given in Court?

AVIS [reading] ‘Mr Bywaters was … at our, at my father’s and mother’s house that evening and I was at home. I should think he left about 11pm. I have known Mr Bywaters …’ Is it something Percy Thompson had done?

AR No, I think the bump was when she was walking with Percy and Freddy pushed her into the wall.

AVIS Oh, I see.

AR and in the scuffle she fell against the wall and it seems that she hit her head quite badly. But what about that evidence that you gave?

AVIS Beg pardon?

AR What about that evidence, do you have no recollection?

AVIS Oh yes, I have!

AR It’s come back to you?!

AVIS Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, it’s come back to me. You see I, I can’t always grasp these things and I was thinking; and you are quite right about Freddy coming down to our house the next night with the paper, laying it down on the table. I’ve thought it all out. It’s a long while to think back, fifty years. It’s quite, oh yes, this evidence is quite true.

AR Can you …?

AVIS and this girl, Ethel, this girl Ethel Vernon was my brother-in-law’s sister’s maid first of all. My sister-in-law lived with his sister, his elder sister, no … Lilian, the younger sister –

AR she would have been LilianThompson?!

AVIS She was Lilian Thompson?!

AR She was Percy’s sister?!

AVIS She was married to, oh, a most charming man, most charming, the eldest son of a clergyman belonging to the Church of England in Stepney, now what’s, what was his name? … Chambers, Henry Chambers his name was; they were married, and within the first year they had this baby, he’s still alive, he lives here somewhere, what’s his name, Kenneth Cham[bers], no, Graham, his name is Graham, Graham Chambers. I think he’s got three or four children three sons. He was at Buckingham Palace the other year for something. He is in the bank somewhere, but I don’t know where; and, Edie and Percy lived with Kenneth for some time, but he [Percy] was so bad-tempered and he got on so badly with his family that they came and got this house in Kensington Gardens; and then the maid went to live with them [so Ethel stayed with Edith and Percy at 41 Kensington Gardens after they first bought the house], and then that maid [Ethel Vernon White] came to our place to stay. She stayed with us for some time until, I think it was her brother from Penzance came up and brought her away.

Avis Graydon (white) and Edith Thompson in the garden of 41 KG, Ilford, © René Weis

AR So she worked for your parents then after …

AVIS Yes, she worked for my parents.

AR after the tragedy.

AVIS Mmmm, yes, she worked for some time …

[BREAK]

AR … and working. Have you any idea why Freddy called her ‘Peidi’, PEIDI, this nickname that’s in all the letters?

AVIS Instead of Edie?

AR Yes.

AVIS No. It was just some fad of his.

AR You never heard her use the name otherwise?

AVIS No, no, we always called her Edie, and later on in life, when she grew up, it was Edith.

AR So that was something that they cooked up between them?

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR And what about the use of ‘darlint’ instead of darling?

AVIS Never heard of this at all.

AR You remember in the letters she used ‘darlint’ [AVIS interjects ‘yes’ repeatedly]

AVIS Yes, yes, I can’t understand this at all. It’s, it all seems to me to be so ridiculous, because I’m getting on in life now, you see, and you don’t view life quite so …[laughs sadly]

AR No, quite.

AVIS (Can I get you a cushion for …?) [the interview is happening in Avis’s home]

AR No, I’m fine, thanks. No. Also, Edie refers at one point to getting a flat in Chelsea. Now, can you remember what Chelsea meant to people in the ‘20s? She talked about getting a little place in Chelsea. Was Chelsea very different in people’s minds from what it is now?

AVIS Oh yes, Chelsea was the absolute it.

AR Ah, it was smart, was it?

AVIS Oh yes, the smart set lived there and people with money.

AR Yes, so she thought that was exciting.

AVIS Yeah, well, I, I remember her saying that they thought of getting a flat. That was …

AR She is now talking actually about Freddy.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Getting a flat with Freddy, not Percy.

AVIS No, no [laughs] – what was, what was going to happen to Percy?

AR Well they were just going to run away and live together and leave Percy on his own.

AVIS No [laughs], not my sister!

AR That’s what she is talking about anyway in her letters.

AVIS Not my sister!

AR Where is the Hippodrome?

AVIS On the corner here at Ilford.

AR Just here, by Gants Hill?

AVIS No, no, you know the High Road of Ilford?

AR Yes.

AVIS Do you know the High Road of Ilford?

AR Yes.

AVIS You know where the road crosses over into Ilford Lane?

AR Yes.

AVIS Well, just on the corner there.

AR I’ll have to take you there to have a look and see what it’s like these days.

AVIS Oh, we used to go there a lot!

AR Yes, she talks about it a lot.

AVIS Yes, yes. Dad and Mummy used to come. We’d go Friday nights, we’d go up in the horse, in the horse…

AR Yes

AVIS and … thing.

AR carriage, yes.

AVIS Yes, and then later on it was the, the buses, no, later on it was the trams that pulled into the kerb, you see. Then we come on to the double decker buses open on top.

AR Yes.

AVIS You see.

AR Yes.

AVIS Then they get them covered.

AR Yes.

AVIS Oh, there’s been a great change here in Ilford.

AR Yes, there has. Who were Bess and Reg?

AVIS Ah, Bessie, now I think their name was Akam, Akam. His father [Joseph Akam] was a big milkman in Dalston or Kingsland Road [at 53 Kynaston Rd. N16]. Bessie was the head clerk, she was the head of the office. Now that would be, I think, at Louis London’s.

AR: Ah.

AVIS: The clothiers.

AR: So it was someone that she met at work!

AVIS: Yes

AR: I see

AVIS: Yes, and they [Reg and Bessie] were a sweet couple.

AR: Yes, she seemed very fond of them.

AVIS: Yes, and Bessie came down here to our house to stay several week-ends, you see, when her husband was taken for service.

AR: Yes

AVIS: and he was sent up to the Orkneys, you see.⁵

AR: Mmmm

AVIS: And here’s a case of, I’ll always remember talking about not having married preventatives to mean.

AR: You mean during the war, to the soldiers?

AVIS: Yes; and he, Reg, sent them to Bessie to ask her what they were [she laughs].

AR: Oh no, really?

AVIS: And she gave them to her father – [laughs] that’ll show you!

AR She also mentions racing quite a lot. She mentions betting on horses quite a bit, Edie, in her letters.

AVIS Does she?

AR Yes!

AVIS Ah, that I don’t …

AR Yes, she used to bet quite a bit. And she talks about Derby Day and she actually mentions the horses that she backed on certain days.

AVIS Now we always had a sweep at home Derby Day, always, mother and dad and the, the children that were old enough.

AR Did anybody ever win very much?

AVIS What can you do if you only put about sixpence in it? You put a sixpence each way on a horse years ago, it was a fair amount of money, you know. It sounds ludicrous now.

AR Yes, well she used to bet quite a bit.

AVIS Oh, I didn’t know that. That’s something I didn’t know.

AR Don’t you remember from her letters?

AVIS No, no, that I don’t remember at all.

AR Now you mentioned somebody, she says in one of her letters, called ‘Mel’: M E L

AVIS Oh, yes [laughs]

AR Now, who is Mel?

AVIS Well now, that is bringing somebody else into it. This is one of the men that my father taught dancing. He taught dancing to the Henleys, the cable people; and this is one of the men …. there⁶

AVIS She would come to every dance. No! She’d sometimes come to the evening instructions on a Friday night.

AR Yes.

AVIS You see. But not very often, because of Percy.

AR But at that time, where was he giving the instructions, in the Crescent?

AVIS Oh no, this was at, mmmm …

[BREAK]

AR the Cripplegate Institute, where was that?

AVIS In the City.

AR In the Cripplegate?!

AVIS In Cripplegate, yeah.

AR and Edie used to go there on Friday evenings.

AVIS Not always.

AR Sometimes.

AVIS Sometimes. When Henleys had their ball, she was always invited and he nearly always partnered her, you see … ⁷

AR Who was Molly? [have] you ever heard of Molly?

AVIS I don’t recall … [BREAK]

AR She also refers to hair torture. She said ‘I’m prepared to go through hair torture!’ Do you know what that means? Is that something, did she ever do something in particular to her hair?

AVIS No, unless that was going to the hairdressers to have it washed and set.

AR Did she hate to have, having that, it done?

AVIS Yes, she never had it. She used to have it done at Katte’s, or at Katte’s they were called, Katte’s in …⁸

AR Near Broadstreet station.

AVIS Broadstreet station. I used to go there sometime.

AR and she didn’t like it?

AVIS No, because you see, we had long hair in those days, and it was such a job to dry it.

AR Yes … yes. Would she have thought of cutting her hair?

AVIS Oh no, oh no. I nearly got turned out of home when I came home with my mine cut [laughs].

AR After 1925.

AVIS [laughs]

AR Mmmm, that sounds like it, doesn’t it?

AVIS I should think so.

AR because hair torture and saying ‘I’m prepared for a stand-up fight, it’ll be rather fun!’

AVIS That’s right …

AR She must be talking about having her hair cut.

AVIS … I had mine done, you see, and then she wanted to have hers done.

AR Would she, oh! you had yours cut before the tragedy!?

AVIS Oh yes, oh yes.

AR How short?

AVIS Oh, we were, we had a bob in those days, you see.

AR She doesn’t mention that you’ve had your hair cut.

AVIS Doesn’t she?

AR No, well not in these letters. She may have mentioned it in some of the other letters.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR She says, ‘I think Avis has, Avis has just phoned me and asked to go and see grandma as I’m the only one she has not seen and she keeps asking for me. I suppose I shall have to go although I don’t like it much. I’d far rather remember her as I saw her in the summer. They say she looks terrible now.’

AVIS Now where was grandmother? That would be my mother’s mother, Grandma Liles.

AR She must have been in Dalston?

AVIS What’s that?

AR Dalston! Was she in Dalston or Stamford Hill, or somewhere?

AVIS Oh no, no, no. Granddaddy was pushed off the roof by a thief he nearly caught …

AR Yes …

AVIS and the fall is supposed to have brought on consumption, and the police doctor gave him two months to live. They moved from Dalston to Speen in Buckinghamshire, and granddaddy lived twenty years. He was dying the day King Edward was buried.

[BREAK]

AR Yes … maybe at that stage she was still at, at Shakespeare Crescent then. But then, if Edie was going there every Friday, she would have seen her. But she refers to not having seen her for some time.

AVIS I can’t remember.

[BREAK]

… stay for a little while.

AR Yes. Now, what about dancing in the non-stop? She mentions you dancing in the non-stop.

AVIS [laughs]

AR Was this quite a thing in those days, to dance for hours?

AVIS Yes, for hours, [to] see who could dance the longest.

AR Where did they use to have those dances?

AVIS You’re asking me now! I can’t tell you. I have forgotten all about that.

AR You say she was a beautiful dancer, but she couldn’t go because Percy wouldn’t.

AVIS He wouldn’t let her go.

AR Yes, and I suppose he was jealous of her being with other men.

AVIS Well, he said that he didn’t like other men’s arms round her waist.

AR Yes.

AVIS and of course in those days we didn’t, there was no dancing close to each other. You were a long way away.

AR Yes

AVIS You could get a person in between.

AR Yes [laughs]

AVIS You see.

AR Here she says ‘We were talking of going as a set with our own partners and Avis detailed them all until she came to me and hesitated; and I filled in the gap by saying ‘Bill’. I felt like telling him who it really was, and perhaps had Avis not been there, I should have done. But I didn’t want to endure any more scenes in front of her.’

AVIS Who was Bill?⁹

AR I don’t know. But does, does that mean that there had been many scenes in front of you before?

AVIS There must have been.

AR But you don’t remember them?

AVIS No, I don’t remember them to that extent. There must have been …

AR Or, do you think that she specially didn’t want you, who seemed to admire and love her so much …

AVIS Yes

AR that she specially not want you to know that things weren’t all as well as they should be?

AVIS Well, I think she must have known that I had an inkling that things weren’t right, because I think once something happened, I don’t know what it was, and I said ‘I’m going to tell Dad when I go home’; and she begged me not do.

AR What was it, do you remember?

AVIS I can’t remember, some – mind you, I think most of this temper of my brother-in-law’s was drink! Now we worked till one o’clock, Saturdays, as a rule. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home until 4pm.

AR And where was he?

AVIS Well, I’m asking you, where was he?

AR Who lived at Stamford Hill?

AVIS My auntie Lily and uncle Jack.

AR and in Highbury?

AVIS Auntie Edie whom my sister’s named after, my mother’s eldest sister; and in her day, she was the most beautifullest woman you could ever come across, my auntie Edie, a beautiful woman! I, I never seen, all these Gibson girls that they talk about and the Vanderbilts and all that, weren’t a patch on her, weren’t a patch. She was a beautiful woman. Now we used to go from the office, me and some friends from my office, my elder brother and friends from his, to Highbury to dinner to my aunt’s; they had a long dining-room at the, underneath the house, you see, and auntie would get us a dinner. We would pay, mind you, but she’d had all the trouble with it; and then uncle would come with us, because the football pool was just around the corner.

AR Ah, the Arsenal!

AVIS Yeah!

AR I see, yes.

AVIS You see. And then, when the Arsenal was all over, then the football was up, we would come back and have tea, then .

AR Did you used to go to the Arsenal to watch?

AVIS Yeah!

AR With Edie?

AVIS Yeah!

AR Did Edie go to the Arsenal?

AVIS Yeah …

AR Did she like football?

AVIS Mmmm, well I don’t know about liked it, but her brother and sister were going, and we were going to auntie’s and uncle’s and we all met, you see. And mmmm, then, mmmm, on occasion my, my cousin [Leonard Walkinshaw], I think he was at Christ’s Hospital then, he was a clever boy!, very clever, and, mmmm, we went down to the Barn at Highbury which is a public house and had a drink all together. I can’t tell you what day that it was; and then Leonard was home from school on holiday time. Oh, the holiday, the Christmas of the case, Leonard was home from Christ’s Hospital.

AR 1922.

AVIS and we went down there, mother and dad nor auntie Edie or uncle Fred, they never went. But Leonard said ‘Come and let’s have a drink’. There’s another person who would have gone a long way if they’d had any money.

AR Mmmm. Where was the Waldorf?

AVIS Oh, that’s, that’s in London, the Waldorf.

AR Yes, where exactly? Do you remember where it was? because it’s been pulled down now.

AVIS Has it?!

AR I should think so.

AVIS Oh, it’s at the corner of …

[BREAK]

AR Ah, if it is on the, oh, there is a hotel there called the Waldorf.

AVIS That is it!

AR It’s the hotel, is it?

AVIS Yes.

AR Mmmm, because I, I think that it’s probably changed a bit now because they’ve, or was it the new Waldorf that had been built at the time that they’d made Kingsway?

AVIS Oh no, I haven’t seen the new one. I know the old Wald-

AR The old Waldorf.

AVIS You could go in there and have a cup of tea and a cake for half a crown…

AR I see. That’s quite expensive.

AVIS Oh quite. But only the élite that could do that.

AR Well, she used to go there from time to time.

AVIS Time to time, yes.

AR Where’s the Café Marguerite? She mentions that as well.¹⁰

AVIS Oh, Café Marguerite, I think that was in … dinner.

AR You and Edith?

AVIS Pit -, no, mother and dad.

AR Yes.

AVIS and I.

AR Yes.

AVIS We never went anywhere out to dinner except to Edie’s on a Sunday; we would go in an evening or something like that, you know, Pinero’s, Pinero’s? … now what’s the name of the, not, not Fleet Street, it wasn’t in Fleet Street, I think that’s the place where the manager used to come round with a little basket, primroses, and violets.¹¹

AR At the Marguerite?

AVIS Yes, and give each lady, she could have primroses or violets.

AR But you don’t know where it was?! Is it in Soho?

AVIS Yes, it’s in Soho somewhere. I don’t know if it is standing now.

AR I shouldn’t think so. I’ve never heard of it.

AVIS Haven’t you?

AR No.

AVIS Oh, it was a lovely little place. Well, lovely as those days go.

AR Somewhere in Soho anyway.

AVIS Yes.

AR Now this may be part of her fantasy again. She is writing to Freddy, and she is saying that she was in the Café Marguerite. ‘Have you guessed with whom I was?’ – she’s saying to Freddy – I presume it’s Percy –

AVIS Yes.

AR ‘If not, you will by the following conversation. ‘Is your sister jealous of you?” – that’s you –

AVIS Yes…

AR ‘ME: ‘my sister? why should she be?’ –HE: ‘It seems to me that you see more of her fiancé than she does herself”. Then Edie says ‘How is that and what do you know about it anyway?’ Then Percy says ‘Well, I saw you going down Ilford Hill the other evening and he was holding your arm. Did you go to a dance together?’ Is Edie just telling fibs again?

AVIS No, no, Edie…

AR But why, why does she call Freddy your fiancé?

AVIS [laughs] I only ever went out once with him and that was to have this drink. I wonder if she was trying to throw the … something … the scent off on to me. I never only went out with him that once. He never, although he was a very attractive man …

AR But why should she say that to Freddy, because she is now saying to Freddy that he is your fiancé, isn’t she?

AVIS … and if he’d led her to believe that we were going to be … there’s nothing in it. I mean to tell you, he used to come in

AR Who is Mr Birnage?

AVIS Oh that’s a sad, sad story. Now, I don’t know how they met them, but Mr Birnage – they lived here in Ilford, in Northcoat Road, north, north, right down here, just, opposite the Telephone Exchange.¹² He married the only daughter of the director of the, oh dear, this is taking me back, oh, what Insurance Company, mmmm, was the director of this Insurance Company – I’ll think of the name later on – and they used to do all great things, they had dinner at night here, Saturday nights, on Sunday night, everybody turn[ing] up in evening dress, and all this, that, and the other, well, her father died and then he showed himself for what he was. It was one of those things you think was to be. Her father gave her this house in Northbrook Grove [Road?] as a wedding present, and I think his name must have been on the deeds, because he was selling it over her head and had forged her signature. And, by a stroke of good fortune, this man who was buying, knocked at the door one day and said ‘Oh, I was passing. I thought I’d like to call in. Can I see Mr Birnage?’ She said ‘No, he’s gone to work. I’m Mrs Birnage. What I do for you?’, and then this man told her. He paid his deposit on the house.

AR When was that?

AVIS Oh, that was some years back. I can’t tell you when, but that was a very – … and I can’t tell you what happened to them – I think, mmmm, they had a German maid, and Mrs Birnage was missing stuff out of the house and couldn’t find out where it was. This maid lived in. But she apparently got a flat where she used to go to with Birnage, and when the police took up the case there was all the missing stuff from … what’s her name, Avis Birnage? No, that’s the actress, isn’t it, Mrs Birnage, all her stuff that was missing from her house in this German girl’s flat; and of course when her father died there was no more money coming and they lived as ordinary people. Whether she divorced him or what happened, I don’t know. Or whether they was, she was still alive when our case came on … They lived here in Ilford.

AR Well, that’s very near to here.

AVIS In the Northbrook Road.

AR She, Edie, refers often to being selfish in her letters.

AVIS To her being selfish?

AR Yes, can –

AVIS Well, I-

AR Do you think there was anything in her that was selfish or self-centred?

AVIS I used to say to her sometimes ‘You fancy your luck, don’t you, you got nothing to fancy your luck for at all [laughs warmly]’, and we’d fall out, you see.

AR Was she, was she arrogant?

AVIS Oh no, oh no, oh no.

AR Well then what were you meaning when you said to her ‘you fancy your luck’?

AVIS Well, she might look in the glass and say to herself ‘I look nice tonight, don’t I?!’ – ‘Don’t be silly, I’ve never seen you look so bad in my whole life’ [laughs], just like that, and then we’d fall out. Or I’d say to her ‘I don’t think much of that frock you’ve got on’ [laughter] – I didn’t like it on.

AR So she didn’t like it if you said something that was not complimentary?

AVIS No, no, no, she did, well, she, I would say she would be a little bit proud in that way. She liked people to like what she had got on. It didn’t matter about her. She’s not, it wasn’t necessary that you should like her.

AR but that you should think she was smart?!

AVIS She was delighted to, and she was very, very smart, very smart.

AR Mmmm. She also talks about New Year’s Eve at 41 Kensington Gardens.

AVIS Mmmm!

AR She talks about the whole family going there … It says here, ‘we were at 231 …’

AVIS Yes

AR ‘for the coming of the New Year’

AVIS That’s right.

AR ‘Last night’ – that was in fact the 2^nd of January [1^st Jan 1921] – she says – ‘all 231 came over and did not go home until gone 1 and then I had the clearing up to do’. Now, do you remember the occasion?

AVIS No, I never remember … is that, is she writing to Freddy?

AR Yes, that’s 1922.

AVIS No, no …

AR So you used to all spend New Year’s Eve at 231?

AVIS Well, you see, as a rule my father was doing the ball.

AR Where?

AVIS at the Savoy! The New Year’s Eve ball. He was one of the MC’s there.

AR Aha! and what would the rest of you do?

AVIS Well, we couldn’t go to the Savoy.

AR No.

AVIS Mother could go.

AR Yes.

AVIS But we couldn’t go.

AR No, of course not.

AVIS We would probably be out at a dance somewhere ourselves.

AR Do you not remember the last New Year’s Eve that you all had together, 1922 [1921]?

AVIS No, 1922?…

AR The last one that Edie ever enjoyed in fact?

AVIS Yes, yes, I’m thinking of this, you see, its coming back from, we came back from Shanklin and all that year and then New Year’s Eve, then …

[BREAK]

AR … now she mentions too about Percy’s illness and him getting up, him asking her to get up in the middle of the night to get him some water and that he had insomnia and that he was feeling ill and that the next day she told you about it. Do you remember that? … [BREAK] Do you remember about Dr Wallis?

AVIS Oh, he was a lovely man!

AR Now, he was the family GP?!

AVIS That’s right.

AR and he was Edith’s GP?!

AVIS Yes.

AR Ah, mmmm, but then he was involved in some notorious case?

AVIS Well, he took a lady partner. Dr Preston Wallis was … married the elder daughter of the head doctor, houseman, or doctor – he was a big man at, now I believe it was Guy’s Hospital – she was a perfect lady, tall, nearly 6 foot, Dr Preston Wallis’s madam. He took a lady partner in – he was getting on, they hadn’t any children, he must have been getting on, he’d been there for years and years – everybody loved him – and this woman was married and her husband was at the College. And he came home and stayed at Dr Wallis’s, where his wife was; and whether he had seen things going on that shouldn’t have been going on and didn’t like it, I don’t know, but he took poison. He killed himself.

AR Ah! Now, when did he last attend to Edie, do you know?

AVIS Well, she was stand – she was going along the road one day and he was coming along, because in those days he always walked everywhere.

AR This was in Shakespeare Crescent?

AVIS and, mmmm, he was talking to her; and she had a tooth that was growing out from the gum here, you see. ‘Open your mouth. Let me have a look’. [H]e got hold of these now like that and got the tooth out. Straight in the middle of the road.

AR How old was Edie then?

AVIS Well, she would be a schoolgirl.

AR Yes.

AVIS That’s right. ‘Open your mouth’, he said, ‘you got another tooth there you don’t want. Never mind. Come into the surgery’ and did it. He also performed an operation on my brother Bill.

AR Mmmm. Did Edie always have good health?

AVIS Oh yes, always.

AR She never had any problems, never went to hospital for anything?

AVIS No, thank God for that. I’m the only one that’s been in hospital.

AR Well, that’s also when you were getting on a bit.

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR But you’ve had good health up until then.

AVIS Oh yes, I …

[BREAK]

AR She mentions you toasting Sally Luns in front of the fire. What are Sally Luns?

AVIS They, they are big, just plain buns, just brown one side and not quite so brown on the underneath, and you cut them up. They are like, no, not so sweet as a Bath bun, but something like that, but much bigger, Sally Luns.

AR Did you use to have tea in front of the fire like that?

AVIS yes [laughs]

AR Who is Mrs Manning?

AVIS Oh now, they’re people, they advertised for someone to teach elderly people to dance. My father answered this advertisement. They lived at Brixton. He was, mmmm, had his own business, a bottle-maker, all bottles – sauce bottles, mint bottles, all that kind of thing mmmm, he used to blow glass, we went to his factory and saw him blowing glass, all this lovely coloured glass he used to make. My father answered this advertisement; and he got a letter back to say would he go to Tott … maybe to Tulse Hill, would he go for an interview? and these people were, well, they weren’t so old as all that, but I suppose they thought they were old to get married. Father taught Mrs Manning, Janie, and, now what was Mr Manning’s name, Tom, taught them to dance. Then their two sisters wanted to learn, Mr, now what was the, what was their name … he was a baker in Brixton in a very good way. He was very short, and she was over 6 foot. Taught them to dance. Then there was the younger sister, Mrs Davis, and her husband was the head waiter in the House of Commons. And we used to go there and had some very nice evenings, you see, and … they had a room that ran right the way the length of the house, very old-fashioned house, three storey houses you know. And … they would get a lot of friends in, we would have a nice little social dance, should be …. now, I wrote to them, I wrote to Janie. No, Mr Manning died. Now, now, wait a minute … [BREAK] There was another doctor, Dr … he was a lovely Irishman, he was a lovely man, Dr…. he came round. He used to come to dinner sometimes on a Sunday, but it was very late, because in those days they opened their surgeries on Sundays.

The Manning family in 1921. Left to right: Harry Panter and his wife Beatrice (née Jump), mentioned by Edith; Thomas Davis and his wife Emily (née Jump). Older lady with arm hooked through gent’s is Elizabeth Jump (née Lawrence), the mother of ‘Beatty’, Emily, and Jane; 1 and 2 on right are Tom and Jane Manning. © René Weis

AR Mmmm

AVIS Every morning. Mr Manning died and … Mother and Dad went over to stay there with Janie for a little while. You know I’ll never forget, you see. And we came back again and then, when my mother died Mrs Manning wanted to marry my father.

AR Oh really?

AVIS But it never came to that. I was very pleased. She was a secret drinker, poor thing. She’d go for years without touching anything, then she’d have a break. And she sold the house, she sold everything in it, her clothes … I¹³

AR Who was Gordon?

AVIS Gordon?

AR Does that ring a bell at all?

[BREAK]

AVIS … another man from Henleys.

AR Gordon was a man from Henleys involved with dance?

AVIS Yea, he lived here, in Ilford here.

AR Where’s the Manchester? and what was it? Was it a restaurant?

AVIS The Manchester?

AR The Manchester.

Looking down 1920s Aldersgate, with the Manchester Hotel on the corner of Long Lane and Aldersgate tube station opposite. Carlton & Prior would be just down from the omnibus.

[BREAK]

AR … is talking about meeting Harry Renton.

AVIS That’s right back …

AR and said ‘we went to lunch at [the] Manchester, but I only had one hour’.

AVIS Yes

AR ‘and that a man sat next to me who absolutely reeked of scent’.

AVIS Yeah, that was the man she should have married, Harry Renton. That was the man. He went to see her in, in Holloway.

AR Did he?

AVIS Yes, he went to see her in Holloway.

AR Was he in love with her?

AVIS I, well, yes, he was, but, you see, he went to the war and he had a hole over his tummy.

AR Ah, he was the man who was so badly injured.

AVIS Yes, you see…

AR because she says here, you know, that she, mmmm, helped him to find his flat in Moscow Court, Kensington.

AVIS That’s right. Yes!

AR That’s true?

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Aah

AVIS Now that’s the man who’s (whose?) I think…

AR Did she ever tell you that she had any feelings for him?

AVIS Well, mmmm, he used to write to her, you see, and I used to say to her as a kid ‘are you going to marry Harry?’, you see, so she said ‘Well, I might’; and then Percy, Percy Thompson came up, and where he came from, or how he came from, where she met him, I have no idea.

AR Ah, that’s a pity!

AVIS I have no idea: where she met him, how she met him. There was a whole nice little crowd of friends they had. They used to come – my mother used to – sometimes we’d have a little tiny whist-drive – see, sometimes a whist-drive and then we’d have a little singing at the piano and then my mother would bring in a supper; and we had in those days a tin quite as tall as that for six pence, which was a lot of money, pink salmon, and my mother would warm that and make some mashed potato and a vegetable and a sweet, and we all sit down to dinner, all these, about half a dozen, and I met all their friends, very nice boy. But I was a very, very shy, very shy person, very shy, always.

AR So you don’t know what, where the Manchester was, or what that was? ¹⁴

AVIS That would be somewhere in the City I should imagine.

The Manchester Hotel, just up from Carlton & Prior, opposite Aldersgate Station. It was frequented by Edith and by Carlton & Prior. As it was in 1891.

AR Yes, Now she also says, this is, this is connected with you thinking at one time that Percy [sic: Freddy?] was interested in you.

AVIS Yes.

AR She says here, sarcastically, ‘when Avis came over on Wednesday, although it was 11.30 before she went, he insisted on seeing her to the tram, and when I offered to come with him, he was most emphatic in his no. I expect he wanted to ask her about you, had she seen you, etc. etc.’ But do you remember him insisting on …

AVIS I remember him taking me to meet the tram sometimes, not always.

AR What would you talk about when he would take you to the tram?

AVIS I should imagine that we, something that might have happened in the house, or something we had done together, or something we might be going to do together.

AR Who is Molly?

AVIS I can’t think who it is.

AR [reading] ‘… saw Molly this morning. Darlint, if you saw her you’d say at once the same as you did about the girl in the Strand, do you remember? What is she doing to herself? She looks awful, her face and lips are rouged terribly, and thick black lines pencilled under her eyes. And her face is fearfully thin, fallen in under the cheekbones’.

AVIS No …

AR Here she mentions Ilford, the Ilford Hippodrome. This letter she writes on April 24 1922, and she says that she went to the Waldorf to lunch, and stayed on till the dance tea.

AVIS Ye …es

AR [reading] ‘I only danced once; a foxtrot. I think I must be waiting for you.’ She is saying she didn’t feel like dancing.

AVIS He, he, he, he isn’t, wasn’t allowed to, Freddy Bywaters.

AR Wasn’t he?

AVIS No!

AR ‘ We left the Waldorf at 6.20 and met Avis at 6.30 and went with her to buy a costume’.

AVIS Yes, I, I had a brown costume.

AR Now, where did you meet them, can you remember?

AVIS Oh, I would meet them at the Waldorf, I should imagine.

AR You would have met them at the Waldorf, and was that with her and Percy?

AVIS Oh yes, yes.

AR and where, do you remember where you went to get that costume?

AVIS Oh yes, yes, do I not!

AR Where

AVIS In …. now what’s the name of the market up there, in Oxford Street … it’s a brown costume and on the pockets here were outside patch pockets, had braid going … and it looked like little roses to train up it; and I had ordinary stockings and I bought a pair of brown suede shoes to go with it; and mmmm, – I think they were in the Dolcis in Oxford Street, and a pair of gloves and oh, everything! Now what was the name of the market there?

[BREAK]

AR In Berwick Street market?!

AVIS Berwick Street market.

AR But in those days, was there clothing? because these days there’s no clothing, they only have vegetables.

AVIS Vegetables? Oh, they had …

AR Only fruit and vegetables and flowers now.

AVIS Oh, they had everything there! and stalls in the road

AR Yes

AVIS Oh yes, I haven’t been to Berwick Street for years!

AR Did Edie not go with you into, into any of the big stores, like Swan and Edgar’s, or Selfridges, or …

AVIS We hadn’t the money for that.

AR Those were too expensive in those days.

AVIS They were too expensive.

AR Ah

AVIS too expensive.

AR and did you, did you ask Edie to go with you because she was good at choosing?

AVIS Yes, she was good at choosing; and I would’ve gone out and bought something; and she would have said ‘buying that old-fashioned thing!’ [laughs]

AR Did Edie buy all her things in Berwick Street market?

AVIS A lot of them, yes, a lot of them, yes; a lot of them she bought.

AR She mentions having tea in bed with you at 41. When you stayed there, did you use to nip into her bed, or something?

AVIS I must have done! I must have done!

AR You don’t remember?

AVIS No, I don’t remember that, but if she said so I would say that was the truth!

AR She also mentions the bottle that you found and so that

AVIS … the bottle, yes, that I found.

AR Now, she also says that at one time there was a mysterious, she received an Easter egg and a, and a Christmas parcel and she didn’t know who they were from. Did she ever mention them to you?…

AVIS No, no, we didn’t … I didn’t know of anything like that, and I, I don’t know why Percy Thompson didn’t tell my father. She’d ‘ve, were they coming from Bywaters?

AR I think they probably came from Percy.

AVIS From himself?

AR Yes.

AVIS Oh you do!

AR or that they were just a fantasy of hers.

AVIS Yes, yes …

AR I think that perhaps she was saying that to, to make Freddy feel jealous.

AVIS Yes, yes, yes … [laughs sadly]

AR She mentions you here. Now, she’s writing this letter on the first of May 1922: ‘We have changed our minds about Llandudno. It is too expensive, and we are going to Bournemouth July 8^th’.

AVIS Yes.

AR [reading] ‘… and while Avis was over last night, he asked her to come with us. The suggestion was nothing to do with me. It was entirely his, and although I wouldn’t have suggested such a thing for the world, I’m glad, because if things are still the same, and we do go, a third party helps make you forget.’

AVIS Yes, yes.

AR Now, was it, was it … Percy that asked you?

AVIS Yes, he asked me to go with them; because – and I said ‘well, what about Edie? what does she say?’, you see?

AR and what did he say?

AVIS He said ‘I’m asking you. It doesn’t matter about her. I’m asking you’.

AR Why do you think he asked of you?

AVIS I don’t know if they had a bust-up and he thought, you know, that if I came there I might have a, a, a dampening feeling on her, and she would respond a bit more. You see, I knew so little of their married life.

AR Mmmm

AVIS In those days of course we never talked about marriage or anything like that, like they talk about it today; and what you are going to do and what you are not going to do and how many children you are going to have, and all this, that and the other.

AR Now she says something here about you which I don’t know what, what you would feel about it because I think she’s being quite nasty here.

AVIS [laughs] Let’s hear it!

AR She is saying – and this letter isn’t dated, but it’s obviously in May 1922 –

AVIS It’s to go to Freddy?

AR Yes

AVIS Mmmm

AR ‘I don’t know whether Avis liked the books or not’.

AVIS likes the books?

AR ‘Liked the books or not’, she’s saying. Obviously there are some books that you had all read.

AVIS Yes, if she bought them.

AR Her and Freddy, she bought a book and gave it to you and then she gave it to Freddy, or something …

AVIS Oh yes, I always read everything she had.

AR ‘But if you asked her why she did like it or did she not, she couldn’t say, could she, do you think? She couldn’t discuss each character as we do. She wouldn’t remember enough about them. She would only remember the general theme of the book, so why ask.’

AVIS Yes, yes, that’s probably right.

AR Now, is she saying that because she thinks she is cleverer than you?

AVIS Oh no, oh no, I don’t think so. No, that’s just as she thought.

AR Well, would it be true?

AVIS It, it probably might be. You see, she’s talking about books there that she’s lent me and things that struck her in a book might not have struck me as far as I was concerned; and, another thing is, things that she thought, two different people had different views and different means and manners of things, don’t they, you see? Oh no, she wasn’t being clever there. That’s just what she thought. No, she wasn’t being nasty there. Oh she would have been a bit more curt if she had been nasty. She would come right, straight off the … [laughs]

AR Was she considered to be outspoken?

AVIS Mmmm, yes, sometimes – (‘yes, I was going to say, put that under the chair and move …’) Yes, yes, yes, my father said ‘Those wee girls are much too outspoken’.¹⁵He always used to tell me I’d get into prison by being so outspoken [laughs] and I used to say to him ‘Well, that’s alright if you come and throw me a bun, Dad’.

AR Did you ever have any holidays together as children?

AVIS We very seldom had any holidays. We couldn’t afford it. But when Grandma and Granddaddy moved from Dalston down to Speen, we used to go there for our holidays.

AR Speen, in Buckinghamshire, yes.

AVIS In Buckinghamshire, yes.

AR S P E E N.

AVIS That’s right, Speen in Buckinghamshire, yes.

AR What sort of a place is that?

AVIS Well, it was the most beautifullest little place you could see, and, opposite my grandma’s cottage was the Oxford and Cambridge grounds where Granddaddy used to stand at the gate and see the foxes come over.

Speen cottage of Edith’s grandparents where she and her siblings visited as children

AR Mmmm. So you used to have a country holiday there?

AVIS Yes, we used to go to a country holiday.

AR All the children.

AVIS Yes.

AR All go together.

AVIS Yes, yes, and that’s how my grandma used to see all her grandchildren.

AR Yes.

AVIS They all used to take it in turns to go down at certain times.

AR What used to happen, Edie had her birthday on Christmas Day …

AVIS Yes.

AR And so, did anything special happen to Edie, did she feel that she missed out on her birthday?

AVIS Well, my mother always said she did, you see. Now, my mother’s wedding day was on the 4^th December, her birthday was on the 17^th, and Christmas Day was on the 24^th, and she al[ways] …, 25^th I should say. She [Edith] always said she lost a lot by being like that, you see! But, I, no, I don’t think so. My mother, she was a very, very good plain cook, and she would go out of her way to make a very nice little show for her.

AR You, you mean on Christmas Day?

AVIS Yes.

AR So, you used to have a big feast.

AVIS We always had a big do Christmas Day, always, and my father was a man, Christmas Day – it sounds funny – we always started with sardine on toast, then we had soup, then we had our poultry, Christmas pudding, nuts, and wine, always.

AR Enormous meal!

AVIS Always did, always did, and my father always got up, he always said grace that day, always said grace – [on] other days we always had to say our own – but he said grace, and sit down, and the first thing he’d do was toast my mother, always toast my mother; and I’ve seen her with her tears running down her eyes, you see.

AR But she never liked to be sentimental, did she?

AVIS No, no, no, she was a bit of a hard nut there … well, you see in those days it wasn’t done. Today it’s all the other way about.

AR Did you and Edie share a bedroom when you were children?

AVIS Yes, when we were children; and then, when my cousin came to live with us, cousin Edith Garnett, mmmm, I think I had a put-you-up in the bedroom, except …

Avis Graydon’s letter to Audrey Russell

[on the BBC’s A Pin to See the Peepshow]

(27 November 1973)

20 Roll Gdns

Gants Hill

Ilford

Essex

27.11.73

Dear Audrey

I’m feeling much better today, so will endeavour to concentrate on answering both your letters.

It was my intention to do so, on my return from my very nice week’s complete rest, but it was shelved till now, please forgive my rudeness. Oh how I missed the companionship of my friends did not think I could possibly stand the liveliness, but I am gradually getting back to normal.

The last episode of the ‘Show’ upset me more than I thought possible, its quite a different thing talking of these matters from seeing them.

The last time we saw E on the Monday, she was so drugged, it was difficult for her to recognize us, so Im not surprised she was dragged along. My parents were told by a clergyman, she was dead before reaching her final place, this of course can only be substantiated by the Powers that be, and they would be afraid to speak the truth even if they are alive, anyway I have always, and shall continue to, think this is the truth.

I hope the BBC are well satisfied with all the pain and anguish they have caused all the persons who, through no fault of their own, have again after so many years been troubled with this show. Personally I thought it sheer rubbish, badly played, and not at all truthful, which of course is like so much of the programmes of today, it’s just a matter of money.

It’s nice to know you are feeling much better. I trust you will continue so, March is not far away now. Is it to be twins? A Pigeon Pair.

Take care of yourself & don’t work too hard.

yours sincerely

Avis Graydon

Avis Graydon
(1896-1977)

Edith Thompson’s sister

(interviewed by Mrs Audrey Russell in 1973)

© René Weis

Avis Graydon (1896-1977)

Edith Thompson’s sister

(interviewed by Mrs Audrey Russell in 1973)

© René Weis

Avis Graydon
(1896-1977)