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Chapter Five - page 2

Iky Goldstone was a fellow Union-Castle officer; they had both joined the R.N.R. together and were great friends.   Iky was my sister Penelope’s Godfather, in August 1942 the ‘Richmond Castle’ was sunk by torpedo, Captain T.C. Goldstone died of exposure in the lifeboat. Were any other family members at the wedding?   I doubt it, Geff’s mother was 72, very frail and living in Tumbridge Wells and I somehow do not think Ruth’s mother came over to England until some years later.   There would I am sure have been one other at the wedding if he was in fact then in Southampton.   My father would surly have asked the man who was responsible I am sure for his shore appointment, Captain Mumford of the “Epu”, now the Marine Superintendent at Southampton. Their honeymoon was also a very different one to that expected by the bride of today, no two weeks in the Caribbean or Seychelles but a walking tour in the Cotswolds, they had only a week and it rained just about every day.

Was this Mr. Adams?   I have a very strong feeling that he was the shore bosun.

My mother was not known for either laxness or laziness; there would be no hanging about waiting in the hopes that the rain would ease up.   I can hear my dad now telling me about that week and laughing, but he probably was not laughing then.   On one particularly ‘English’ day, cold, windy and very very wet they had been tramping all day and all dad was longing for was a nice warm bath then supper in front of a roaring fire.   At last late in the evening they found a ‘bed and breakfast’ cottage that could put them up for the night, dad could almost see the steam rising from the mental image of that hot bath.   Ruth went directly to the heart of the matter; she marched up to the bed, pulled the covers aside and declared the sheets had not been changed from the previous occupants.   That image of steam vanished, poof, no matter the hour, no matter the rain, no matter the lack of hot food my mother declared the place unsatisfactory and off they went, another cleaner place would have to be found.   I never knew my mother to have any other standards than the best; she always lived by them and expected it in others.   For Ruth there was no ‘easy way’, no idea of compromise, there was only one way, the right way.   

I think they must have returned to live in rented rooms, most likely at No.24, Silverdale Road the address Geff gave on his marriage certificate.   I think they only moved into their own rented home, No.15, Highfield Close in March or April 1931 for that is the date on the receipt for their furniture.
A year later and Geff and mother had moved to No.88, Highfield Lane, a move I think prompted by the arrival of Ruth’s mother, my grandmother Katherine Morris.
Katherine was now seventy years of age, sadly it never occurred to me to ask my parents much about her, not that I expect they knew very much of her early life themselves.   But I would have liked to know a bit more about her, little things such as the name of the ship she came over to England in and so forth.   She must have been a remarkable person; it is not difficult to see were my mother got her firmness of character and determination from.   Katherine, the eldest daughter of a carpenter was born in 1862, by 1871 she and her sister were in an Aldershot orphanage and ten years later she is back in Devon helping her aunt, also called Catherine as a laundress.   Marriage to an apothecary, James Henry Morris, emigration to the Cape Colony resulted in her and her husband raising a family of five daughters, each of which would go on to university or similar higher education in England and South Africa, this at a time when it was not thought appropriate to give girls more than a elementary education.   Now she was to return to England some forty or so years after she and her husband had set out for the Cape on what must have been an adventure of great risk into the unknown.  

a)             For an eyewitness account of my grandmother and the Morris family in George read ‘Letters from Molly’.   My grandmother’s early life and her family in Devon can be found in ‘The Devon Radfords and Welsh Morris’s’.

And she and her daughter did not get on well together, dad told of coming home and being forced to act the piece maker, it all got too much and grandmother rented a neighbouring house, piece in some measure being restored.
My sister Penelope was born on September the 17th 1932, my father’s peace and quite was shattered forever.

“In March 1933 I was promoted to 2nd Assistant and then in January 1934 promoted to 1stAssistant at a salary of £475 per annum.   I was comparatively young and as the control of stevedoring was under the Marine Superintendent we employed our own men and had our own pay and time office.   I received an excellent grounding in all aspects of this work.   We started to keep records such as the rates for loading and discharging any type of cargo per ton or in some cases per bale or case.   In short a costing system.   We knew the foremen, the men, union officials and most important the shop stewards.   The care we took over our men, especially when sick produced in turn great loyalty to the Company - we had very little trouble."