My sister has seen this and has contributed some additions.

My Mother and the World Tour

My mother when in Australia planned to spend time with her mother's sister Maude and her mother's aunt Moody; the latter had settled there, married to a wealthy Australian, and was joined later by her niece Maude. This was at my grandmother Wilson's suggestion; it was my mother's chance to see that end of the scattered family, and she took it. In what follows I give some notes based on my mother's diary, which she kept sporadically during the period November 22 1914 up to August 6 1915.

The diary was kept in a 'Ladies Yearbook 1915', which had spaces for the days of the week, 3 or 4 days per page. The introductory section of the yearbook contains instructions to the 'mistress of the household', how to keep accounts, taking a house, furnishing and decorating, hints to consumers of electricity, notes for the kitchen, weights and measures, medical advice, beauty, making clothes, household and commercial law etc; it being 1915 there was a section on 'how to help our soldiers'. There was also information of which the utility is open to conjecture, like a complete list of all Archbishops of Canterbury since Augustine, and the layout of the theatre seats in London. I suspect that she bought this in London on her way to catch the P&O boat.

She had used the pre-diary memoranda section as space for notes on the last days of 1914. She began on Friday November 20 1914, noting arrival with JJ at Euston and going to the P&O shipping office; they joined their boat, the Caledonia, at Tilbury the next day, and sailed on the Sunday, initially to Plymouth to pick up mail. En route there was a 'parley' with a trawler, as a result of which they changed course; it was wartime, and submarines were probably at large. Departing Plymouth on the Monday they made Gibraltar by Thursday 26th, after a rough crossing of the Bay of Biscay, with a sighting of a British cruiser. At Gibraltar they went ashore and saw the sights, including the monkeys. Returning to the boat they encountered one Bagapi who had been at Lincoln College Oxford and knew people known to JJ.

The next stop was Malta, on Sunday November 29; on the way they were in sight of the African coast and encountered a French warship. Then on the way to Port Said there was a note on December 1: 'gentleman died in first class which made people feel gloomy'. Arriving Port Said on December 2 they encountered transports with troops from Australia and New Zealand: 'we cheered them'. Churchill's disastrous Gallipoli expedition was in gestation and these unfortunates were probably the fodder. On the way down to the Red Sea they passed 30 or 40 troop transports on the way to join in the war. On Dec 3 another note: 'gentleman died second class...has burial at sea which was very impressive..'. Was this a normal death rate of passengers on P&O ships to the east I wonder? On Sunday Dec 6 they arrived at Aden; military equipment, in the form of searchlights, was in evidence.

(Heat stress could have been a factor causing deaths. The origin of the work 'posh' is relevant; if you were travelling to India by P&O you could pay more for a POSH cabin, meaning 'port outward, starboard homeward'; in other words your cabin was on the shaded side of the ship, and did not get overheated by the fierce Red Sea and Indian Ocean sunshine.)

After an uneventful few days, apart from games of chess; they arrived at Bombay early on Saturday December 12, and spent that day and the following seeing the sights. On Monday 14 began my mother's separate journey; after seeing JJ off on the 9 a.m. train, on his way to contact his brother James, my mother installed herself on the night sleeper at 9.30 p.m.; she arrived in Madras early on the following Wednesday morning; she had contacts there, presumably via JJ's network of brothers; they visited the aquarium, and the 'place shelled by the Emden'. There had been a cryptic reference at Port Said to a ship with prisoners, among whom was Captain Mueller of the Emden. The significance of this now becomes clear. An early attempt must have been made to assert German sea-power off the coast of India. Temples were visited, with guides; lepers and monkeys were seen; 'tiffin' was consumed.

Then on Friday December 18 she began another overnight train-ride, arriving in Colombo the next day, where she stayed in the Bristol hotel. The sea-crossing to Ceylon must have been a train-ferry at night; my mother did not mention a sea-trip as such. After another day's enjoyable sightseeing (rickshaws, cinnamon gardens, bazaars) she joined her P&O boat on Monday Dec 21, where she shared a cabin with a woman with a black baby. The boat was half empty; 100 had got off at Aden, and 160 at Colombo. She took up with a Mrs Farquarson whom she found good company. She managed to negotiate a cabin to herself, but was increasingly miserable on her own. She enjoyed a good meal in the Captain's saloon on Christmas Day, and subsequently recovered her spirits, feeling good in rough weather when others were sick; she recorded several presumably flirtatious encounters, and played chess.

On Thursday December 31 they arrived at Fremantle; passengers joined, and she had to share her cabin; they had a new-year party, which she enjoyed. They arrived at Adelaide on Monday January 4 1915, and then Melbourne on Wednesday 6th, where she was welcomed by her Aunt Maude, whom she recognised as being like her mother; they went back to Aunt Moody's place, and the diary then stops for some weeks; presumably in the initial excitement of the visit she did not have time to write it up.

On January 26 came the first brief entry: 'spent evg at Don's'. The Ladies Yearbook tip of the day was 'wash black straw hats and black lace in beer to make them a good colour'. Then on Thursday 28th ('eight pennies or twelve halfpennies in a row measure one foot') we 'went for drive to Camberwell and Kew'. Then in February time must have started to weigh heavily, as the entries begin again, with records of sightseeing with Munroes, Flora, Daphne, Gordon, Gertie, Ed, Flossie; picnics in the bush, to the sound of cuckaburras, Sherbrook Falls, Alexander, Mr Headley. Auntie Moody fell ill and had to call the doctor. My mother seems to have assumed the status of a sort of home help or 'au pair'. By Feb 14th Auntie Moody had recovered. On the 17th they went to town and bought a vacuum cleaner for £6-12s. By March there seemed to be beginning signs of tension; she arranged to go to dressmaking classes, feeling the need to get out of the aunts' hair.

Life continued more or less uneventfully, with church services, organ recitals and shopping trips; there was no word from JJ all this time. Then on March 23 she got a letter from her mother and one from JJ, declaring his intention of applying for a commission in the Army. This naturally upset my mother; JJ must have been under some pressure from the brothers in India, who were pillars of the Empire. She resorted to 'automatic writing', a then fashionable procedure for communication with spirits, without it making any sense.

Then on Friday 26th came a cryptic cable from JJ saying 'work passage Java' which she did not understand; the got them to repeat it; there would be no charge if there was a mistake; it wasn't, and she was charged 7/6. She researched boats going to Java: once a month from Sydney and the same from Melbourne. A letter then came on March 30 from JJ in which he said he had decided not to 'go to the front', but without clarifying what the cable was about. She was warned by the spirits not to go to Java. She cabled Colombo as this was a contact-point JJ had given her. My mother by this time was under some considerable stress, and was showing symptoms.

On March 31 there came another cable 'come Japan instead'. There were no letters to explain things; the suspense was 'terrible'. She remained in suspense, with a series of routine entries, until April 12, when two letters came from JJ, one with some money, and the other giving the timetable of his travels, and explaining the cables. Another letter came from JJ in Bombay the next day. Then on 19th came a further letter from JJ in Bombay wanting her to go to Japan. One can see the extent of the communication problem.

The routine of church, organ recitals, garden parties, picnics, dressmaking and so on continued; the entries cease for some time; then on May 18 my mother recorded her farewell to the two Aunties, who left her to a boat, which was packed with troops and medical staff, heading for the European war; she encountered a gentleman called Taylor; they saw the sights of Adelaide, reaching Fremantle Monday May 24.

The diary then goes blank for some days, suggesting dedicated activity. Then in June 1 she records her 'last day with my chum Jim... he was a most interesting and entertaining companion..'. She arrived Colombo on June 2, went to Cook's, '...everything topsy-turvy owing to riots..', went back to the Bristol Hotel, regarded as safe.

After some days in Colombo, picking up her earlier contacts, she joined the Sardinia going east on June 6; there were 32 other passengers, it was quite a small boat, headed for Hong Kong and Shanghai. She 'went with Mr and Mrs Hecker and the Marconi man to see the Marconi apparatus'. She subsequently refers to the 'Marconi man' as Marconi: could this have been the man himself, or simply a label for the functionary in charge of the equipment? I suspect the latter; Marconi at this time was running a major high-tech enterprise. On June 10 they passed by Sumatra and admired the hills; she played chess with 'Marconi'. They arrived at Penang Friday 11th and then Singapore 12th. She felt very ill; had to see the doctor and get medicine; dengue fever it was; temperature 104. She was quite recovered by Friday June 18 when they reached Hong Kong. The had to get a permit for Shanghai, and had some time to see the place, including a trip to Kowloon. Then after more chess with 'Marconi' they arrived at Shanghai on Tuesday June 22, where she finally met with JJ, and introduced him to Dr Fleming, and 'said goodbye to all her Jap, Russian and English friends'. They spent until the following Saturday June 26 in Shanghai, writing letters, making arrangements with Cooks, and seeing the sights. The boat for Japan had mostly Americans and some Germans on it.

They arrived at Nagasaki on Tuesday June 29, where they encountered '..a delightful Irishman named Mr Evans from Ballinlough...'. They went to Pleasanton(?) Hotel, owned by Mr Sanborne; there was a Miss Paton from Antrim there. They called on Mr Young, Editor of the Japan Chronicle. We here have an indication of the ubiquitousness of the extended British imperial network.

The diary subsequent to this becomes sporadic, touristic where entries exist; she noted the Sakemoto canal tunnel which features in JJ's report. She recorded her last day in Japan as being September 6, after a long gap. At about this time my sister Maureen must have been conceived; she was born on Jun 6 1916.

Thus ends my mother's record of her world trip. At the end of the book she puts on record the school report of her younger brother Eddie; he had come 1st, 2nd or 3rd out of about 20 in all subjects, and had very favourable comments.

The diary must have fallen into the hands of my sister when small; she lists 'mother, daddy, edie, sheila' as being members of something for which the fee was 6d. Sheila was her cousin, William's daughter, who later died. Eddie, my mother's brother, could probably have stayed with them when in college; he trained to be an engineer, went to work in England, but had a nervous breakdown and died in an asylum.

My Father's Younger Sister Ann

She stayed on after Partition in Dublin in the civil service, making her career there. With Thekla Beere and others, she was a founder-member of an Oige, the Youth Hostels Association, in the early 30s.

So, on the whole, we have family tradition which was Protestant and Irish, looking to Ireland as their home, as an integrated whole, while identifying with the British Empire, which they regarded as having a civilising mission in the Enlightenment tradition. This helps to explain the position JJ took with the Civil War in Ulster, published in October 1913.

Residences

My mother, with my sister Maureen when small, in JJ's car, circa 1919.

There was towards the end of the decade a move to a rented house in Sandford Road, Ranelagh, called I believe Santoy. This was prompted by the arrival in Dublin of Jenny Wilson, my maternal grandmother, and then later by my aunt Anne and her mother, who had given up their lodgings, or perhaps mews flat, in Bessmount near Dungannon. They were later joined by Sam's three sons (Sam being in Newcastle sanitorium in Wicklow on his death-bed); the house was by then somewhat congested, and my mother was it seems on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This situation persisted from some time, being finally relieved by the move to Stillorgan, after Sam died. Sam is buried near Newcastle Co Wicklow.

My sister however seems to have thrived in the situation; she was regarded by her friends as lucky, having two live-in grannies, one of whom could knit, while the other could sew, so she was always well clothed.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999