The New Year lament of an Edwardian diarist

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1897

TONIGHT, Father and I are seeing the New Year in, and it is now nearly twelve o’clock.

How fast – how very fast, the old year has flown, and what sad changes it has brought about.

All Darlington has, today, been electrified by the news from India of the death of Sir Henry Marsham Havelock- Allan, KCB VC etc.

Poor foolish man! This was his last mad freak, and he has paid dearly for it, indeed! It is reported that he heard something detrimental about the Royal Irish Regiment, of which he is colonel, and that he had gone out to investigate matters for himself, unofficially, but with an escort.

He left the escort, and was then lost. His horse, a restive one, was found stripped and shot through in the jaw and it is supposed that Sir Henry had fallen from its back, as his body was found unmutilated (underlined) and conveyed to Redhourir for burial.

Elsie says that Sir Henry said before departing for India on November 26: “I shall never return!”

Lady Alice when she received the telegram, the paper says, “was thrown into great grief, and could hardly believe it true.”

Poor soul, should think she reproaches herself now, for all she has said and done to her…”

DISAPPOINTINGLY, Enid was running out of room on her page and crammed in her final sentence so that it is impossible to make out how it ends.

But elsewhere in the diary, she has already made it clear that she does not like the newly-widowed Lady Alice who haughtily drove along Grange Road from her home in Blackwell Grange and looked contemptuously at Enid.

By contrast, Sir Henry was a hero. Born in 1830, he’d joined the Army when he was 18 and been with his father, Major-General Sir Henry Havelock during the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58.

The older Sir Henry commanded his men with brilliance at Cawnpore and Lucknow, where he was killed.

The younger Sir Henry served with daring, recommended by his father for a Victoria Cross when he gallantly captured an Indian gun.

Following his father’s death, Sir Henry served with distinction throughout the world until 1881 when he was forced to retire from active service due to ill health – although that reputedly didn’t stop him leading his men into battle armed only with a riding crop.

In 1880, he’d had a stroke of luck: he’d inherited Blackwell Grange in Darlington (now a hotel) from his cousin, who stipulated that he must add his family name, Allan, to his father’s Havelock.

Havelock-Allan became Liberal MP for South Durham in 1885. He was a good speaker with strong opinions who was liked by the Durham miners for his no-nonsense attitude.

During Parliament’s Christmas break in 1897, Sir Henry went to Afghanistan to investigate complaints of indiscipline among the Royal Irish Regiment.

On December 30, he was riding down the Khyber Pass on a fresh horse, as Enid says. To tire it out, he broke into a gallop.

The enemy – the Afridis – saw him go. They wanted to capture him so he could be held for ransom, and so fired at his horse.

The ball passed through Sir Henry’s leg, severing an artery, and he bled to death.

His body was taken to what we today know as Rawalpindi, and the North-East was plunged into a state of shock.

Enid appears to have returned to her diary on January 1 to write about the news having read the details of the death of the war hero in The Northern Echo.

BEECHWOOD

My footsteps like a ticking clock

Aroused my thoughts, my ears would mock

And time stood still forever there

Suspended in the cold, still air

But sometimes all alone I’d feel

A presence in that time unreal

‘Neath Beechwood in the cellar cold

And I’d be gone for I’m not bold

DARLINGTON’S diarist Enid Robinson grew up in the Beechwood mansion, in Grange Road, Darlington, where Sainsbury’s and its enormous car park, is today.

After it ceased to be a private residence, it became the headquarters of United Automobiles, a bus company. The mansion became the company’s palatial offices while all across Enid’s childhood garden sprawled a mass of bus sheds and garages.

Albert Curle, now of Ferryhill, left school aged 15 in 1982 to work as an office boy in the depot before starting his apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic.

“The front of the office building was like a scene from an old film as a grand staircase led up to the General Manager’s office,” he recalls. “It was so quiet and still and spotless as if time had passed it by.

“Going into the building, the corridor was busy with staff moving between offices. As office boy, I sometimes had to leave the corridor to go down into the cellar to look for staff records. I would switch the lights on and go down the steps into another world, where office furniture and filing cabinets were stored, creating many shadows in the dim light. The cold air and silence caused me to become aware of my heartbeat as I checked the records.

“When I had found what I was looking for I would slowly make my way across the floor to the bottom of the steps, but occasionally I felt as if I was leaving somebody behind, which was impossible because I was alone.

“At the top of the steps I would look back, I do not know why, then switch the lights off, step into the corridor and lock the door behind me, pleased to be back in the real world.

“Returning to the workshops my ears would ring because of the noise from men hammering and using compressed air tools, the din was unbelievable.”

The memories moved Albert to poetry, but does anyone have a proper picture of Beechwood?

A 1961 photograph of the junior members of Darlington Cycling Club (DCC) on their way to Richmond Meet filled this column in November.

Readers kindly identified many of the cyclists, but no one as yet has told us about the bugle the front pair – Don Meecham and Tommy Gash – are carrying. Neil Wishart from DCC believes that the bugle probably belonged to the Richmond Cycling Club, presumably to warn Victorian road-users of the impending arrival of the peloton.

In the Sixties, the Darlington and Richmond clubs merged. “We believe that the bugle was put into the hands of the Richmond Meet, and placed for safe keeping with the Richmondshire Museum,” says Neil. “Despite speaking to both bodies, we do not know where the bugle is today.”

Can anyone point us in the right direction?

SEVERAL people responded to the throw-away remark about the cars parked outside the Buck Inn, in Northallerton, in 1962.

Many thanks to them, especially Mike Porter, in Richmond, and Brian Strain, in Middleton One Row, who agreed on all but one.

From the left (See picture four):

1. Morris Oxford.

2. Austin Cambridge, “with body style by Pinin Farina – this body was also used on the Morris Oxford, Wolesley 15/60 and Riley 4/72”, notes Mike.

3. Volkswagen Beetle.

4. Triumph Mayflower. “This so-called ‘razor edge’ style was also used on the larger Triumph Renown,” says Mike.

5. Austin A40.

6. And here they diverge. “I might be wrong, but it looks like one of the big Vauxhalls, probably a Cresta,” says Mike. But Brian plumps for a Humber Snipe. Can anyone adjudicate?