BRITAIN’S new first lady is Lady Starmer, the wife of the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer. But, as Memories 687 told, Darlington had a first lady called Lady Starmer first.
Darlington’s Lady Starmer married Sir Charles Starmer, twice mayor of the town, briefly the Liberal MP for Cleveland and for most of his working life the managing director of The Northern Echo, in 1929. He was 59 and she was somewhere in her thirties.
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“She always kept her age a closely guarded secret,” said the Echo in her obituary in 1979.
As Memories 687 told a fortnight ago, Sir Charles’s second spell as Darlington mayor ended after six months as he died at his home in Westminster, aged 62.
This left Lady Starmer a widow after four short years of marriage.
For the rest of her life, she immersed herself in the life of her adopted town. She was president of 38 organisations and vice-president of 37, and she was awarded the OBE in 1948 for her services to Darlington and County Durham.
One of her vice-presidencies was the Hundens Ladies Bowling Club, which plays at the Eastbourne Sports Complex.
It was formed in 1929 when Sir Charles donated its first trophy. He stipulated that the trophy had to be displayed for two weeks each in three shop windows in Yarm Road every year.
Lady Starmer became vice-president in 1932, and opened the season by bowling the first wood on May 4.
Every year until her death in 1979, the Hundens Ladies visited her home, Danby Lodge off Coniscliffe Road, where there was a bowling green, to play a match against The Northern Echo Men.
“We still have one member, Kath Campbell who’s 86, who remembers going to Lady Starmer’s,” says assistant secretary Irene Hobson, who has played for 41 years. “I never went to Danby Lodge, but I did meet Lady Starmer – I worked for Bishop’s opticians in Skinnergate and there was a meeting about rejuvenating the street in the library, and I represented the business and sat next to her. She was ever so nice.”
The annual fixture ended in 1979, but the Echo gave the ladies a trophy which, like the Sir Charles Starmer trophy, is still played for.
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“We are struggling for numbers, but we are one of only two women’s clubs in the town – the other is at the Woodlands – and we still get a team of nine out on a Thursday to play in the Darlington & District League, and each Wednesday we play a little competition between us,” says Irene.
Danby Lodge, with its large lawned gardens, was always at the disposal of Lady Starmer’s clubs, either for competitions or for fund-raisers.
John Parkinson says: “We recall with fondness both the friendly unassuming personality and kindness of Lady Starmer when she hosted for many years the annual summer garden parties of St George’s Presbyterian Church (now the United Reformed Church in Northgate) at her home, making available to us the grounds and conservatory for games, teas and ices.”
And Mike Taylor recalls: “As secretary of the Darlington and District Badminton League, I had the great pleasure to meet Lady Starmer on many occasions between 1971 and her death in 1979 as she was the president of our league, and an open air badminton tournament was held at her home of Danby Lodge.
“The league was invited to hold its Annual General Meetings at Danby Lodge with supper provided which made the evenings run quite late, but it was an honour to be in her presence.”
Mike was the league’s representative at Lady Starmer’s funeral at St Cuthbert’s Church on December 28, 1979. Lady Starmer was Darlington’s Queen Mother, and this was as close to a state funeral as was ever held in a provincial town. That morning, her body effectively laid in state in the chancel, with representatives of her clubs taking turns to stand in watch beside it as people paid their respects.
The service in the afternoon was relayed to hundreds of people outside who were unable to get in.
AS the Echo’s obituary in 1979 stated, Lady Starmer’s age was always “a closely guarded secret”.
But not any more.
Her maiden name was Cecilia Mary Willink and, through the wonders of the internet, Jonathan Peacock has discovered that she was born in the July to September quarter of 1893 in the Prescot area of Lancashire.
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The information in our old-fashioned cuttings backs this up as her father, the Reverend John Willink, was ordained in 1881, became a curate at Bishop Auckland before becoming a vicar in Sunderland and then moving to St Helens on Merseyside – which is very near Prescot. He eventually became Dean of Norwich.
This revelation means that Lady Starmer was 36 when she became Sir Charles’s second wife – a 23 year age gap – and she was 86 when she died.
AS well as being regally omnipresent in Darlington, Lady Starmer is remembered for her dreadful driving. She favoured large cars – a Bentley, a Vanden Plas and an Austin Princess – and although she had a chauffeur, she liked to drive herself into town, waving at people on the pavement rather than looking at the road ahead.
“Your article brought back special memories of when we first moved down to Darlington from Scotland in 1967,” says Marion Bell. “When we were shopping in the town centre, we often came across Lady Starmer’s large car parked – or should that be abandoned – at a jaunty angle while she went into a shop nearby.”
Other stories tell how she would hop out of her vehicle, leaving the engine running and saying to a policeman: “You look after the car, my man!”
Marion continues: “We could not believe that someone could get away with leaving their vehicle in such a position. It was not until we discovered who owned the car that we realised how Lady Starmer managed it.”
She was, as the young people might say today, a ledge.
LADY STARMER had her car serviced at the Cleveland Car Company, which featured in last week’s Memories. Its remarkable half-timbered showroom used to be on Grange Road, and was where George Johnson served his apprenticeship in the early 1940s.
The Havelock-Allans of Blackwell Grange also brought their Humber to the garage, which aimed to be “the finest garage outside London”.
“There weren’t a lot of people who had cars in those days,” says George’s widow, Doreen, in Stockton. “He loved it there. He always told how, because the war was on and cigarettes were in short supply, his manager would say to him ‘get on that bike and don’t come back until you have got me five Woodbines’.”
George – whose middle name was “Handel” because his parents were big fans of the Messiah – was called up into the Northumberland Fusiliers to fight in India, and when he returned, he went into partnership with his friend, Ernie Brooks, in a garage in Bishop Middleham which had the contract for servicing Newcastle Brewery lorries.
When their partnership dissolved amicably, George, who died in 1994, went on to work at places including Smart & Browns and Rothmans in Spennymoor.
Meanwhile Ernie went on to build a prototype single seater gyrocopter, powered by a Volkswagen engine. When it crashed at Teesside Airport in 1969, he lost his life.
THE picture of the Cleveland Car Company showed a bus outside it with the name of “Arnold Cockburn” on it.
“Arnold Cockburn was the first BMW dealer in the north of England, and I was his first salesman,” says Edgar Longstaff, of Carlton. “His showroom was in Staindrop Road in Cockerton, and I sold one BMW on my first day in 1966 and two on the third.”
Arnold was born in Darlington in 1930, took his apprenticeship at John Neasham’s garage, was called up for national service in Singapore and then returned to start his own business repairing cars near the Cockerton cricket ground. He sold British Motor Corporation vehicles, including Darlington’s first Mini in 1959, and then opened his BMW dealership over the road. It was called EME Motors after his wife, Emily Mary Evelyn, who had been a receptionist at Neasham’s.
EME Motors also sold two Russian makes, Moskvitch and Volga.
EME Motors is now the site of a nursery, although much of Arnold’s repair garage remains as a car valeting business.
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