Granny Betty
We didn't see much of Granny Betty. We saw much more of John and Nola because they had more money and they could travel. And by the time Mom and Dad could go back to South Africa Dad's Mom had died.
I am afraid I don't think Dad ever forgave Betty for effectively giving up on him and his brothers in the period after John divorced her. John and Nola and their Lido hotel and their lifestyle intimidated her, hurt her and made her deeply bitter, or so I gather. But she didn't fight for the children she had with John. She gave them up to the competent whirl of John and Nola, so seemingly successful in everything and I think their success and happiness poisoned her life a little.
The result was that she didn't come to pick up Dad when he was a little boy waiting on the steps of boarding school for his Mom, the result was that all three boys were damaged to the core in witnessing the "defeat" and partial destruction of their mother's psyche.
When Joan Hoffmann talks of Dad and his brothers and how they missed their Mom who never came for them, her eyes well up with tears. John and Nola sent the four boys: David, Tony, Mike and John to boarding school, partly to get them out from underfoot. But in the end John and Nola were supportive, loving and caring, if a little too controlling, whereas Betty initially abandoned them. Of course when they got older Mike and Dad in particular could take the initiative and go to their Mom's house.
But when Dad's Mom died I saw he was angry at her. He refused to go to her funeral. He said Lisa was more of a real mother to him and called Lisa Mom. He didn't call Nola Mom, but he respected her and what she gave to his Dad. What he needed basically. A dynamic and loving partner and assistant. But I did hear him say once:
"I should have paid much more attention to things. I was so wrapped up in politics and Eve, but I should have gone back to try and save my brother from the clutches of that woman."
Having said that I must say this: His whole life Dad never had a bad word to say about Nola or about his Mom in front of us and it was only in extremis that he made these remarks. Perhaps he would be furious with me for passing them on. But as I want to write about Dad and Mom, these remarks seem pertinent and not impertinent. In the first instance he was thinking of his own pain. In the second instance he was identifying with his brother's.
Mike took us there to see Granny Betty. I remember Budge too. He was very ill when Andy, Chris and I saw him. He had an oxygen tank. I don't think we ever conversed with him, just greeted him. I remember Granny Betty's appreciative smile. She was affectionate and kind. You can a good sense of people, can't you - their presence - when you are young?
I was in screaming agony with an ear-ache. Which must have been very familiar to Betty as Dad constantly had ear-aches. John, didn't believe in doctors, something he passed on to all his sons and to some of our generation, but this meant that he never took Dad to the doctor's when he had an ear-ache. Instead John poured warm olive oil down his sons ear. Betty did the same. Dad would be in agony untill, finally, the absess burst and the pus flowed. He said he felt such enourmous relief. (I think this ear problem must have something to do with swimming pools.)
Granny Betty doctored me and helped me and looking back on it I think Dad must have had that same loving attention that I experienced a smidgeon of - a tiny bit of what Dad didn't get enough of when he was small: a little of what it was that he was angry about losing when he was only 6, in 1942.
The Hammond Hale Family
This following information comes from Joan Hoffmann. Thanks Joan. And it also comes from the Australian branch of the Hammond family. Unfortunately, we don't have any information about the Hale family, but there was something said by someone about a Hale being deported to New Zealand for stealing sheep in Scotland. I wonder.
Granny Betty's family emigrated to South Africa from Australia and New Zealand. Her Dad, according to Joan Mary, was a dreamer who used to wake her up in the middle of the night to look at the stars. Apparently he wasn't very focused or practical. On Granny Betty's mother's side the family are mostly tailors from London with the occasional shopkeeper throw in. So that must be Jewish roots on that side.
We were walking along the Strand Mom and talking about Dad's family and the possibility that his grandmother was Jewish on his mother's side when Mom snapped at Dad. "Well a tailor's shop in Fetter Lane, what does that tell you? Come on!" So I suppose that the Winters had a shop there, or worked there.
Additional information is that William was a soldier tailor for more than 4 years and that he was discharged unfit in Cape Town on 18th March 1845. He and his wife Mary Ann had tailor shops in the middle of Sydney but moved to Maitland. William died 25th January 1873 and and is buried in Oakhampton Cemetary, Maitland and Mary Ann returned to Sydney and died in Glebe 5th December 1900 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Rookwood.
Clement Jeffrey and Mary Wright of London
Mary Ann
James and Mary Finlayson
William
William and Mary Anne Winter came to Sydney on the Albermarle in July 1853 from London England
Kate (b.1846 London)
Mark (b.1848 London), and Elizabeth Jane Moore
Emma (b. 1852 London), and Thomas P.S. Hammond
Mary (b. 1853 Sydney) did not marry
James (b. 1856 Sydney), and Margaret Jane Brough
Grace (b. 1859 Sydne), and James Park Thomson
William (b. 1861 Sydney) and Elizabeth Barry
Ruth (b. 1864 Sydney, married George Canham
Thomas Peachy Shearer Hammond and Emma Winter from South Maitland - Telerah in New South Wales Emma died aged 38 on November 30th 1888
Grace Mary Hammond (died January 8th 1999 aged 22 years)
Audrey E Hammond (died 4th January 1904 aged 19)
(Both buried in Campbell's Hill cemetary Telarah (Maitland) Bracky Maitland)
Elsie Ruth Hammond, (Born Australia on 14th December 1982, emigrated to South Africa, died 9th June 1968),
Henry William Hale (Born in New Zealand) with Elsie Ruth Hammond
Joan Elizabeth (granny Betty),
Audrey
Ruth
(all born in Pretoria)
Joan Elizabeth and John Hall and Budge Wingate Pearse
David and Felicity
Tony and Eve
Mike and Dallis
-
Geoff and Carol
Joan Mary and Pat
Audrey and Hamish Orchison
Ruth Hammond (born 25th June, died 13 July 1984) and Walter Hoffmann
Joan Patricia (Born 9th February 1940)
Christopher Charles and Geraldine Swaepool
Ann Gabrielle and Richard James
Vivian Ruth and Ronald Fishbach
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