Harriet Marsay WALKER
| Born: | 11-Jun-1918 | Harriet Marsay HARKER | Whitby, North Yorkshire |
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| Parents: | Robert Isaac HARKER
Harriet Marsay WALKER | |||
| Married: | 12-Feb-1946 | Derlwyn Howard EDWARDS | Henley | |
| Children: | 01-Sep-1946 | Susan Elizabeth | Whitby, North Yorkshire | |
| 29-May-1948 | Robert Howard | Whitby, North Yorkshire | ||
| 22-Aug-1951 | David Malcolm | |||
| 12-Feb-1953 | Peter Graham | |||
| 28-Apr-1955 | Lucie Margaret | |||
| 24-Aug-1956 | Judith Anne | |||
| 25-Jul-1958 | Gillian Mary | |||
| Died: | 09-Sep-1993 | Sheffield, South Yorkshire |
Some of the following is edited from a discussion on Sheffield Forum.
Harriet grew up in the care of her mother (also named Harriet Marsay Harker), and her aunts Lily and Annie. She was an intelligent and capable girl. She was later the first girl from Whitby to win a university scholarship. She was good-humoured, musical, talented in languages and with an artist's eye.
She played a flower-girl in "Little Red Riding Hood" at the 1929 Whitby County School Speech Day.
Harriet rarely used her given name, being known as June, after the month she was born in.
At university she met her future husband Derywyn Howard Edwards (known as Howard), who was also studying there.
Harriet worked for the BBC World Service in Paris, and caught the last train out when the Germans entered. People have refered to "her fascinating tales about her life, particularly during the war".
Harriet's first two children were born in Whitby, in September 1946 and May 1948. During this time her husband Howard must have been doing his teacher training course. He would probably have entered University College London in 1946 and presumably lived in London from 1946 to 1949. If he taught in Belfast, as another post mentions, it must have been around 1949. I don't think he ever lived in Whitby, so maybe Harriet wanted to be with her mother for the births.
Harriet submitted her resignation to the BBC Monitoring Service on 4th July 1946, two months before her first child was born.
In the early 1950s the family lived in a small terraced house on Eskside East in Musselburgh, Midlothian. During that time Harriet's husband Howard taught at Loretto School near Musselburgh. He was not yet earning enough to buy a television set; on Saturday afternoons the children went to Luca's ice cream shop on the High Street, where they could buy a threepenny ice and watch "The Lone Ranger". (Luca's still exists.)
In the spring of 1957 the family moved to Biddulph, a small town in northern Staffordshire near the Cheshire border, when Howard took a job teaching maths and rugby at Stanfield School in Stoke on Trent.
The family lived at the end of Charles Street, in an imposing detached house, in a style that I think is called Tudor, with black beams on white walls, at that time surrounded by open fields, and named "Tall Oaks" after the eponymous grand trees which lined the drive. There was a stream running through the garden. The house and garden no longer exists, having been demolished and replaced with a housing estate.
In 1963 Howard took up the headship at Owler Lane School in Sheffield and the family moved to "Endcliffe Edge" on Fulwood Road.
I remember your grandma well. She subbed at Owler Lane for a while and taught my class. She was a nice lady. It's very telling that you didn't see your grandfather after his divorce. Was he so aloof that he didn't want to see his own grandchild?
I'm not sure that the reported "blazing row" between Derlwyn and his son really happened - both parties were too reserved for that - but there must have been a gradual dissolution of their relations. I believe there was at one point an awkward confrontation that precipitated the son's decision to leave. During the breaks in his studies at Cambridge, the boy came back to Sheffield with increasing reluctance. Towards the end of 1967, in his third year, he found a way to avoid returning. Maybe in Cambridge he had made friends with whom he could stay; in any case he did not come home for Christmas nor for the following Easter. In effect he was severing the ties with his father, who however did not react at all. In May of 1968, the spring of the summer of love, the young man completed his final examinations and, without a word of farewell, left the country. He sent a postcard from Newfoundland, another from New York and maybe one or two from other places. Then the postcards stopped coming.
June was also a teacher, and I believe she was head teacher at Lydgate Lane Primary when she retired in 1978.
In the early 1970s he and Robert had a blazing row, the culmination of many, which I understand was about they way he treated June (grandma) and the other children (my aunts and uncles). Robert stormed out saying he would never see him again. We found out a few years ago that he now lives in the middle east.
When grandma died in 1993 the coroner said "so, Harriet was a widow?" to which we all replied "yes", without thinking. I don't know if my grandfather is dead, but he would be 90 years old now.
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After serving in the War Howard took the demob teacher training course and became a teacher. I didn't know that he taught in Belfast, but I know about him teaching in Musselborough, outside Edinburgh and then Stoke on Trent before coming to Sheffield in the 1963.
While moving around the country they had seven children, Susan, Robert, David, Peter, Lucie, Judith and Gillian.
Howard became headteacher at Owler Lane School, Sheffield, which was later moved to Hinde House.
Around 1958 he moved to Biddulph in Staffordshire. He and his family lived at the end of Charles Street, in an imposing detached house, at that time surrounded by open fields, and named "Tall Oaks" after the eponymous grand trees which lined the drive. During that period he was teaching in a nearby town (other posts in this thread indicate that this was Stoke-on-Trent).
After his RAF service, he rarely or never ventured overseas. Apart from Welsh, he was not known to speak any foreign language (although I understand that his wife spoke French). In the summer holidays, he usually took his family either to his mother-in-law's house in Whitby, north Yorkshire, or to a caravan site in Skegness on the east coast of Lincolnshire.
He did not smoke, although his wife did. He drank bottled beer, rarely wines or spirits. His preferences in food tended towards traditional English dishes like roast beef, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding.
Did he have a warmer side or a sense of humour? I can't recall his telling a joke. But he was known to play practical jokes. One such was to creep up behind his wife in the kitchen and "knee" her in the back of her legs, which made her laugh.
He did not seem to push or influence his children in their studies or careers, but he probably envisaged university studies for most of them. His eldest daughter obtained a place at London University but dropped out in the first year, returning home with a female companion whom Mrs. Edwards described as "neurotic". Mr. Edwards was secretly proud when his eldest son won a scholarship to Cambridge University, but never said so to his son. During his studies at Cambridge, the young man severed all ties with his father but nevertheless graduated with first class honours and promptly left the country.
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Yes, people returning from military service did take these short courses to become teachers. Some of the courses were only a matter of a few weeks: sixteen seems to stick in my memory. I was at Burngreave (or "Stalag Burngreave" as it was affectionally known at the time) soon after the war and most of the new teachers we had were graduates of these short training programs. They were a mixed bag. Some were first rate, while others were definitely in the wrong job.
He had by this time dropped the "Derlwyn", although one wonders what was wrong with this good Welsh name, which means "oak grove", a name well suited to this strapping strong-jawed fellow. At least he had a claim on "Howard", which was his middle name. Harriet had a similar discomfort with her given name, preferring to be known as June, a name whose origins I cannot discern.
He once mentioned that he had done parachute training (his wife, who was listening, was quick to riposte, "They had to push him out of the plane".)
In 1950 Derlwyn moved to Scotland to join Loretto, an upper-crust boys' boarding school. This was a small fishing town in Midlothian, a few miles east of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth. For this account of his career at Loretto I am indebted to one of his former pupils:
His former pupil goes on to quote the Loretto magazine for 1957 as follows:
"In April, Mr D. H. Edwards left to take up an appointment as Head of the Maths Department at Stoke on Trent School. He was most successful at coaching - firstly boys for the Additional Maths papers in the G.C.E. (many Masters envious of the high percentages he always managed to attain, and sometimes wondered if those who were, so to speak, in the percentage trade, got special treatment for their exponents), and secondly, at coaching forwards in the XV; again and again he turned an undistinguished pack into a really good one - to the delight of our supporters and the surprise and confusion of our foes."
During his Loretto period, from 1950 to 1957, Derlwyn and his family lived in a small terraced house at 11 Eskside East in Musselburgh. As the name implies, the street fronted on the River Esk. The river joins the Firth maybe half a mile to the north. I recall that there was a iron girder bridge, painted green, that crossed the Esk near his house, leading to a wasteland of gorse bushes and abandoned hangars. Derlwyn was not yet earning enough to buy a television set; on Saturday afternoons his children went to Luca's ice cream shop on the High Street, where they could buy a threepenny ice and watch "The Lone Ranger" in black-and-white on the BBC. (Luca's still exists.)
By my calculations his move to Sheffield was around September 1961, when he was 44. His new job was as headmaster of Owler Lane Intermediate School. Two years later Owler Lane was absorbed into Hinde House Secondary School, the merged school becoming the first comprehensive school in Sheffield. He was appointed headmaster of Hinde House, an important career advance for him. The term "comprehensive" implied a merger of the former two-track state system of "grammar" (for academically minded kids) and "secondary" (for the rest).
None of Derlwyn's children attended this school. His eldest son went to King Edward VII School and the other children, I suppose, to local primary, grammar or secondary schools. His house was on Fulwood Road, in a quiet and prosperous residential district of Sheffield.
After his RAF service, he rarely ventured overseas (although eventually he bought a flat in Spain). Apart from Welsh, he was not known to speak any foreign language (although his wife spoke French). In the summer holidays, he usually drove with his family either to his mother-in-law's house in Whitby, or, with a modest caravan in tow, to a beachfront campsite to the north of Skegness on the east coast of Lincolnshire. The children played "I Spy" on these trips; one of their favourite acronyms was "FSPTW" which stood for "First Sign Post To Whitby", a road sign on the Yorkshire moors that they awaited breathlessly on the way to their grandmother's.
He did not smoke. His wife did, but he apparently did not object. He drank bottled beer, rarely wines or spirits. His preferences in food tended toward traditional English dishes like roast beef, potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, and desserts like semolina, baked rice pudding and apple crumble and custard.
There was of course the radio (I think that the BBC had a monopoly in those days, but there was a pirate music station called Radio Luxembourg to which the Edwards family tuned in). There was, I think, an upright acoustic piano, which Harriet could play, though she rarely did. The family had also a wind-up gramophone with a small collection of 12-inch vinyl records.
Did Derlwyn have a warmer side or a sense of humour? I can't recall his telling a joke, though I see from other posts that he was capable of ponderous aphorisms. He was known to play practical jokes. One such was to creep up behind his wife in the kitchen and "knee" her in the back of her legs, which made her laugh.
Certainly his relationship with his children could be described as authoritarian. They did not attend the schools where he taught, so they did not experience his terrifying "work" personality, of which his former pupils have spoken with awe and horror. He was not prone to express affection for his children, either verbally or physically. He occasionally or maybe regularly administered corporal punishment to them, both the boys and the girls. That is to say, he beat them on their bottoms. Is this an echo of his reported violence to students?
He also had a system of disciplining the children, which he called "penance": if a child did something wrong, he or she had to do a task such as cleaning the house. He seemed quite pleased with this system; it did not take much of a fault on the child's part for Derlwyn to sing out "Penance!" in a cheerful tone of victory. Penance is a concept that originates from the Catholic and Orthodox churches. I don't think though that Derlwyn was a Catholic or indeed a regular churchgoer of any denomination.
Derlwyn did not seem to influence his children in their studies or careers, but he probably envisaged university studies for most of them. His eldest daughter obtained a place at London University but dropped out in the first year, returning home with a female companion, thin and dreadfully afflicted with acne, whom Mrs. Edwards described as "neurotic". This would have been around 1963. The first signs of dysfunction in the Edwards family?
His first son was evidently aching for an opportunity to escape. Something happened to the boy in the early 1960s. There are two photographs of him, on the website of the Old Edwardians, that caught my attention. As a new boy, in September 1961, he has a mischievous sunny smile. In a class photo dated 1962/63, he stands at the end of the back row, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and staring disconsolately somewhere off-camera. In January 1965, having finished his high school studies, and with a scholarship to Cambridge University awaiting in September of that year, the boy leaped at the offer of an eight-month apprenticeship with the Bristol Aeroplane Company, that allowed him to live away from home for the first time. He was just 16. His mother was reluctant to let him go; the boy insisted, and Derlwyn expressed no opinion.
Derlwyn's wife told me much later that he had been secretly proud of his son's acceptance at Cambridge, though he never said so to anyone else (least of all to the boy, who maybe needed to hear the words). Did the boy's departure engender or unlock Derlwyn's sociopathic personality? Did he take out his anger on his luckless charges? Or was it there before? His former pupils will have to speak for this, at least for the timeline – do their accounts of the Welsh dictator date to the time before 1968?
Then there is his divorce, which I understand occurred around 1976. Derlwyn and Harriet were not an overtly affectionate couple, but they seemed used to each other and they had seven children. I never heard of major fights or even heated arguments between them. When I learned of their divorce, many years after the fact, I was surprised. What was involved? Another woman? Another man? I never learned.
I did hear that Derlwyn remarried, his second wife died, and he married for a third time.
Remarkably, if I have my facts in order, all of his children lost touch with him. Jonathan Harston remembers that when Harriet died in 1993 the children reported, possibly incorrectly, that she was a widow.