Teddy’s sisters and their families

Jean Miller nee Millar

1917-2010

Jean was the eldest of the sisters and the one whom I knew the least. She married Stanley  Miller on Christmas day 1937  in Surrey with both of her parents attending the ceremony.

                                   Married on 25th December 1937

Jean and Stanley  lived in Wimbledon until such time as she retired to Bognor. Jean and Stanley had two children, Marion in 1939 and Martin in 1945. Stanley was a plumber.

Jean was the Aunt that I knew least well and do not ever remember going to Wimbledon to see her. My mother always told how she went up to see her when I was still in a pushchair and having arrived at her home, Teddy was left standing on the doorstep and not invited in so perhaps that is the reason we did not go to see her. I know that Marion always said that she was an odd person and when Marion was growing up she was not allowed to have her friends in the house. Stanley left Jean in the late 1970s or 1980s

Martin was very ill as a baby with  meningitis  but penicillin had been discovered to be effective and used in 1944  only a few  years earlier and so he was cured. As a result it was always felt that was the reason he was Jean’s favourite.

I have a few photos of Jean and Stanley and will put them in this gallery for you to see

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Marion Van Djuif nee Miller

1939 – 2014

I remember Marion well when I was in my teens as she was working at Bentals in Kingston in the record department and seemed so much more grown up than I was. She was very fashionable and always well made up at a time when I had few clothes and no interest in makeup. We always laughed at the time when I was about 15 and very flat chested. Marion insisted on taking me out to buy me a bra although I had nothing to put in it!  It was in the days when the cups were cones coming out to a point and with stitching all around it. I don’t think that I ever wore it! I do remember her wearing a grey, completely circular felt skirt with green dots on it. I was so impressed with how smart she was.

We decided that we lived completely different lifestyles as Marion always went out to work and always lived in cities, so always dressed and made up whereas I lived a more casual life on the beach, so wore shorts and teeshirts and no makeup. When I visited Marion and her husband Joop  in Spain in 2007  she was still very elegant and smart.

I have photos of her and will post some now to show what I mean.

I had a lovely few days with her in Spain and while I was there she showed me a silver hand mirror that she said Jean had given to her and which had originally belonged to our  Great Grandmother- Emma James. It was a lovely thing and here is a photo of it.

I last saw Marion at Jean’s funeral in 2010 and spoke to her just a few weeks before she died. I was most upset to be on a cruise from Cape Town when I received the email telling me not only that she had died but that I had also missed her funeral. She was a great character!

Martin Miller 

Born 1945

I have very little information about Martin and have only seen him a couple of times – at funerals – over the last 50 or 60 years so can only post this photo taken from one at Jean’s funeral

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Nora Courtney Amphlett nee Millar

8th August 1919 – 23rd October 2001

As I have said in an earlier post, Bunty was found a position nursing at the Maidstone Ophthalmic hospital by her Aunty Nan and started there about 1936. I always understood from Teddy that Bunty had been engaged to someone who was killed at Dunkirk. As Alfred and Norman were both away in the desert together Norman and Teddy suggested that Bunty should write to Alfred. This they did and after he returned from the war, Alfred proposed to her and they were married on 25th December 1945 at the Sacred Heart Church, Wimbledon and had a very successful and happy married life together.

Christmas Day 1945. Norman is best man to Alfred, with Bunty and Alexander

They lived in Maidstone where Alfred ran a men’s outfitters on Gabriel Hill called Baldocks who he worked for before the war and I remember my father driving us to Maidstone to visit them. It used to seem such a long way and take such a long time to get there and now it is only an hour! Bunty’s first child, Paul was born there in 1946.

My cousin, Mary, has been so helpful in telling me about the family movements and says that she and her sisters, Elizabeth and Hilary, were all born after they moved to The Hermitage, the guest house of Stanbrook Abbey where Bunty would look after the guests and Alfred would cycle to the shop in Upton on Severn. Mary was born in 1948, Elizabeth in 1949 and Hilary in 1951 while at the Hermitage.

I remember very clearly going to stay at the Hermitage and loving it as it was so beautiful with glorious trees in the grounds and an old fashioned pump for water with a well and I remember a lot of aquilegia in the flower beds which I had never seen before and still love.

Mary says that they moved back to Maidstone as Alfred was offered work running Baldocks with accommodation in the flat above the shop. The three girls all started school in Maidstone so they must have moved there before 1953 and been there for about 5 years as they then moved back to Upton on Severn where Andrew was born at Upton in 1958 and then Gemma in 1962.

When in Upton on Severn, Alfred ran a gentleman’s outfitters and Bunty had a ladies clothes shop at the Bow Window where they lived before moving to Berryfield House where they lived from 1956 to 1964. When my father started to drive us to Worcester for a visit, the drive took all day and was quite an adventure in the little Ford 8 we had. I remember being in quite a panic as the car had so little power that my father always wondered if it would get up a hill especially when we drove round the Malvern hills!

When they moved from Berryfield they moved into 17 High Street, Upton where Alfred took over the newsagents next door to his outfitters and had a door knocked between the two premises.

The then went to live in Worcester and Bunty worked at a care home and became Assistant Matron at one care home.

Unfortunately Alfred developed Parkinsons and when driving became difficult for him they moved back to above the shop in Upton before retiring to Callow End.

In August 1953, Bunty and Alfred went on holiday to Italy to stay with the Ferro’s – the family that Alfred had met during the war- in Savona. Apparently Angela Ferro was an interpreter for Alfred,

When we went to Italy, Bunty and Alfred had four children and as Hilary was a bit too young to take away she stayed in Broadstairs with my parents and I went to Italy with them. I can remember being so excited at going on a plane for the first time and hating it on the journey out as I had such trouble with my ears. Aircraft were not as well pressurised as they are nowadays.

I had my 12th birthday out there and I still have the silver filigree bracelet that Bunty and Alfred gave me for that day. Bunty wanted to go to Rome and took me on the train with her. Being a very staunch Roman Catholic we visited almost every church in Rome including the Scala Santa where we had to go up the stairs on our knees. I had very thin and bony legs and it was agony for me!!

Sadly Alfred died  in 1996 aged 83  and Bunty died five years later in 2001 having developed the loss of memory that seems to run in the family as all four sisters had it along with Alice Maud.

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Children of Bunty and Alfred

I am not going to write about anyone who is still alive as I feel that is an invasion of privacy but hope nobody will mind if I just list all offspring with a photo if possible

PAUL AMPHLETT BORN 1946

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MARY AUSTIN NEE AMPHLETT BORN 1948

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ELIZABETH DUFFY NEE AMPHLETT BORN 1949

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HILARY MAXWELL NEE AMPHLETT BORN 1953

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ANDREW AMPHLETT BORN 1958

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GEMMA AMPHLETT BORN 1962

All the above photos were taken at the funeral of Jean Miller on 7th June 2010 when we took family photos. Sadly Andrew Amphlett was unable to be there as he lives in Scotland.

Here are some photos of the Amphlett

Now to the youngest sister, Chick:

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Vera Brett nee Millar

1ST FEBRUARY 1923 – NOVEMBER 2014

From the various notes that I have from Bunty, Jean and Chick via the Amphlett girls, it sounds as if Chick had a tough time as a young girl. Being the youngest, it sounds as if she bore the brunt of her parents breaking up. She would have been aged about 10 at the time.

This is a copy of the memo that I have about Chick at that time.

Like you, Lizzie, I’m sure Mum said earlier that it was Chick who had a breakdown. Mum said the doctor told her to write down her story as therapy. When he/she read it the comment was that it was an awful story that would be condemned as too awful to be probable in a novel or film. She hinted in this way at how awful aspects of their lives had been but never elaborated.

I am not sure at what age Chick’s breakdown would have occurred but it may have been about that time as I gather that by the time Alexander and Alice parted company, Teddy had been found a position in Broadstairs at the Victoria Home – she was aged 16 so went away. Apparently, Alice went away taking Chick with her and leaving Jean and Bunty with Alexander. It is believed that Alice went to Broadstairs to Nan and was working for her and if that is true then poor Chick probably did not have a very happy time of it as Nan is known to have been an unpleasant woman and I understand that her mother, Alice had a breakdown after Alexander left her and she hit the bottle so poor Chick must have gone through that too. I have a photo of Chick on the steps leading down to Viking Bay with her cousin, George James and his daughter Sybil who is aged about 3 or 4 so it must have been taken in about 1936 when Chick was 12 or 13 and this does tend to indicate that she was living in Broadstairs at the time

I do not have any information about what work Chick did or how or where she met John and am hoping that her son’s Raymond and Philip will be able to give me more information about it once I am able to make contact with them. Raymond has sent me this lovely photo of them:

I do know that Chick and John married in June 1942 and then had a son Philip born June 1942 followed by another son Raymond born in June 1946 and then a daughter, Frances born 27th August 1955 and who sadly died on 9th August 2010.

I will update this post once I have more information from Philip and Raymond.

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Children of Chick and John Brett

Philip Brett born 1942

The above photo of Philip was taken at his daughter’s house on the occasion of the 50th Wedding Anniversary of Philip and Maria.

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Raymond Brett born 1946

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Frances Louise Brett 1955-2010

Frances was born on 27th August 1955 and died on 9th August 2010 in Poole, Dorset.

I sadly know little about Frances life but Raymond has kindly sent me some photos of her. The one thing that I do remember about Frances, was when she came to 12 Chaucer Road with Chick having both of them fallen out of their car as it was moving. Both were so badly torn by the concrete and gravel, that I do remember the shock. It was not long afterwards that my sister, Cheryl, also fell out of the car. Nobody had seat belts in those days and nor were there child locks on car doors.

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This link will take you to Teddy