Poppy’S with Honour

By Laura Rose

Poppys with Honour is about an originally wealthy family living from 1762 1960, who are ancestors to the Author. There are ten individuals with their own chapters, achievements and struggles as they project their own way though their social, economic, and political times. Included is the history of an Astronomer who had the courage to pursue her goal regardless of her female gender. Others demonstrate births, deaths, ignorance of diseases. High mortality rates, invention of baby ` Murder bottles`. Limited medical knowledge. Lives shown through the changes during the Industrial revolution. The First World War, introduction of Gas Masks, and new vicious weapons used. Medals won. Men lost. The fun twenties. The Depression, the Means test. The effects on many during the Second world War. Home Front, Air-raid Shelters, Civil Defence, Nurses work , Dunkirk, D. Day. Penicillin introduction, the first Blood Transfusion Donations. Aftermath of the Wars. Rehabilitation in the 1950`s and the effect on the Author as she lives her way through her childhood with her Mum struggling as a single parent. This is a book about the true lives in the history of how life was. With its prompts of interesting information you will read as you travel through the book. I hope you enjoy the journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496975959

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© 2014 Laura Rose. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/18/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7594-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7593-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-7595-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter One R O S E - (1900 – 1972)

Home Front

Chapter Two James Alexander (1924 – 1991)

D. Day

Chapter Three Rose And James

Chapter Four Amelia (Millie - 1921 - 2012)

Called Up!

Chapter Five James And Amelia - (Millie)

Chapter Six The I’onn And Deighton Families

Chapter Seven William I’onn —Attorney At Law 1791-1877

Chapter Eight Clement’s Marriage To Lizzie

Chapter Nine Alice Kate Clarke (1897-1977)

Bedfordshire

Chapter Ten Marriage Of Alice To Clement I’onn

Chapter Eleven One Day In Winter

Chapter Twelve Sick Days

Chapter Thirteen Last Day In Spring 1956

To my two dear sons Conrad and Christian, and members of the I’Onn/ Deighton families curious to learn their early ancestral history.

I think continually of those who were truly great

The names of those who in their lives fought for life

And left the vivid air signed with their Honour

What is precious is never to forget!

Stephen Harold Spender 1909-1995

Poet laureate, 1965

INTRODUCTION

I hope the reader of this book can join in the chapters and feel the life of long ago. The characters experiences told are from one family. The I’Onn family who came from a historical background of clergy and teachers with Reverend Peter I’Onn marrying into the Deighton family who came with the heritage of the landed gentry.

These people lived in a time of fascinating new industrial inventions, but the high mortality rates for mothers and babies still continued to blight families. There was a lack of medical knowledge, no cures, poor sanitation, lack of education for most, social and political exclusion especially for women, and a very strict class system.

Throughout these years lived a special family member - Jane Ann I’Onn (Mrs Janet Taylor (b-1804), who became an astronomical inventor, mathematician and writer. The book tells of her upbringing, her life, her inventions, marriage and children. For thirty years she worked for the Admiralty at Greenwich in London at a time of complete male domain. Her story gives an insight to her crusade and her personality as described by people of her time.

Later I’Onn generations experienced new industrial changes, with their shocking working conditions, overcrowding, poverty, bringing about the `Thirties Depression` and the dreaded, `Means Test.`

Clement I’Onn tells of his time in the Boer War and the First World War which became an new era of new mechanised warfare, such as the more fortified machine guns firing from new German fighter aircraft. Along with their use of the disabling chemical, Mustard Gas, on their allies. This held the British army back initially in but better weapons were rapidly developed, and the armed tanks were introduced which gave Britain the edge in fierce battle.

It tells of Amelia I’Onn and her nurses training in the Second World War, and the return of soldiers from Dunkirk. There are tragedies, love, loss, wealth and poverty, and the struggles of their time, with massive hurdles crossed during and after the devastating wars. Chapter nine tells of the old country ways with Alice born in 1897 and how the First World War changed her life

After the Second World War our modern New Age began, and chapter eleven explains how the austere 1950s affected Clement I’Onn’s grandchild, as the reconstruction of Britain still left many homeless, with massive debt to America, high taxation, and inadequate food.

This book reminds us of how far we have come between 1804-1960, because these are the years where the grounding for all we have now were laid. A door of progress speedily opened by our industrious ancestors who fought for our freedom with courage and fortitude, eventually leady to the affluence we all experience today.

POPPY’S with HONOUR

ROSE-HOME FRONT (1939 -1945)

Rose is the paternal grandmother to the author. During the Second World War Rose made comments about her understanding of the daily newspapers during times she realised the reader was cleverly manipulated by the press to keep up the British spirit. Original newspaper articles have been used for this chapter, which demonstrates how the news was communicated during these years to the public, much of it by the British Broadcasting Corporation with Winston Churchill`s speeches, daily quiz programmes, humour and music. In 1939 the overseas radio service was presented. Most members of the public at this time were of Christian belief either of Catholic or Protestant, which is why there are references made by even King George V for God to be with you as the Second World War was declared. ‘Poppy’s with Honour’ starts with Rose and how women coped whilst keeping `The Home fires burning.` It introduces her son James, who was due to enlist. The meeting of Amelia and the birth of her granddaughter Gillian, who plays an important future role in the book.

Each character has their own chapter with their own story, but are joined together, either through blood or marriage to the author.

Chapter two: JAMES—D - Day. (1943-1945)

A young man of 18 years sent to France on this unforgettable D - Day. He talks of their training before they set forth on their perilous journey to France. He drove a tank having to take the place of comrades injured or killed by intense firing. Chapter two is about his experiences whilst in France. James explains the chaos and despair and how even all best laid plans do not always work, leading to the despair for mankind and humanity. If you tread in James` shoes you can feel the experience as though you were there yourself.

Chapter three: ROSE AND JAMES (1945)

A reminder of how the War had changed young men forever. No counselling then. `Victory for England` day, and the relief the war was over, although the devastation of loss had left a battered austere Britain. Rose meeting Amelia I’Onn (Millie), which was to change everything.

Chapter four: AMELIA I’ONN (Millie) CALLED UP! (1921-1945)

Amelia was 18years when, ‘called up, for service` in the 2nd World War. She trained as a nurse, initially at Southport Military Hospital. The working life of nurses and the strict regime of hospital life are demonstrated. The return of the soldiers from Dunkirk. Introduction of penicillin. Millie falling in love with Thomas who was sent to Egypt and she never saw him again for six years.

Millie speaks of her hospital memories. And after the war instead of the life she had longed and hoped for, she found things had become a nightmare of regrets, lost loves, abandonment, and now ostracised by society for being a single parent, and a divorced one at that.

The struggles which ensued are lived in future chapters. This chapter shows how life did not return to normal for many years after the war. Relationships had been destroyed: broken marriages, children without fathers, women without husbands were common place. Homelessness was a major issue. This chapter shows examples of this in Amelia’s life. The more she tried to escape the difficulties in her life, the more it became one huge battle, one she was unable to escape.

Chapter five: JAMES AND AMELIA (1946 -1948)

This chapter begins with Millie’s struggles after leaving the safety of her past, when what she had planned had simply not worked out.

Too hastily Millie entered a disastrous relationship with James, which was to disencumber her life forever.

This chapter brings in for the first time her father, Clement Francis I’Onn, and stepmother, Alice.

Chapter six: JANE ANN I’ONN, the future inventor (1804-1870).

This includes the history of the Deighton family, with a landed gentry noble background, with one ancestor being Knight Protector to Temple Newsham, Yorkshire.

In 1788 Jane Deighton married Reverend Peter I’Onn, whose background was of teacher of religion, languages, mathematics and astronomy. Jane Ann I’Onn was one of their daughters, who became the future well known Mrs Janet Taylor.

This chapter is mainly the story of this remarkable woman who pursued her crusade when she inherited a small fortune after the death of her father, enabling her to pursue her ambitions, which was to train young sailors and their captains the principles of sea-safety. She set up the very first Navigation School in 1830, with principles based on her own reliable calculation.

This chapter is about her family and work and also includes Mrs Janet Taylor`s life. Her family, her marriage, and her children. It includes her work for the Admiralty, her origins, what happened in her personal life. Why did she approach this career with such determination? When was she born and where is she buried? These questions are answered and have never been available altogether in a book form.

You can travel her life reading this chapter, feeling her happiness, disappointments and grief. The information written is based on documental evidence from numerous family letters and research papers (please see bibliography).

I hope this will bring back to life these times and one person especially who, unknown to her at the time, paid a great contribution to the beginnings of the Women’s Liberation Movement. This lady was the great aunt to Clement Francis I’Onn, who was the authors grandfather.

Chapter seven: WILLIAM I’ONN (1791-1877)

Mrs Janet Taylor’s brother became an `Attorney at Law.` These were the times of emigrations, sailor deaths, family rifts, and the birth of his youngest son Alfred Arthur I’Onn - the father to the next generation of I’Onn family remaining in Britain today. One being Clement Francis I’Onn. The chapter consists of desertion, divorce, the workhouse, and the Boer War in 1899, where Clement fought.

Chapter eight: CLEMENT I’ONN and LIZZIE (1900-1923)

Their marriage and three children. In the First World War Clement fought again. This war was more brutal than the Boer War, using new forms of weaponry; explosive devises, mustard gas, and for the first time air attacks used. Enemy tactics were well prepared, but Britain was not ready for the change in weaponry in this trench warfare. Clement rescued an officer in the field of action. Military awards and honours for Clement, but the death of at least 703,000 British soldiers. Tragedy at home in 1923.

Chapter nine: ALICE KATE CLARKE (1897-1925).

Alice is brought into the I’Onn family by marriage. This chapter retreats back to the old country ways, as fully described.

When the First World War came it changed many lives forever – Alice’s included. Coercing adverts were made encouraging young men to fight for King and Country. The feelings and the desperate grief faced are expressed as the inexperienced troops were killed unmercifully by a war they were just not prepared for. The enormous grief and loss resulted in the funeral of the ‘Unknown Soldier.’

In these same years there was the absolute persecution of unmarried mothers, and people would go to extreme lengths to hide the identity of a baby’s biological parent(s). Still a disgrace until the middle 1960s.

Chapter ten: ALICE’S MARRIAGE (1925-1947)

Alice moves to Bolton and works in `Service’. This meant in Alice` case she was to become a very rich elderly lady`s companion, where she was given accommodation as far away from home as possible, in return for some meagre pay and on call most of the time. However Alice soon meets Clement, now a widower. The roaring twenties, so named because particularly the affluent were becoming more wealthy and having fun. Then the, `Wall Street Crash,` in America lead to the, thirties Depression,` mass unemployment, and extreme poverty, and the British government began a judicial process named the, `Means Test,’ with rules specifically beleaguered. Then a family tragedy.

In 1938 The Second World War becomes another vicious war, more brutal than the last. This chapter explains the rules of making indoor air-raid shelters. The work people did if they were not called up to fight, factories making everything for the war effort. Evacuees are mentioned, the shortage of food and ration books. The black market. How people coped. More injured soldiers, more damaged lives, more years of hardship. But a country determined to fight for freedom. Standing together with fortitude, jokes and smiles, even when their hearts were breaking. These are the people who saved Britain. Many with their own lives, and will always deserve our thanks. On the eleventh day, of the eleven month, on the eleventh hour each year people will meet together in order to remember our lost heroes, and always wearing that most significant flower: the Poppy!

Chapter eleven: ONE DAY IN WINTER (1947-1953)

This chapter is about Clement Francis I’Onn and also his youngest daughter-Amelia I’Onn. It expresses the hardships whilst the rejuvenation of Britain slowly took place. It demonstrates the changes in industry, with warfare products making way for modern household goods and cars.

Britain was on its way to a new modern world. The new National Health System and the use of penicillin saved many lives. Adjustments were made to lives whilst modern changes were rooting down. Living standards raised gradually. Amelia struggled to bring up her daughter alone.

Chapter twelve: SICK DAYS (1952-1954)

Family friction and change of address for Amelia and her daughter. New work in the Midlands with industries making modern equipment - washing machines, fridges, vacuum cleaners - and vast car production in Coventry. Amelia’s daughter suffered hunger and neglect with eventual hospitalisation. Homeless again.

Chapter Thirteen: LAST DAY IN SPRING (1954-1960)

Long separation between Amelia and her daughter. Then, their first permanent home together. The aftermath of the war still affecting people. Amelia’s new marriage. The death of Clement Francis I’Onn.

R O S E - (1900 – 1972)

HOME FRONT

Leeds, Yorkshire - 1939 - 1945

Rose stumbled up the stone steps, trembling and almost tripping in her hurry to get indoors. It was Sunday, third September 1939 and the dreaded rumours of war were now definitely confirmed.

Her eyes ached with the pain of old tears as she remembered the last ‘Great War’ killed her father and precipitated her husband’s very early death, owing to the lung damage initiated from the battles poisonous mustard gas attacks, when he was eighteen in Ypres. Her long brown hair was tossed over her shoulders as she thought of her sons James and Richard, wondering if they would all survive if the Germans managed to invade Britain. She pulled a view from the lace curtain and glanced through the opaque window, lifting her studious blue eyes towards the omnipresent sky. The vast space ahead shadowed over the world as though knowingly what was going to be. She gazed at the shades, rather hoping they would yield answers to prevent this war. But instead, turbulent dark clouds formed and hovered in anticipation, ready to soak the many tears which were bound to fall.

Stifling her worries, Rose brewed some tea, calling over the garden wall, to her neighbour Polly.

Are you ready for a cuppa?

Polly was beating hell out of a carpet, which draped defeated, over the washing line.

Yes please, I could do with a break, she gasped.

Rose wondered how many more days they would have before their lives would be changed and probably shattered forever, and she hoped this wretched war would soon be over. But the Germans were known for their brutal tactics, and they were never going to give in easily.

She hoped and prayed this would be the war to end all wars and they would come out of it safely, with the country undefeated.

Rose didn’t discuss the politics of the war with Polly as her only son Billy had just been called up, and she didn’t want to distress his mother further by discussing details. She could only offer a sympathetic ear, a cheerful smile, and lots of support in the days ahead.

‘He will be all right, Polly. It won’t last long, you just wait and see. Billy will soon be home, driving you mad as usual, as though he’d never even been away’.

Rose was a woman experienced in household tasks and independent. As a widow with two children she had to be. Her inquisitive eyes would pierce constantly at the onlooker, as though impatiently waiting for an answer but always wearing a happy smile which cheered people up. Her sensible motherly style of dress did justice to her and she was always relied upon for help when it was needed. Fortunately the home she lived had been inherited, although sadly from her parents. The draper shop she now owned had belonged to her husband when he was alive.

Rose was also an ecclesiastical catholic being. Her strong religious beliefs kept her focused on the duties set before her. The church made sure she was never lonely, by setting her tasks for the church community, where other families problems, far outweighed her own.

She also though education important and hoped her sons would take over her draper shop business one day. Rose sent her two sons to the local catholic school, hoping to avoid at the same time the rough and tumble of the local public school. Little did she know the priests of such high order could be at times just as cruel with their flogging ways and beating hands than the local feral boys. However both boys managed their school days with no mention of this to their mother who would probably not have believed them anyway, knowing how much she had sacrificed for their education, they struggled to keep quiet.

In 1938 rumours of war had broken. The Germans had marched into Czechoslovakia, then their next steps were Poland and France. To prevent the up surge of war - as Britain was quite unprepared for another war with Germany - Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, visited Munich on 30thSeptember 1938, to speak to Herr Hitler and hopefully sign an agreement for peace. An agreement was made between the two men, and the Anglo-German accord was signed by them both, which confirmed` that Hitler would not go to war with Britain. Chamberlain returned to Britain very pleased with himself, and relieved to have the evidence right there to thrust in front of the British people.

At Heston Aerodrome he waved the signed Policy of Appeasement triumphantly in front of thousands of suspicious members of the public. Everyone wanted to believe it, but deep down they guessed this was simply another rouse to give the Germans more time to plan their attacks.

In order to completely convince people it was true, and with great satisfaction, Neville Chamberlain appeared on Buckingham Palace balcony with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (consort), holding high the signed Munich Agreement confidently to the British people, promising this agreement meant there would be:

‘Peace for our time’ and ‘peace with honour.’

Neville Chamberlain (30th September 1938).

One man was heard to mutter, ‘not in our time, there won’t be!’

Those who had witnessed the Germans in the First World War questioned whether this document was completely sacrosanct. They found it very hard to believe it was true, obviously all hopes rested on its genuine nature and hoped that this would be the end of their fears for war. The following year, in 1939, Germany and Russia invaded Poland and Britain and France had pledged to defend Poland, if Herr Hitler invaded.

But as the government must have realised, Britain was not going to escape attack anyway. In September 1939 the invasion of Poland took place and resulted in an estimated 60,000 deaths, 200,000 wounded and 700,000 held prisoners; the Polish Government fled to Romania, leaving Poland as a state which now ceased to exist.

There was no alternative but to take Britain to war!

Britain had already been braced for war. A Parliament bill was made to provide air-raid shelters and there were proposals to evacuate all children from the cities, whilst parents and others were to stay at work. On 1st and 2nd September 1939, 7,000 people had been evacuated from London to safer areas, including 354, 000 children.

Rose watched despondently as an Anderson bomb shelter was erected in her garden, over her precious vegetable plot. It was built rapidly by two council workers, from fourteen sheets of corrugated iron and formed a shell. It stood six foot high, and four and a half feet wide and six and a half foot deep. It could fit six adults. The shelter was then planted into a deep hole, like a sunken shed.

Rose re-established her vegetable plot in the protective bank of earth surrounding the shelter and, as time went on, she planted vegetables on the bomb shelter roof. The neighbours helped each other and Rose and Polly shared four recycling bins - one for tins to make tanks and planes, second for boiled bones in order to make glycerine into explosives, and a third bin was left for paper to make shell cases. Any spare food was kept in a bucket to feed the pigs.

People were waiting with anticipation for this war to start. On the 10th May 1940, because of ill health, Neville Chamberlain handed over his prime ministerial position to Winston Churchill. He died a few months later of cancer, but some said it was of a broken heart. The stress of the incoming war must have made him felt guilty about how he had been deceived by Hitler.

The conscription for under twenty year old men had started; they were given six months of intensive training before being transferred to the Territorial Army, then to join the British Expedition Force. Youths of eighteen would be the last to be called up, Rose noted with relief, and James was not yet eighteen.

There was no outburst of willing volunteers as there had been in 1914. People had learned their lesson. War killed people. Loved ones died. The Government and its ‘chiefs’ did not always make the right decisions, or the wisest choices. They made big mistakes. Young soldiers would be doing the fighting, dying violently in remote places, thousands of miles from home and alone. Millions would die fighting in unoccupied Europe, or the overheated dry western desert, the humid forests of Burma and the dry heat of Japan with their kamikaze methods of warfare. Many would be imprisoned in the dreaded prisoner of war and concentration camps. Britain was not prepared for a war of this size. There was no conscription, so the British army was comparatively small. Germany had been preparing for years and poets such as Louis MacNeice wrote in the thirties, when there were warnings of impending war:

Sun on the Garden

‘our freedom as freelances,

advances towards its end;

the earth compels, upon it

Sonnets and birds descend

And soon, my friend,

We shall have no time

for dances.

The sky was good for flying

Defying the church bells,

And every evil iron siren

and what it tells.’

But no one was listening!

America still remained neutral which was extremely worrying, but unexpectedly support eventually came from young men of every race and creed from the free dominions and colonies, when they flocked to England and enlisted for the British battle.

British women were directed into work unfamiliar to them, all over the country. They worked in the steel factories making aircraft and bombs, and associated bits and pieces, for tanks, trucks, motorbikes, rifles, ammunition; in factories making military-aid parachutes, tents, and the list went on. There was the conscription of women into the services, such as nursing in the war fields. Also women were sent to farms to produce the food which would feed the country. Farmers were paid two pounds an acre to re- plough and re-seed pastures. Every Briton was told to grow their own vegetables and potatoes in whatever small plot they could find, and watch out for potato blight, they were warned. Potatoes became the staple diet. Every parched piece of land was returned to life with vegetables and fruit-the thoughts of being starved into submission by the German blockade was a terrifying thought. On September third, 1939, in a grim mood Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared on the radio:

‘This country is now at war with Germany. We are ready’ he continued. ……. Rose couldn’t bear to listen to any more and dashed away from the radio located at the local shop and ran home.

‘At 11 o’clock, on the 3rd September 1939 Britain and France began their war with Germany,’ reported the headlines of the Daily Sketch. The newspaper