here - St Paul`s Girls` School

Clio
The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Spring 2016
Family History
Clio
The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
We are excited to welcome you to this year’s edition of Clio. The annual magazine
is a Paulina tradition and is named after the muse of history, daughter of Zeus and Titaness Mnemosyne. Clio, sometimes referred to as ‘the Proclaimer’, is often represented
with an open scroll of parchment scroll or a set of tablets. The name is etymologically
derived from the Greek root ‘κλέω’ or ‘κλείω’ (meaning ‘to recount,’ ‘to make famous,’
or ‘to celebrate’).
When deciding this year’s theme for Clio, we wanted to select something that would
reflect this idea of celebration and recounting. We wanted to create a magazine that
was not merely a random collection of articles, but instead something that reflected the
Paulinas that wrote it. We therefore decided on the theme of ‘family history’ to investigate the wealth of knowledge and history that Paulinas would have, and we were
amazed by the diversity of personal accounts that came back to us. These range from
the eighteenth century to the present, across different cultures and countries. No story
in this magazine is the same and, maybe it will encourages you as readers to discuss or
research your own family history – there’s guaranteed to be something special in there.
Olivia, Alice and Kiran
Features
Breaking School Rules Can Save Your Life
Olivia Dodd
2
Letter from Jamaica
Rosie Robinson
The Barker Brothers During the First
World War3
Ava Smithard Bailey
The Invasion of Sicily and
Admiral John Godrey
Tilly Walters
Elizabeth Peacock – Scourge of the
Tory Whips
Francesca Peacock
Escape From Singapore4
Nathalie Edwardes-Ker
The Fraser Family: Heroes and Villains
5
Emily Fraser
My Family: Pionners and Paulinas
Amelia Huntington
6
The Global Life of Mischa Wladimiroff
Juliana Beekenkamp
8
2016 •1
10
12
13
History of Figure Skating
Ruby Jackson
15
In Memoriam – Vikki Askew
Tim Askew
15
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Breaking School Rules Can Save Your Life
M
y grandmother was Birte Dodd (née
Qvøtrup), affectionately known to me
by the Danish name for grandmother,
‘Farmor’. She was born in Copenhagen in 1932
and attended Jeanne d’Arc School, a private
Catholic school run by nuns in the centre of the
city. She was known for being boisterous and
rebellious, hating the nuns who taught her and
who frequently chastised her for behaviour.
The Germans invaded
Denmark in 1940, occupying it until the end
of the war in 1945. On
21 March 1945, the British conducted Operation Carthage. This was
a targeted air raid on
‘Shellhus’, which was
used as the Gestapo
(the Nazi secret police)
headquarters in the
centre of Copenhagen.
It was used for the storage of dossiers and the
torture of Danish citizens during interrogations.
The aim of the raid was to destroy the headquarters to weaken Gestapo operations, as well
as try to liberate as many prisoners as possible.
As a result, the building was destroyed, 18 prisoners were freed and anti-resistance Nazi activities were disrupted.
The force left RAF Fersfield in the morning
and it reached Copenhagen after 11.00 a.m..
The raid was carried out at rooftop level. The
air raid alarms were sounded and Birte and
her schoolmates were shepherded towards the
basement air raid shelters of the school. However, my grandmother, whilst queuing for the
shelter, noticed a plane flying at street level out
of the corner of her eye. The plane, a Mosquito, hit a lamppost and crashed into the school,
which was 1.5 km away from the target of the
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Olivia Dodd VII
Shellhus. My grandmother at this point disobeyed orders and ran straight into the air raid
shelter rather than queuing. She claimed later
that she looked at the pilot into the eye as he
crashed only a few meters away from her. Tragically, the second and third wave of bombers
as part of the raid mistook the Mosquito flying
down towards the school, and seeing it now
burning, as the target
of the operation. The
bombers shelled the
school, destroying
one wing of it.
The bombs caused
water pipes to burst,
resulting in the underground air raid
shelter to flood. This
lead to the drowning of several more
of my grandmother’s schoolmates as
they were unable
to escape from the flooding shelter. However,
Birte was small in stature and was miraculously
able to escape through the metal bars that lead
to ground level of the shelter, before somehow
gaining a lift back home to safety. Her mother,
having heard the news of the raid, left work to
come and look for her. She had to search the
corpses of the girls at the school in order to find
her daughter, but could not find her and so presumed her to be dead. They were later reunited
at home.
Overall in the attack, eighty-six schoolgirls and
several nuns were killed. Out of Birte’s class,
only she and one other girl, who wasn’t present
on the day, survived the raid.
2016 •2
The Barker Brothers During the First
World War
Ava Smithard Bailey MIV
M
y great great grandfather, Henry T.
Barker, fought and died in the First
World War. He died while fighting in
Armentières in northern France on 23 October
1914.
Henry Barker was the oldest of four children;
he had two brothers, George and Arthur (who
suffered from a lame leg), and a sister, Mary.
While at school George was well known for
being a good hockey player and was a bell-ringer in church. The family led simple and carefree
lives in their home at Collyers Oak Farm, Warwickshire.
On 4 August 1914, Britain declared war on
Germany, thus marking the entrance of Britain
into one of the most devastating wars in history.
George was called up into the army and Henry
joined in an effort to protect his brother. They
both joined the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry
and set off to Armentières, completely unaware
of the horror that lay ahead of them.
an attack on the German front lines caused
the death of Henry Barker on 23 October 1914.
Devastated, his brother George had to continue
fighting alone. However, he died in action, less
than an hour after his older brother’s death.
Back at home, Henry’s wife had just given birth
to their first child, a daughter whom Henry
would never have the chance to meet. She was
my great grandmother, Alice. She therefore
never met her father who fought and died to
keep her and his country safe. A telegram was
sent to the brothers’ parents, Edward Barker
and his wife, telling them that the elder brother,
Henry, was missing in action and presumed
dead. Later, a second telegram was sent to say
that the younger brother, George, was also
missing in action. They were confused and
thought that there had been a terrible mistake
involving the telegrams, and were desperate to
know which son they had lost. Tragically, the
realisation soon dawned on them that they had
lost both of their sons to the war within only a
few months.
Only a few months after the being called up,
Left: Newspaper
clipping from
George Barker’s
obituary
Right: Henry T.
Barker in unform
2016 •3
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Escape from Singapore
M
y grandfather, Rolla Edwardes-Ker,
was a lieutenant in the British Malay
Regiment in Singapore. On 8 February 1941, Singapore was invaded unexpectedly
from the west, while most of the Malay forces
were defending the south. On 15 February,
Rolla and his fellow officers were informed
that their unconditional surrender had taken
place. They were now prisoners-of-war, under
orders to obey the command
of the Japanese and make
no attempt to escape. Rolla,
a lawyer, pointed out to his
commanding officer that the
‘King’s Regulations’ stipulated that any officer becoming
a prisoner of war had an obligation to try to escape and
informed him that he was
going to take that obligation
seriously.
Nathalie Edwardes-Ker VI
the city of Sumatra in Indonesia. By contrast,
most of the other men who managed to escape
from Singapore starved to death, died of thirst
or succumbed to tropical disease.
Rolla and his party then met up with another
fifty or so refugees. They travelled on trucks
and buses to reach Padang. Rolla described the
experience:
[The vehicles were] driven
through the night on primitive mountain roads. We could
not use the lights as we had to
maintain a strict black-out. This
was a most frightening journey
as the road surface was very bad
and there were many hair-pin
bends.
At Padang two ships were
preparing to evacuate the refugees - one going to Ceylon,
another to Java, which at that
time was a Dutch colony. Rolla’s party was scheduled for
the Ceylon ship, but Van was
asked to take the Java ship
as he spoke Dutch. Van was
seriously ill by this time, so
Rolla chose to stay with him.
Rolla and three other men
then made their way to the
harbour to find a boat with
which to escape - knowing
that the Japanese were standing by to sink any vessel
attempting to leave SingaA photo of Rolla Edwardes-Ker skiing in
pore. They found a battered Australia
fifteen-foot sailing boat.
Picking up another two men in the harbour,
one of whom was a Dutchman named Van, the
Both boats set off on 26 February. The Ceylon
six took to the water at 1.15 a.m., praying that
ship, with the rest of Rolla’s party, was sunk
none of the British mines in the sea outside
by the Japanese and only five of the 2,300 peothe harbour would reach their boat. At dawn
ple on board survived. By chance the Java ship
they reached the Dutch island of Pulau Batam,
happened to pass through the Sunda Straits at
where they pulled up their boat into the jungle
dawn on 1 March, shortly after a major naval
to escape the Japanese. They hid there during
battle in the straits on 28 February. Rolla and a
the day before setting sail the following night
few others then transferred onto a larger vessel
to reach another island. By now, their boat was
which eventually reached Western Australia. By
unusable. Luckily, Van managed to get them
the time they reached Australia, all the others
onto another boat to go west. The group suchad died and Van had to have both legs ampuceeded in crossing from East to West to reach
tated. Rolla survived unscathed.
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
2016 •4
The Fraser Heroes and Villains
I
am related to two men who are connected
with two of the iconic images of the 20th
century – one heroic and the other, villainous.
The first is Shimi Lovat, or to give him his full
name, Brigadier Simon Fraser, 17th Lord Lovat
and 24th Chief of Clan Fraser. He was a first
cousin of my grandfather, Rory Fraser. My
father used to see Shimi frequently in Scotland,
up until his death in 1995.
Emily Fraser UIV
were heavily attacking them. Winston Churchill
later described Shimi as ‘the handsomest man
to cut a throat’.
The image of Shimi charging across the D-Day
beach was actually invoked by David Cameron
in a speech defending the Union between England and Scotland in the run-up to the Scottish
referendum in 2014. David Cameron referred
to Shimi’s exploits as an example of something
‘Scottish’ that was shared by all British people.
Shimi’s moment of fame
There is another twist to
was in 1944, when he
the Shimi story: he was
led the Commandos
a friend of Ian Fleming,
at Sword Beach in the
the author of the James
D-Day landings. These
Bond books. Ian Flemwere the landing operaing is said to have based
tions on Tuesday, 6 June
the character of Bond on
1944 (termed D-Day) of
an amalgam of three of
the Allied invasion of
his friends; Shimi Lovat,
Normandy in Operation
Fitzroy Maclean and
Overlord during World
David Stirling. All three
War II. It was the largmen had exceptional war
est seaborne invasion in
records involving spying,
history. The operation
intelligence and Special
began the liberation
Forces work (Shimi’s
of German-occupied
work is described in his
northwestern Europe
autobiography, ‘March
from Nazi control, and
Past’, and Fitzroy’s in
contributed to the Allied
his autobiography Eastvictory on the Western
Shimi Lovat in Newhaven after the 1942 raid ern Approaches). David
Front. Shimi is one of the
Stirling founded the SAS
on Dieppe
main characters in the
in North Africa during the
film about D-Day, The Longest Day, in which
Second World War. Shimi was not my only rehe is played by the actor Patrick Lawford. The
lation among these men; Fitzroy was married to
movie portrays him in several scenes: briefing
Shimi’s sister Veronica Fraser, and David Stirhis troops on board ship before the landings,
ling was another first cousin of my grandfather,
leading his men onto the beach wearing a white Shimi and Veronica.
jumper (false!), and being followed by his personal piper Bill Millin (true!). The film goes on
My mother and father went to the unveiling
to show him relieving the glider-borne troops
of David Stirling’s statue in Perthshire in 2002,
under Major John Howard, who had seized the and I went with them to the unveiling of Shibridges over the Orne River in Normandy in
mi’s statue on Sword Beach in May 2014, a few
the early hours of D-Day, while the Germans
months before I came to St Paul’s.
2016 •5
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
If D-Day, Shimi Lovat and James Bond are
images of courage and triumph in the twentieth century, there are also people and events
that are symbolic of disaster. One of these is
the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, whose story
is told famously in the movies Titanic and A
Night to Remember, amongst others.
Insofar as a movie about a natural disaster
can have a villain, that villain is invariably
Bruce Ismay (my great-great-great uncle) the
chairman of the White Star Line, the company
that owned the Titanic. Bruce is shown as an
arrogant bully who forces the reluctant captain to take a more northerly (and dangerous)
course to enable the Titanic to regain the coveted Blue Riband prize for the fastest crossing
of the Atlantic for White Star Line. He also
got into one of the last remaining lifeboats,
when hundreds of other passengers were left
to succumb to their fate.
Needless to say, the family’s account of what
Bruce Ismay as President of the White Star Line
happened differs somewhat from that of the
films. Uncle Bruce always denied having
any discussion whatsoever with Captain Smith about routes or navigation. He was also absolutely
clear that he had been helping people get into lifeboats for a good hour before the deck was clear,
and that the last boat going down half-empty, when a seaman suggested he get in. This decision
was to be his downfall.
After the disaster, he was forced to leave his native Liverpool – children would follow him around
chanting ‘women and children first’. He died many years later in exile in a remote lodge in Galway in Ireland, a broken man and viewed as a villain by society for what he did on 14 April 1912.
My Family: Pioneers and Paulinas
Y
Amelia Huntington MIV
ou may have noticed, while walking through school, a silhouette picture of Gustav Holst and his senior orchestra from 1926,
which hangs in the music department. One of the girls in the
picture, playing the viola, is my great grandmother, Ann Fletcher. She
was a pupil at St Paul’s Girls’ School from 1922 to 1927.
Her father was called Walter Morely Fletcher, who was knighted in
1918 for his services to medicine having been the first secretary to the
Medical Research Council, which he had helped to set up. Her mother
was called Maisie. Anne was one of only two children. Her younger
brother Charles was at a prep school in Horsham and then later went
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
2016 •6
to Eton and then Cambridge. He too became a
doctor, like his father, and in 1941 Charles was
the first doctor to inject penicillin into a patient.
Her early years were spent at a boarding school
run by ‘Miss Frost’ somewhere in the North of
England.
My family doesn’t know much about Ann’s
time at St Paul’s, yet from letters to her parents
that my great aunt has found, we know she
wasn’t very keen on sport or academics, though
she was very musical. As mentioned before, she
was in the senior orchestra. Her entire family
was very musical. Maisie had studied at the
Royal College and was a very competent pianist
and viola player.
After she left St Paul’s, Ann went to Paris to
study French, singing and dressmaking. After
that, she decided that she wanted to have a
career as an opera singer and went to Webber
Douglas School after which she did further
study in Vienna. Then, she returned to England
to sing with the Chanticleer Company, which
sang operas often in schools, before she also
joined the Sadlers Well opera company. Her
best role was as Queen of the Night in Mozart’s
Magic Flute at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden.
She married on 31 December 1935 to the Reverend Alfred Stephen Hopkinson, a curate at Putney Parish Church at the time, which brought
an end to her singing career. Two of her four
daughters (my Great Aunts Jenny and Selina)
followed in her footsteps and went to St Paul’s,
but their stories will have to be left to another
time.
2016 •7
My great-great grandfather, Alfred Kirby Huntington, was a British professor of metallurgy
(the study of metals) at King’s College as well
as an author of multiple scientific books and
one of Britain’s earliest aviation pioneers. He
originally flew balloons and later an aircraft of
his own design.
Alfred Kirby Huntington was born on 18 January 1852 in Ipswich, Suffolk. Alfred was a
founding and active committee member of the
Royal Areo Club. He originally was a keen balloonist and took part in the first Aero Club race,
which took place at the Ranelagh Club on 7 July
1906. His balloon, Zenith, was one of the seven
balloons to ascend that day, the first time in
England that seven balloons had ascended from
one single spot. He also competed in the first
Gordon-Bennett Cup race (the world’s oldest
balloon race) in 1906.
He then moved on from balloons to aeroplanes and flew a plane of his own design, the
Dunne-Huntington triplane (a plane with three
wings). It was kept and flown on the Isle of
Sheppy. Huntington is named on The Aviation Memorial in the town of Eastchurch on the
island (even though it is spelt wrong!)
Originally designed by John William Dunne
between 1907 and 1908, the layout of the plane
was passed to Alfred who completed the detailed drawings. The machine was built by
Short Brothers and was flying by April 1910.
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
The Global Life of Mischa Wladimiroff
Juliana Beekenkamp VI
M
y great grandfather, Mischa
Wladimiroff, has led an extremely
precarious life. He was born in Russia in 1910 as an aristocrat, which turned out
to not work in his favour at all as the Russian
Revolution broke out in 1917. The Revolution
led to the abdication of the Tsar and allowed
the Communists to rise to power - putting my
great-grandfather’s family and other aristocrats at grave danger. From that point on, his
life became one of erratic change and constant
reestablishments.
Mischa has been forced to move to fifteen different places in his life, staying at longest a year
in one place. He has lived in Finland, America,
Mongolia and Japan, to name a few. He and his
family have had to start their whole lives over
again fifteen times; they have had to find new
jobs, schools, learn new languages and make
new friends.
It was only in 1921 that Mischa’s family was finally able to settle in Surabaya on the island on
Java, in Indonesia for a decent amount of time.
His father was a ship engineer, so there was a
lot of work for him here. They also managed to
set up a very successful sugar plantation.
Indonesia was then a part of the Dutch colonies,
so Mischa and his brother were taught Dutch in
school and were later sent to the Netherlands to
study in 1936. In the Netherlands, Mischa fell
in love with a Dutch girl called Elly Fabr. He
married her and they had three children - the
youngest of whom is my grandfather. Although
he was now married to a Dutch person, he
had formed a little Russian clique in the Netherlands, with whom he spoke Russian and
celebrated Russian holidays. This, combined
with his hatred for the Communists for kicking
his family out, fuelled his desire to return to
his motherland. Even though he had not been
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
there since he was a young boy, was stateless
for the vast majority of his life and now by pure
chance had a Dutch nationality, he still desperately wanted to return to his motherland. So
when the Nazis offered him a fully paid trip to
Ukraine to see if it could be suitable for Aryan
colonization, he immediately obliged. He saw
this as a perfect opportunity to see whether it
could be suitable for his own family. It was during this trip that he made these terribly nostalgic photos.
Mischa was appalled by the way the Ukrainian
people were treated by the Germans, so wrote a
critical report back to the Nazis. He also wrote a
comprehensive report for the Dutch secret service about the dire state of Russia and Ukraine.
This saved him from being severely punished
after the Second World War, as he had cooperated with the Nazis. He only got into a lot of
trouble with Elly’s family, as he left her alone
with three small children in the Dutch Famine
winter of 1944, but that’s another story.
The Wladimiroff Photo Archive
Clio is extremely proud to have the privilege of publishing a selection of Mischa
Wladimiroff’s photographs from Ukraine
during the early 1940s. This is the first
time these extraordinary images have appeared in print. The editors wish to thank
the Beekenkamp-Wladimiroff family, and
hope that the rest of the images go on to
receive the wide exposure that they so
richy deserve among historians.
2016 •8
2016 •9
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Letter from Jamaica
Rosie Robinson V
A
lthough I may not look it, I am in fact
Jamaican. At least, one-512th part of me
is. In the eighteenth century, my greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-great-greatgrandfather owned a plantation in Jamaica, and
some letters which were found recently indicate
a relationship between him and a woman called
Betsy, a ‘quadroon’ whom he had met on the
island. A quadroon was the word used at the
time to describe a person who was one-quarter
black - one of her grandparents was therefore
black, and presumably had been brought from
West Africa to Jamaica as a slave to work on
a plantation. It is thought (although not confirmed) that one of Betsy’s grandfathers - my
great-great -great-great-great-great-great-greatgreat-great-great grandfather - was a plantation
owner somewhere in Jamaica, like John Symes,
and that one of Betsy’s grandmothers - my great
(x11) grandmother - was a slave on this plantation. The slave owner took a fancy to her, and
they ended up getting married, when the slave,
Betsy’s grandmother, was already pregnant
with Betsy’s mother or father. This relationship
would have caused quite a scandal at the time,
and it would have been frowned upon for a
couple to be mixed race - this would have been
crossing both social and racial boundaries. The
letters that we have are from John Symes to Betsy among other people. His letters to Betsy are
affectionate, if not exactly love letters, in which
he calls her ‘my dear girl’ and writes that he has
‘the utmost love and regard for her’. However,
John Symes also seems to have children who
are not Betsy’s, and John and Betsy seem to be
parted, with John Symes in England, and Betsy
in Kingston, Jamaica. It would also have been
shocking for an Englishman to be in a relationship with a quadroon, and their relationship
seems to be clandestine. The letters themselves
are amazing, especially when compared with
the way that people communicate and speak
nowadays. This is an example of one of his letters, and is almost incomprehensible.
Below: detail from the original letter
Letter from John Symes to his mistress, Betsy
Kingston, 15th March 1766
My last to you by the two Men of War who sail’d on the 25th Febry also I (interalia)
acquainted you of new situation in this town with a genteel salary. At that time I had it not
in my power to send you Bill other than on Woodbridge - I hope he’ll pay it. Two days ago I
received yours and your brother’s by the Antelope Breighton, - as they were directed to the
Spanish Town, they laid there almost 3 weeks before I got ‘em. The Man of War that conveys
this sails from hence today and I have hardly time to write before her bag goes onboard. By
the first opportunity that offers (which will be in a few days) I will send you a good Bill - I
cannot get one now; the people here are much distres’d. I hope now soon to see you and
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
2016 •10
my little girl, for when you receive money sufficient, you must come - I can no longer
live without you and as I am in a genteel way, we shall be respected. A few years my Dear
Girl we will (if God permits) see our friends again in England. If your brother (or any other)
couldconveniently send you money, you might come immediately, for as I shall make my
Bill payable to him, he would be repaid soon - but I suspect his ability so to do, or (I hope)
you need not have parted with your [unintelligible]? If Jerry will risk his fortune, with this
father’s consent, I will do him such service as Jean and he may come with you. He may do
well here and when I leave the country (if I live so to do) it may be much more to his advantage. I write very incoherent for want of time. Leave my Dear Boy with his uncle Jem. When
you can come, you may perhaps settle with the Captain you sail with to receive his passage
money here, for I will pay it and Jerry’s; and take good heed of your behaviour on board for
captains and others often brag here of their influence with the women passengers - I had an
instance of it in the ship I came. I doubt not of your conduct, but that it does and will merit
my utmost love and regard. Remember me to all - Adieu my Dear Girl
A colloquial rendition by Dr Newton
The sense of the letter is actually rather straightforward, once the specialised vocabulary of the British
Atlantic world and conventions of eighteenth-century correspondence are accounted for. I have had to
make a few interpretive guesses about the circumstances of John Symes, Betsy and her family.
I sent my last letter to you by the two Royal Navy ships that sailed on 25 February. In that
letter, among other things, I told you about my new job in Kingston with a very good salary.
At that time, I wasn’t able to send you money except by sending a bill to Mr Woodbridge – I
hope he’ll pay you. Two days ago, I got your last letter and your brother's letter. They came
on the ship Antelope, commanded by Captain Breighton. The ship went to Spanish Town,
Jamaica [some distance away], so it took three weeks before I received the letters. The Royal
Navy ship that’s taking the letter I’m writing to you now is sailing today, and I have almost
no time to write it before the mail bag is sent on board. By the first opportunity I have –
hopefully in a few days – I will send you some more money. I can’t do it right now, as the
merchants here are under financial pressures, so issuing a bill would be difficult. I hope to
see you soon, and my little girl. When you get enough money, you must come to Kingston.
I can no longer live without you, and as I have a good job and salary, we will be respected.
In a few years, if God permits, we might be able to see our friends again in England. If your
brother, or anyone else, could conveniently send you money, you should come to Kingston straight away. I will issue him a bill and he can be repaid quickly, but I doubt if he has
enough ready cash. If Jerry is able to put up the money, with his father’s permission, I will
do everything I can to help him out. I could set him up in business here in Kingston once I
leave the country (if I survive, that is!), which could be very profitable indeed. I’m sorry my
letter is so rushed and incoherent – I’m running out of time before the navy ship departs
with the mail. Leave my son with his uncle Jem. When you come, perhaps the captain of the
ship you take would agree to be paid for your passage on arrival, rather than on departure,
as I’ll be on hand to pay for you and Jerry. Mind your behavior on board the ship, for captains and others are always bragging here about their ‘influence’ with the women passengers – I saw an instance of this harassment myself. I’m sure you will handle yourself well.
(I hope Jem will excuse me for not writing to him, but I have no time, as the mail bag is going on the ship right now and I was only told within the last hour)
2016 •11
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
The Invasion of Sicily and Admiral
John Godfrey
Tilly Walters VI
O
peration Mincemeat was a plan conceived by the Allies in 1943 which many
historians believe partly contributed to
the beginning of the end of the Second World
War due to its masking of the invasion of Sicily. The inspiration for this plan came from my
great grandfather, the Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral John Godfrey.
He served on the HMS Eurayles during the
First World War in the Dardanelles and then
served as Deputy Director at the Royal Naval
Staff College in the inter-war period. After 1931
he commanded two ships: the HMS Suffolk and
the HMS Kent. From 1936 to 1939 he then commanded the battleship the HMS Repulse and
after these three years he became Director of
Naval Intelligence in 1939.
Perhaps one of the most well known novel
series came out of his leadership during this
period as Director. Under his command as his
assistant during the Second World War was a
then little known writer, Ian Fleming. Fleming
based much of the plot in the Bond books on
the operations they contributed to during the
war; even going as far as to base the character
of ‘M’ on his commanding officer – my great
grandfather. This didn’t go down too well with
him commenting that Fleming had ‘turned me
into that unsavoury character, M’.
The inspiration for Operation Mincemeat came
from the Trout Memo which was a document
written by him in which he compared the
ways in which fly fishing bore the similarities
of deceiving an enemy. It described ways in
which trout, like the enemy, could be tricked
or lured into an action. One of these fifty-one
ways was taken from a novel by a former Chief
of Scotland and mused over how a dead body
could be used to plant and smuggle information without enemy suspicion. This idea was
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
taken up by Charles Cholmondeley, part of
the Twenty (XX or Double Cross) Committee.
This idea was later used to successfully trick
the German high command that the Allies in
1943 were going to attack Greece and Sardinia,
not Sicily. They planted documents on a corpse
that had been given a full identity and made the
corpse wash up near a German friendly Spanish
naval base near Palos de la Frontera. The plan
was successful without any suspicion and even
after the Allies invaded Sicily, the Germans
were convinced it was a ruse for more than two
weeks.
After the end of the Second World War, Admiral Godfrey moved to India and was Flag
Officer of the Royal Indian Navy, most notably
during the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. Considered one of the unsung heroes of the Second
World War, he received the Order of the Nile in
Egypt, the French Legion d’Honneur and was
made a Companion of the Order of Bath.
2016 •12
Elizabeth Peacock – Scourge of the
Party Whips
Francesca Peacock VI
R
ebel Yorkshire Tory MP sacked for supporting miners’ was the BBC headline
following a hotly contested vote on the
future of British coal pits. That ‘rebel’ MP, otherwise known as ‘a disgrace to the Conservative
Party’ and ‘the scourge of the party whips’, was
Elizabeth Peacock - my grandmother.
One of her first moves in the campaign was to
join forces with Winston Churchill Jnr and to
visit Silverhill Colliery to support Roy Lynk,
the leader of the Union of Democratic Mine
Workers, who was undertaking a hunger strike
for the cause. There they met with miners to
discuss the problems
A vote in the House of
and were interviewed
Commons and her subsefor the press and telequent firing from a Parvision, which allowed
liamentary position were
their campaign to gain
the unhappy culmination
exposure and support
of weeks of hectic protest
from all over the country.
and media activity for my
Elizabeth became the face
grandmother. Following
and voice of the prothe Government’s rash
test, talking to both the
announcement in October
miners’ unions and the
1992 to close thirty-one
Government whilst condeep coal pits (at the
stantly attempting to get
expense of 30,000 miners’
the proposal modified or
jobs), Elizabeth decided
scrapped completely. As
that she could not supthe spokesperson for the
port the Government and
campaign, she had almost
would have to launch
daily conversations and
a campaign against her
negotiations with Downown party. However, this
ing Street about the plan.
decision to start a protest
A voice from London
was not an easy one as
would start the converCartoon of Elizabeth Peacock
Elizabeth held a lot of respect for
sation with ‘Number 10 here, Mr
Michael Heseltine (who had announced the
Heseltine wants to speak to Elizabeth’ and my
proposal) and he had visited her constituency
grandfather, by this point bored with the TV
- Batley and Spen - a number of times. It was
crews outside the house and incessant calls for
because my grandmother represented and lived my grandmother, would answer with a deadin a Yorkshire constituency, somewhere which
pan ‘Number 10 where?’ which was always met
had already suffered under the miners' strikes
with a humourless reaction.
in 1984 and 1985, that she felt she had a duty to
stop this ill thought out and rushed re-structur- Ultimately, Elizabeth’s campaign did not sucing of the coal industry. My grandmother felt
ceed and the plan to close the mines was passed
a great deal of sympathy for the miners’ plight
in the House of Commons on the 21st October
and so, as soon as the proposal was made pub1992. Many Conservative MPs who had suplic, set about ‘making friends in the mining inported the campaign ended up voting with the
dustry and enemies in the Conservative Party’.
party as they believed the Government had
2016 •13
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
reviewed energy policy sufficiently for the plan to be viable. The Government won with a majority of thirteen votes and with only six MPs voting with the opposition. Perhaps the biggest shock
came when Churchill, who had been actively involved in the protest, voted with the Government.
My grandmother was incredibly disappointed and felt that Churchill was a ‘turncoat!’, yet they
still remained friends until his death.
Although she was unsuccessful and was fired from her post within Government (she claims she
was about to resign), Elizabeth received the admiration and support of people up and down the
country. She was particularly touched by the letters of support from people who traditionally disagreed with the Conservatives but appreciated the effort she was making on behalf of the miners.
During her campaign Elizabeth was asked repeatedly: ‘why are you as a Tory MP supporting the
miners?’. For my grandmother, this was and still is an easy question to answer. She firmly believes
that it is an MP’s duty to campaign for the wishes of their constituents instead of blindly following
the party’s orders, and besides, on this occasion ‘the Government was wrong!’.
Left: Letter from John Major to Elizabeth Peacock
Right: Peacock with miners in Yorkshire
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
2016 •14
The History of Figure Skating
Ruby Jackson MIV
M
odern figure skating has evolved over
thousands of years to become what it
is today: not only a fun form of exercise but a competitive sport.
ever, later, public skating ponds were opened
for both sexes; the first rinks.
A century later, Jackson Haines became the first
skater to incorporate dance movements into
Skating began over 3,000 years ago, in southern his skating, as opposed to just tracing patterns
Finland. However, some people did not consid- on the ice. He also introduced skates attached
er it to be proper skating, as modern skaters cut to a boot. Even when he died, his students set
through the ice rather than glide over it, as early up the International Skating Union. In 1891,
the first European championships were held in
skaters would have done. Also, modern figure
Germany and in 1896, the first World champiskates have two edges, an inside and an outonships in St Petersburg, Russia.
side. These were added in the 13th or 14th century by the Dutch. They also introduced steel
blades as an alternative to bone. This new blade Figure skating went Olympic in 1908, the
first winter sport to be introduced. However,
also meant that skaters no longer needed sticks
to propel themselves and skating became much women still skated in long skirts and bulky
clothes. Sonja Henie changed this by wearing
easier. Construction of modern skates is much
the same, although skates now are attached to a a knee-length skirt in her programs. She also
changed the style of skating, using more fluid
boot instead of simply strapped to the foot.
movements, and is seen to be one of the greatest
pioneers of womens’ figure skating ever.
Although skates themselves have not been
altered much since then, the sport itself is constantly changing. At first it was just a fun means Ice skating has since evolved into its three
different forms: figure skating, ice hockey and
of transport, but in 1742, the first skating club
speed skating. It is a constantly changing sport
was formed and 30 years later, the first instrucand by the time you have read this article, antional book on figure skating was published,
other jump will probably have been invented,
describing basic skating moves such as figure
eights. Although this was written solely for
or another spin tried out.
men, as women did not skate at this time. How-
In Memoriam: Vikki Askew (1957–2016)
Tim Askew
Vikki’s unique character emerged from her Jewish background and was forged in adversity. Her father,
John, placed high value on culture and education and Vikki was aware of her own place in Jewish history. She was born and raised in Leeds. Her mother taught her to speak Ladino. Her father escaped the
Nazis and the Iron Guard by fleeing Romania and the importance of seizing every moment was confirmed at the age of eight, when Vikki lost her older brother in a tragic road accident. Vikki’s ensuing life
became a mitzvah - a sacred duty to make up for her brother’s loss and to serve the world and the symbol she always wore next to her mother’s Star of David was a 'chai', a standing for 'life' with its origins in
medieval Spain.
2016 •15
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
Vikki gained a first class degree at Edinburgh in the days when only 3 were awarded. She was appointed
Head of History in four schools: St Edward’s Oxford, Guildford High School, Christ’s Hospital (where
she also helped to run a new girls’ boarding house and met her husband Tim) and Leeds Grammar
School (where she ran the Jewish assemblies).
Vikki’s passion for history made her an inspiring teacher. She had remarkable knowledge and was
fiercely but patiently intellectual. Her specialism was the Spanish Convivencia – an age where three
different religions engaged with each other amid cultural fluidity. But she taught everything, including
Charlemagne, the Crusades, the French Revolution, 17th Century England and the European Reformation. Her knowledge of Jewish history was extensive. She lectured at the Spiro Institute and co-wrote
'The Holocaust explained' on the London Jewish Cultural Centre’s education website. The Pre-U exam
board looked to her expertise to write their new specification and she was an expert on university entrance, having written on education for the Sunday Times.
Vikki loved teaching at her last school, James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich, where she was originally
appointed Deputy Head, and following a couple of year’s in Leeds, reappointed as Head of Sixth Form.
Her many university contacts made her a bridge between school and Higher Education. According
to one parent, she expected her girls to have 'grown up brains'. Vikki had high standards which gave
students the opportunity to reach new heights. Vikki knew her girls well and led a sixth form where
girls felt independent but supported and loved. She viewed pastoral care as top priority in her quest to
educate the whole person and enable them to become better, wiser and hungry for lifelong education.
Vikki sustained a dedicated hands-on commitment to community action throughout her life, building
successful rapports with both adults and children with learning difficulties. She was Chair of the Independent Schools Council working party on Community Action and worked dynamically with the government in setting up and supporting the 'Step up to Serve' [#iwill] initiative to extend volunteering in
state schools. She loved running the JAGS Saturday Literacy Scheme for local primary school children,
gave her time freely and joyously to the Leonard Cheshire home and most importantly to her, the Romania project, visiting Romania every summer for 19 years and expanding the project to other schools.
Vikki felt the post-communist Romanians needed help - not an obvious decision for her, since they had
robbed her paternal family of its home and business and attempted to kill her relatives – but Vikki’s way
was one of healing, international cooperation and rediscovering her roots. Her view was that all races
and religions should stand hand in hand against barbarism.
The project was a collaborative international exercise, aiming not just to provide fun and learning for
orphans and handicapped children, but to nurture community action among fellow Romanian volunteers and to embed the volunteering culture into post-communist society. The work was demanding, yet
Vikki inspired many to go back for more. The project inspired the Romanian government to be the first
country to have a National Strategy for Community Action and 105,000 Romanian students now regularly volunteer, from a starting base of zero.
Vikki was a citizen of the world. She spoke Russian, Spanish, Catalan, Ladino, French, Romanian and
Hebrew, in addition to her classical Greek and Latin. Through her work with Euroclio, she spread the
practice of good history teaching internationally and she was looking forward to gaining Spanish citizenship after the offer of the Spanish government to the descendants of those expelled in 1492.
Vikki bestowed an early love of reading on her two sons, to whom she also taught Latin, the elder proceeding himself to Christ’s Hospital to become Head of Classics. Her Jewish identity was very important
to her and she attended Bromley Reform Synagogue. As the archetypal Jewish mother, she saw the meal
table as the key to family life, offered constant advice and support and was justly proud that one son
went to Oxford and the other to Cambridge.
Vikki loved Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Milos and Mozart. She was known for her trademark colourful
jackets, the twinkle in her eye, a razor sharp wit and a gentle humour rooted in the joy of relationships.
Vikki is survived by her husband Tim and sons Edward and Daniel.
Clio: The Magazine of the History and Politics Society
2016 •16
Editors
Olivia Dodd
Alice Marbach
Kiran Khanom
Staff Editor
Joshua Newton
Printing
Sue Jeffreys