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Derbyshire / Re: Any info on Edith Sitwell's butler, John Robins
« on: Wednesday 02 March 16 05:08 GMT (UK) »
Hi,
John Frederick Robins was my grandfather and the potty mouthed 2 year old was my mother Elizabeth (Betty) who died last year aged 88.
He told me that he earned money as a child operating the pump for the Hailsham fire engine, later he worked in a rope factory and I think that in one of Sir Osbert's autobiographies there is reference to selling fish. He had wanted to be a jockey, but grew too tall, so enlisted in the cavalry instead and I believe he served with his regiment in Ireland in the 1900s.
JFR was indeed Sir Osbert's army servant and at some point prior to WW1, I think he must have become an army reservist as he also travelled as servant to Osbert's father Sir George Sitwell to the family's other residence in Italy.
He was mobilised with the 11th Hussars in 1914 and was taken prisoner early in the war. He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp and apparently was put to work in a Black Forest saw mill.
After the war, he resumed service with the Sitwells and remained with them mainly at Renishaw until his wife died in 1952.
Many famous figures from the arts and public life were guests at Renishaw between the wars and my mother, being a child at the time saw nothing remarkable in this. So she mixed with all manner of clever, creative and interesting people and only came to realise that this was not the norm for working class children when it stopped.
As a small boy, I was totally in awe of Dame Edith. If you google her image you may understand why. However, she kept in touch with my grandfather and my mother by letter and telegram until shortly before her death long after they left Renishaw. JFR appeared in Dame Edith's "this is your life" in the early 1960s.
Hope you find this of interest.
If you have any info about JFR's many siblings or wider family, I would be very interested.
Chris
John Frederick Robins was my grandfather and the potty mouthed 2 year old was my mother Elizabeth (Betty) who died last year aged 88.
He told me that he earned money as a child operating the pump for the Hailsham fire engine, later he worked in a rope factory and I think that in one of Sir Osbert's autobiographies there is reference to selling fish. He had wanted to be a jockey, but grew too tall, so enlisted in the cavalry instead and I believe he served with his regiment in Ireland in the 1900s.
JFR was indeed Sir Osbert's army servant and at some point prior to WW1, I think he must have become an army reservist as he also travelled as servant to Osbert's father Sir George Sitwell to the family's other residence in Italy.
He was mobilised with the 11th Hussars in 1914 and was taken prisoner early in the war. He spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp and apparently was put to work in a Black Forest saw mill.
After the war, he resumed service with the Sitwells and remained with them mainly at Renishaw until his wife died in 1952.
Many famous figures from the arts and public life were guests at Renishaw between the wars and my mother, being a child at the time saw nothing remarkable in this. So she mixed with all manner of clever, creative and interesting people and only came to realise that this was not the norm for working class children when it stopped.
As a small boy, I was totally in awe of Dame Edith. If you google her image you may understand why. However, she kept in touch with my grandfather and my mother by letter and telegram until shortly before her death long after they left Renishaw. JFR appeared in Dame Edith's "this is your life" in the early 1960s.
Hope you find this of interest.
If you have any info about JFR's many siblings or wider family, I would be very interested.
Chris