by Shirley Smith
You might be forgiven for walking down Preston’s Ribblesdale Place today giving no regard to the fine architecture, after all the buildings have had well over a century to settle comfortably into their space. But pause. You might still conjure the sights and sounds of a hundred years ago and fancy that the laughter of children drifts over from the back gardens of the grand houses, teacups tinkle behind lace curtains and the skirts of busy nursemaids rustle yet.
These long-lost sights and sounds are brought vividly to life by Phoebe Hesketh in her book What Can the Matter Be? which is about as near to traveling back to Edwardian life in Preston as it’s possible to do. Her autobiographical account charts the ups and downs of lives lived there and closes with the death of her father in 1963 and as she writes in her poem The Ghost of Ribblesdale Place, Preston “Among the living – it’s I who am the ghost.”
Of course, Phoebe didn’t begin her relationship with Ribblesdale Place as a ghost but as a baby born in 1909 at No 1 where her father had his medical practice. The family moved to No 9 when Phoebe was three, a few months before the birth of her sister Elaine. She remembers holding her mother’s hand and walking in the rain from the old house to the new, a journey which she describes as moving up the street and also as moving up in the world because their new home was much bigger with grand windows, large gardens and views over Avenham Park. Phoebe was allowed to skip or run in the park but must never to do so along Ribblesdale Place, here she should walk never forgetting to pick up her feet.
The garden at No 9 boasted a copper-beech on the upper lawn and a cherry on the lower level as well as views of the River Ribble sweeping beyond the green of the park. At that time, the old tram bridge was still standing and Phoebe delighted in its wooden planks which were supple enough for bouncing games. The noise of trains only half a mile away could be heard clearly from their garden, a sound Phoebe loved – their smoke and sparks suggesting adventure and providing a comforting lullaby at bedtime. She notes that by 1910 about 20 trains per day ran between Preston and London, the express journey taking under 4.5 hours. I wonder if every passenger got a seat?
Phoebe was born into a family of doctors. Her grandfather, father and uncle were all doctors and seem to have treated needy patients for no fee. Her grandfather Alexander Rayner, known locally as Dr Alex, practised in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These were the days when Preston had only recently been provided with drains and a water supply and as there was no cemetery until 1856 some graves were dug under flags in communal back yards. Phoebe names one of the poorest local areas at that time as the Weavers Warren, the rudimentary living conditions in the Warren allowed disease to spread easily but no with no way to identify the exact location we can only surmise it must have been close to Dr Alex’s house which was on the corner where Pole Street met Church Street.
Those back-yard burials provide a shocking contrast to those Phoebe would witness through the windows of Ribblesdale place as a five year old. She recalls the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves heading a funeral cortege along Starkie Street and her delight at seeing four huge shining black horses half covered in purple velvet their heads crowned with purple plumes turning into Ribblesdale Place. These were followed by black cabs pulled by two horses, the more modest one-horse cabs waiting in Starkie Street while a glass coach arrived at the door opposite her watching place and six figures clothed in black entered the house to carry out the oak and brass coffin.
The five-year-old Phoebe admits to being more interested in the magnificent horses than the funeral itself but her general powers of observation and memory are remarkable and provide a fascinating glimpse into social norms and customs of the time. For instance she tells us that they were attended by top-hatted men as “women never went to funerals”. I wonder if women attended those backyard burials?
She tells us how she came to recognise the stages of mourning dress starting with full “invisible black” and reducing to three-quarters where touches of white were allowed and then half when violet and grey were acceptable. Women were judged on the adherence to this regimen as Phoebe remembers her mother remarking to a friend that Mrs Lawson was down to half “and it’s only six months”. No comparable code for men is mentioned.
Strict rules of etiquette also applied to making calls. Maids had to change apron and cap for 3pm ready to receive callers at the door and first time callers must stay 45 mins exactly. If a caller was told the mistress was not at home then cards must be left on the silver salver: two small ones for the master and one larger one for the mistress, this custom baffled Phoebe. If the caller was in mourning then the cards would be edged in black.
On one occasion Phoebe was taken by her mother to visit the two Miss Horrocks who lived at No 3 Ribblesdale Place. These ladies were relatives of the cotton magnate and their house had the biggest garden on the street comprising of a sweeping lawn complete with a jewelled-tailed peacock. She remembers that the two ladies wore lavender gowns and her mother an ostrich feathered hat. A tea “fit for royalty” was served in the drawing room which boasted brocade curtains and French windows that opened onto the garden.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsmithbarney/9467117709/
The older Phoebe endured the discomfort of a coming out ball at the Bull & Royal in Preston where she wore a white taffeta dress with pink roses lovingly sewn on by her mother at whose insistence the whole event was organised. Phoebe found the experience excruciating and remembers stationing herself by a pillar wishing for the 2am finish. It was her waltzing mother who attracted attention, radiant in her dress of gold lace over rose.
Phoebe’s mother Gertrude was a talented violinist with the Halle Orchestra but as was the custom amongst the well-to-do she stood aside from her career upon marriage so that her husband might devote himself to his. A talented physician, Dr Arthur Rayner worked long hours and was director of the first X-Ray department in Britain which was located at the Royal Preston Infirmary. Later he received the OBE for his research work in the Middle East during the years of the First World War. Phoebe wonders whether marriage to a “ne’er do well” would have allowed her mother’s musical talent to develop to its full potential. During the war years Gertrude worked for the Red Cross and worked all night three times a week at the buffet on Preston railway station serving refreshments to servicemen.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpsmithbarney/39805219783/
These were the days before the NHS, its introduction meant doctors seemed to have less time for their patients and Phoebe recalls being asked by the doctor what she wanted from him on her first NHS consultation and not being able to supply a ready response had it explained to her that it was the doctors business “to get every patient in and out of this surgery in four minutes flat.” Perhaps the ten minute appointments of today would have seemed generous.
Certainly, Dr Rayner never believed the NHS would work. He retired from the Infirmary in 1948 at the passing of the National Health Act although this meant he received no pension and had to live on his earnings and so was always busy. He believed some people would always “take advantage” of a free service whilst others would be happy to pay for a more personalised approach and avoid overcrowded surgeries.
Phoebe remarks that her father generally showed more concern for his patients, or later his second wife, than he did for her mother. Gertrude became seriously ill with what she was told by her family was colitis but learned the truth from a nurse whose brutal response to Gertrude’s pain was “What can you expect with cancer of the liver?”. During the latter stages of her illness Phoebe remembers hearing her mother screaming in pain and her attempts to distract her with Bezique and eke out the time between doses of morphine.
Dr Rayner would always administer the last morphine injection of the day after he finished work and Phoebe would be stationed on the wide window-ledge of her mother’s bedroom watching for the headlights on his car sweeping down the hill. Her description of this time as they wait for often an hour or more is harrowing as her mother kept asking for “The lights, the lights” and begging Phoebe to make them come.
Phoebe had a great respect for her mother’s abilities to manage a busy household efficiently and admired her steadfast loyalty to her husband yet her attitude towards her father could be described as ambivalent. She was clearly in awe of his skill as a doctor and his obvious concern for his patients which was not related to their ability to pay. In fact, her book is dedicated to him and she describes the words of its title, “What can the matter be?” taken from a well-loved children’s nursery rhyme as being apt for a doctor’s daughter.
However, the opening words of the book are “When I was young I was terrified of my father.” She acknowledges this changes over the course of her life but there are descriptions in her book which reveal a household that appeared to revolve around his needs. His daughters were not allowed to run around the house or to make any noise once he was home or seeing a patient. Phoebe’s mother only practised her violin when her husband was out when she carefully removed the highly polished instrument from its case and purple silk wrap. The children were not allowed to play a note on the Steinway Grand if their father was at home though Phoebe notes “his X-ray apparatus was noisy enough.”
She remembers one occasion when, at the table with company, she disobeyed her father’s instruction to leave and go upstairs and received a “leathering”. The shocked concern on the faces around the table did little to relieve her humiliation which she notes was worse than the pain. Nevertheless she attributes his anger to his meticulous nature and states that she looks back not with resentment but with pride in his achievements. For instance, as a child she was hospitalised for Scarlet Fever and states that without her father’s medical knowledge and intervention she would have lost her hearing completely.
Phoebe had support from her father’s sister, her Aunt Edith, who with her head on one side would smile knowingly after one of her brother’s tirades against socialist ideology and say “Your father doesn’t mean half he says.” Phoebe found it hard to believe that the two, so different from each other, could be siblings with the same upbringing.
Of course, Phoebe’s Aunt Edith became famous for her work in promoting education and labour rights and perhaps most notably for her campaigning as a suffragette. Phoebe comments that her grandfather, Edith’s father, must have noticed something exceptional in Edith from a young age because he saved up to send her to Penrhos College in North Wales.
Phoebe reveals many interesting details about her aunt who was clearly an unusual character. The ladies of Ribblesdale Place did not approve of suffragettes or suffrage and they were “agog” with the news that Mrs Rigby had burned down William Lever’s bungalow.
When Phoebe was taken to visit her Aunt Edith in Winckley Square, she was accompanied by her nursemaid Winnie because her mother “never set foot in Winckley Square”. It is probably safe to assume that Phoebe was referring only to her aunt’s house and not to the whole square which would have been difficult to avoid, certainly at any chance meeting Gertrude would return Edith’s smile with “ice-cold hostility”. Winnie was terrified of Edith and would deposit Phoebe on the steps of her house, ring the bell and run away.
Phoebe speaks tenderly of her aunt, a character quite different from that depicted by local gossip. True she would have been a peculiar figure walking along Winckley Square, she wore her hair in an American Crop and never wore hats, her clothes were shapeless homespun dresses but she enchanted Phoebe with her low, gentle voice and twinkling blue eyes as she told her stories of wild animals and foreign lands. Phoebe describes Edith as “outstandingly good-looking” who, when visiting Brantwood with a friend, was so admired by Ruskin that he “couldn’t take his eyes off her.”
When Edith took Marigold Cottage on Howick Cross Lane, Phoebe was sent to stay with her whilst recuperating from a bout of measles. Phoebe loved the country air, the two-acre garden, orchard and bee-hives. The garden was so close to the Ribble that the funnels of ships travelling from Preston Dock to Ireland could be seen as if moving through the garden.
A little more disconcerting to Phoebe was the regular practice of her aunt to utilise the contents of the privy at the bottom of the garden as manure for the strawberry patch, she told a surprised Phoebe that this was the reason her strawberries were so big. Phoebe also wondered at what she calls her aunt’s “quirks” such as sowing seeds according to the phases of the moon or arranging plants in group so that their colour vibrations might harmonise.
Edith became a gaunt figure, hardly surprising after her prison sentences but Phoebe notes that she never lost her ability to make people do what they didn’t want to do, the reason being that they adored her. Certainly, her husband Charles was supportive of her endeavours and appears to have doted on her. She never experienced servant problems like the ladies of Ribblesdale Place because she provided those working for her with a comfortable living.
It is worth mentioning that some of Phoebe’s descriptions of country life might be shocking to a modern-day audience, for instance the treatment of an injured horse or the catching of rats. The account of her visit to Scrambler’s Farm during pig killing is not for the squeamish.
Phoebe loved the freedom of the country and was delighted when her mother inherited a large sum of money from her uncle James Fielding allowing her to purchase a house in the country. Gertrude and her two daughters relished the independence this gave them although her father hated living there and continued his practice in town during the day. Suddenly noise could be made, Phoebe could have friends over and although her mother didn’t continue with the violin it was taken up by Phoebe’s sister Elaine.
The comfort that financial independence brought to Gertrude and the difference it made to her and her daughter’s lives is that same independence for women espoused and fought for throughout her life by her sister-in-law, Edith. Perhaps the irony was not lost on Gertrude.
The whole book abounds with colourful details of a lost world, both pleasant and unpleasant. A world that is not so far removed in time from our own but is a world apart in so many other ways, those final words of her poem spring to mind: “Among the living – it’s I who am the ghost.”