My Double Life 1 This Dark Wood

A Journey into Light

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Contents

Origins

Locations: Yorkshire, Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, London

"Every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath."
Wordsworth, 'These times strike monied
worldlings with dismay' (1803)

My inherited DNA

In a sense my path – and my double life – began before I was born, in the DNA I inherited from my ancestors. Some aspects of my quest and the 30 episodes of my life and writings can be traced back to the influences of earlier generations on the family tree on which I budded and grew.

My parents' marriage

My father, Cyril Hagger, had his early schooling in Barnet. His father worked in Canada sawing trees at some time, and he may have been away during my father's early years. Probably when he was eleven, in 1917, my father won a place at a Bluecoat school that was based on Christ's Hospital, a charitable institution for bright students from poor backgrounds. The original Bluecoat School was founded by Edward VI in 1552 in the former Grey Friars monastery in Newgate Street, London, which had been confiscated by Henry VIII. It relocated to the Horsham area in 1902, when its branch in Hertford (not far from Barnet) was closed to boys. Scholarships to Bluecoat schools were provided by livery companies and councils, and there was clearly a link between my father's school in Barnet and the Bluecoat school he attended, probably through the East Barnet Valley Urban District Council which would have sent local boys to the Hertford site until 1902. Bluecoat boys wore a Tudor uniform: a blue frock coat and yellow stockings with white bands. My mother often mentioned my father's attendance at "the Bluecoat School" but my father spoke little of it except to say it was so cold in his dormitory that sometimes he had to break ice to wash.

When he was 14, in 1920, my father contracted polio – it is thought from a swimming pool. He lost the use of his breathing muscles and, although he never referred to it, seems to have spent two years in an iron lung as my mother said on more than one occasion. An iron lung was then an airtight wooden box with motor-driven bellows and bladder that pulled in and expelled air, forcing his lungs to 'breathe'. (His head was out of the box.) The cost of this treatment, if indeed it happened, seems to have been borne by his Bluecoat school's charitable foundation, in whose care he was being schooled. The iron lung would have had the same effect on my father that being in a plaster cast for a year had on Sir Alex Douglas-Home: it would have made him very determined. Having overcome polio, he felt there was nothing that could not be achieved. Despite walking with a limp, he got himself qualified in accounting, wrapping himself in a blanket to study in his unheated room, and in 1925 began a career in local government with East Barnet Valley Urban District Council (renamed East Barnet Urban District Council in 1935) that must have seemed impossible when he was 14. He said more than once that in 1925 there was a shortage of jobs and local government was the only employer that would employ 'an invalid'; and that he had to be significantly better than the competition to make up for his disability. In 1931 he became accountancy assistant to Mitcham Borough Council.

Both my parents were musical. My mother, Norah Broadley, was a violinist from Sussex. She gave more than a dozen violin recitals in East Grinstead and London between 1932 and 1938.1 My father sang. (He may have begun singing to strengthen his lungs after polio.) He was a member of the Royal Choral Society and sang as a tenor in the Fleet Street Choir. He once sang the Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall. My parents met on a train at Paddington Station, where I often caught a train to Cornwall.

I inherited my father's determination, and his natural aptitude for figures. (Also, perhaps, an instinctive warmth towards the Tudor time.) My parents' music came out in me as poetry.

My father married my mother at the Methodist church in East Grinstead on 28 August 1937. A local newspaper report states that my mother was given away by her brother George Broadley II and "wore a dress of ivory satin, cut on classical lines, with train. She also wore a veil lent by her mother and wreath of orange blossom." The second hymn was 'He who would valiant be/'Gainst all disaster', which reflected my father's early struggle with polio, and his determination "to be a pilgrim". The pianist who accompanied her during her recitals, Walter Crapps, played the organ. The reception was held at Felbridge Place Hotel, and the honeymoon was in Switzerland.

My father had already bought "their future residence", 20 Fairview Road, Norbury, so they could be near his work at Mitcham Town Hall. He very soon owned other properties. In 1938 he bought 52 and 54 Westfield Road, Cheam, and he soon owned two more properties.

I inherited (or acquired) his property-managing skills along with my mother's.

My mother's family: Broadleys and Hardings

My mother's family were Broadleys and Hardings, and I inherited traits from several of them.

Rev. Benjamin Broadley and the Navy

My mother's paternal great-grandfather was the Yorkshire-based shoemaker John Broadley I who was born at Wakefield, Yorkshire c.1800. He married Ann and had four children, who were all born in Ackworth.

My mother's paternal grandfather was their fourth child, the Rev. Benjamin Broadley, an itinerant Methodist minister born in 1833 who served in different parts of the UK and had been a Naval chaplain ('Chaplain to the Fleet') in India and Malta.

From him I inherited some of my desire to travel abroad and find out about foreign cultures, and to quest for truth.

The Rev. Benjamin Broadley married Charlotte Harrison, who had money of her own which was invested for her children. They had five surviving children including John Broadley II (born in 1867) and George Broadley I (born in 1870), my mother's father.

Hannah Comfort (Mrs. Burton) owned a school

My mother's maternal great-grandmother, Hannah Comfort, was born in 1813. She was the daughter of Humphrey Comfort and Sarah Nelham, who was born in 1776 (and whose sampler, dated 1786, embroidered when she was 10, hung on my Aunt Margaret's wall). They had eight children including Hannah. Hannah married James Burton. In a plated brown photo I believe to have been taken in 1864 Hannah sits in a white bonnet, her hair in buns on either side and wearing spectacles, and her long crinolined dress stretches to the chequered floor. Her husband was killed in 1870 when he fell out of a buggy (a horse-drawn, two-wheeled vehicle) on London Bridge, and eight years afterwards she started a girls' school in Croydon at 65. She taught there until she was 85 and owned it until she died aged 101 in 1914. (My mother was the youngest guest at her 100th birthday party and was given a Queen Anne table, which I now have, that was split in the middle after Frank Burton, her grandson, played leap-frog over it and fell. I also have Hannah's warming-pan.)

Hannah's life spanned from the end of Napoleon to the First World War. I have her brass warming-pan (for live coals) hanging by its long handle on my kitchen wall. Inside is a short genealogy, written by my aunt Margaret, beginning with Sarah Nelham and ending with my name and date of birth.

From Hannah I inherited my interest in running schools.

Charles Harding wrote for The Times

Hannah had eight children, including Sarah Ann Burton (born in 1844), who presumably helped her mother in the school. In 1864 Sarah seems to have married Charles Harding (born in 1846). I have brown-plated, presumably wedding, photos of both Sarah and her husband Charles taken in 1864 when Charles was 18 and Sarah 20. Charles stands beside a large urn in a wing-collar and tie, wearing a knee-length coat. Charles was a civil servant and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was linked to the War Office, was an expert on marine currents and wrote weather reports for newspapers, in particular on meteorology for The Times. I have his two barometers in my hall.

Charles and Sarah Harding lived in Tulse Hill – I found my way to nearby West Dulwich – and then at 65 Holmewood Gardens, near Christchurch Road, Streatham. It would have been in Streatham that when nineteen their daughter Elsie, my grandmother (who was born in 1874), acquired a brown-plated photo of the pianist, composer and later statesman Paderewski, who visited London in 1891. She has written her name on the back, 'Elsie G. Harding, Oct 3rd 1893'.

From Charles and Sarah Harding I inherited an instinctive connection with The Times and my interest in the modern equivalent of Victorian meteorology, the universe.

George Broadley I's tailor's business and marriage to Elsie Harding

Both John II and George Broadley I came south and together set up a tailor's business, Broadley Brothers, in Bromley in 1893. They had each been given £500 as capital by their mother, who wanted all her four sons to own their own shop. In 1896 George Herbert Broadley – he was named after the English Metaphysical poet George Herbert – stood on Victoria Station, wondering where he should open his own business. On a notice-board he saw 'East Grinstead', liked the sound of the name, and, following his intuition, caught a train there and after seeing a 'To Let' board founded the East Grinstead branch of the business at 14th-century premises: 38 & 40 High Street, which he leased. George (my grandfather) was now based there in Sussex.

I inherited a good intuitive business sense from him and an instinctive bent for founding institutions.

Two years after he opened the East-Grinstead branch of Broadley Brothers, in 1898 George Broadley I married Elsie Harding. (I have the silver teapots engraved with a 'B' they were given as a wedding present.) They had met at Brixton Hill Methodist church and at first lived above the East-Grinstead shop. Their eldest son Tom I climbed out onto the parapet for a dare and, alarmed, they moved to Fairmead, Lewes Road, and then to 212 London Road. In 1907 they bought Lonsdale House, Lingfield Road for £750, with a mortgage of £600 from the East Grinstead and Mutual Building Society. In 1910 they owned one of the first two cars in East Grinstead, a second-hand Talbot. By now they were a prominent East-Grinstead Methodist family. They had two sons and three daughters, including my mother Norah and my aunt Margaret.

Tom Broadley I and the RFC

Their eldest son, Tom Broadley I had been born in 1899 and educated at City of London School. The first human flight of 1903 amazed his generation, and the daredevils yearned to fly. Overstating his age, he volunteered to join the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and received 25s. a day. He was not supposed to fly until he was 18 but the RFC were so desperate for pilots that they allowed him to fly while he was 17. On 1 April 1918 the RFC was absorbed into the Royal Air Force. On 15 September 1918, just before the end of the war, Tom's Bristol Fighter was shot down over enemy lines in France, probably on a reconnaissance (i.e. spying) mission to pinpoint the whereabouts of German troops so there could be follow-up attacks. He was reported missing, presumed killed, and it was only in 2000 that his grave was located on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website: grave E20 in Chili Trench Cemetery at Gavrelle, Pas de Calais, France. I have his wings in my study.

From him I inherited a tendency to volunteer for daredevil activities overseas.

Broadley Brothers, death of George Broadley I of cancer in 1926

George Broadley I had expanded the family business. In addition to the branches of Broadley Brothers at Bromley (opened by John II in 1893) and East Grinstead (opened by George in 1896), new branches opened under George in Haywards Heath in 1900 (which was managed by one of the East Grinstead staff, Sidney Alfred Moon), in Horsham in 1907 (although that branch closed in 1915), in Hove and briefly in Eastbourne.

Towards the end of the First World War George Broadley I bought a War Bond, which financed the Government's war effort, and three months later had a win. This provided the capital for a business in Eastbourne, and he bought Coombers in Seaside, intending to leave it to his son George Broadley II, who worked in the shop for a while. The previous owner Coomber continued to live in a flat over the shop and every afternoon during the hot summer of 1919 sat in the back garden in a deck-chair under a mulberry tree, regretting that he had sold. He decided to buy the business back and he offered ten times what he had sold it for. As part of the deal he handed over 2 Bakewell Road, Eastbourne, where George Broadley I allowed his in-laws, the Hardings, to live rent-free.

In 1925 George Broadley I bought Daledene in Lewes Road, East Grinstead, at auction for £2,300, intending to sell it at a profit. In the same year he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. His daughter Margaret, who had become a nurse at the London Hospital in 1923 and who would in due course rise to become first a Sister and then an Assistant Matron, was the first to notice his cancer on the beach at Tenby. There is a poignant photo of the two standing together on that beach at the very moment she realised his condition.

Suspecting that he had not long to live, and not wanting to leave Elsie with two properties, he sold Lonsdale House, the more saleable of the two, and he and Elsie moved into Daledene for his last months. He was given a lead cure, which was thought to be an effective way of dealing with cancer in those days. However, the lead poison killed him in November 1926. (My aunt Margaret, his daughter, told me that as she and the family sat round his bed expecting each breath to be his last, he suddenly rose up and cried out, "Tom," and then died: "Tom was waiting for him.") His death certificate gives as the cause of death "Carcinoma of oesaphagus accelerated by injections of collosol lead for the purposes of treatment. Misadventure. No PM [i.e. Post-Mortem]."

George Broadley II corners the family business

Under the terms of his will, his two trustees and executors, his widow Elsie and son George II, were to administer the estate until 20 February 1931. George I's 75% share of the profits of the Haywards Heath business went to his widow Elsie, and it would be at her discretion as to whether to leave his capital share in the business or remove it. (Soon afterwards the Haywards Heath business was sold to Moon, the managing partner who owned 25% with an option to purchase, and retained the name "Broadleys".) His widow was to have all the profits from the East Grinstead business and 75% of the profits of the Hove business plus £70 per month. George II would have no profits from the East Grinstead business but 25% of the profits from the Hove business and £500 per annum.

After 20 February 1931 (the "settlement date") the two trustees had authority to increase or diminish the Hove business, and George II was given authority to buy the business for £3,000, which could take the form of a loan to him at 7%, to be paid off at £250 per payment. The two trustees were instructed to continue to hold the East Grinstead business, and George II would be allowed to offer to buy the business at a price to be agreed (subject to valuation) by Elsie. George I's widow Elsie was to have the remainder of the estate. Its net value after probate was £16,734.18s.7d. (in 2011 value in excess of £797,000).

Clause 8 of his will states: "It is my wish that, my said son being herein sufficiently provided for, my said wife shall maintain and provide for my daughters in equal shares, but this expression of my wish shall not impose any obligation or create a trust in favour of my daughters."