A very pleasant happening was the return from Australia of Guy and Ivor Peyton, Bill's brothers. They did not come home until years after having been packed off to Australia by their father and having worked tremendously hard against the frequent losses (owing to weather). Eventually, though, they both came home with riches enough to marry and enjoy life. Mother, of course, was delighted, and they answered to real affection immediately. They had resisted all Australian language and manners, and no one would have guessed that they had been sheep farmers.
They were a great acquisition to us, especially when Ivor married a very clever and delightful Dorothy, who had considered becoming a Sculptress but was an exceeding good wife and mother and cousin to us. Ivor and Dorothy had three sons. The third of these died young, but John and Tommy grew up. Most excellent cousins. Tommy was killed in the attack on St. Nazaire. John was taken prisoner almost as soon as he landed. He read late and passed the examination, but he did not practice. When he at last got home, he threw in for politics. He is now in the House of Lords, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, whose member he was for 30 years. Ivor's brother, Guy, was not so strong minded.
Soon there began some Christmas holiday visits to Jim and Evelyn Mason at Eynsham, their house in Oxfordshire. There was always a large company and, with their son (Michael) and three daughters, we had a wonderful time. When I grew up, I particularly enjoyed the dancing after dinner. The Wilbraham twins, Claude and Evelyn, were impossible to distinguish when together. I remember, when the music began, both of them rushing across the hall for Mother (Cousin Dot), to claim her as a partner. One of them, I think it was Evelyn, knew the Tango and, to teach it to all of us, he took me for a biddable partner. It was delightful. Jack tried to make me talk more to my partners, but it was my waltzing that made me friends. I love it and had a certain aptitude.
I think I must write of the cousins who were so kind when I needed a little amusement. Once, I went alone to the theatre, and I don't think Evelyn believed when she asked whom I had gone with and I said "myself". One cousin, dear Jack Dawkins, took me to three plays in three nights, because he had no one better. He felt sad about leaving, because he was a Consul in Morocco and could not be spared, but he brought me a most useful and very ornamental leather handbag. Mother and I stayed with his elder brother and sister in the delightful house and garden in North Wales. Jack and I went for a good walk, starting with a car to get up to the heights and walking till the path brought us very much downhill to the seacoast, where we caught a train for home.
When Jack retired, he had married a Dutch lady who was friendly with me, but who surprised me by some small Dutch oddities. When I went, with difficulty, to Jack's funeral, she looked me up and down with one disapproving glance, and her first words were "You had not any black shoes?" (Though I had managed to produce mourning, I only had grey shoes.) When, not so very long after she died, I again spent the night in catching trains, her two sisters were barely polite, and when I talked to the nice cook, who (as the only help she had) had done all she could in helping nursing, she told how they had treated her. She should have had all the clothes, but they only gave her the least good and nothing else. I gave her all I could afford, which was only £10.
Dick, Jack's older brother, asked Mother and me to May Week at Cambridge, which was delightful. His funeral was very impressive, because of the number of learned dons who attended it and all spoke of his political knowledge. He had warned the authorities of Crete. His knowledge of modern Greek, besides the ancient, was very useful, but his knowledge was not used in Crete.
GUY PEYTON
Guy Wynne Alfred Peyton, son of Lt-Col. John Peyton and Emily Georgiana Violet Pringle, and cousin to EV, left London for Sydney on 15 May 1886. While we know that he returned to England, he did not ship home with his brother.
IVOR PEYTON
Ivor Eliot Peyton, son of Lt-Col. John Peyton and Emily Georgiana Violet Pringle, and cousin to EV, left London for Sydney on 15 May 1886. He left Sydney for London on 10 Sep 1910.
BILL PEYTON
William Eliot Peyton, one of three sons born to John Peyton & Emily Georgiana Violet Pringle, and cousin to EV. His wedding was mentioned in one of the earlier pages of "EV Remembers".
DELIGHTFUL DOROTHY
Dorothy Helen Elfinstone, married to Ivor Eliot Peyton. The third son, who died young, was Henry Eliot Pitt Peyton.
JOHN
John Wynne William Peyton, Baron Peyton of Yeovil, was the son of EV's cousin, Ivor Eliot Peyton. In her lifetime, John came up quite often to visit EV and was very nice to her.
TOMMY
Lieutenant Thomas Grenville Pitt Peyton.
EVELYN MASON
Daughter of James Ludovic Lindsay (26th Earl of Crawford) and Emily Florence Bootle-Wilbraham, making her a cousin of EV's mother. Wife of James Francis Mason of Eynsham Hall, Witney, Oxfordshire, England. Jim & Evelyn's children were Violet Sybille Mason, Rhona Margaret Alice Mason, Michael Henry Mason, Doris Kathleen Mason, and Joan Marjorie Mason. This family will figure in heavily during the telling of the iconic "St. George & the Dragon" painting from Russia (on a later page).
CLAUDE & EVELYN
Claude Bootle-Wilbraham and Evelyn Caryl Bootle-Wilbraham, identical twin sons of Arthur Bootle-Wilbraham and Elizabeth Jane Jardine.
TRAVELS TO NICE
Although not mentioned by EV during these years, we do know that EV and her mother would spend every winter during this period in Nice (visiting Aunt Nell and Uncle Serge).
JACK DAWKINS
John McGillivray Dawkins, son of Rear Admiral Richard Dawkins and Mary Louisa McGillivray, appears to have been British Consul to Morroco between 1912 and 1919. His funeral took place in 1965. (Some online sources spell it MacGillivray, but I can't see that Jack ever used anything but McGillivray.)
DUTCH LADY
Tuja Annie Bunge married John McGillivray Dawkins between 1919 (his supposed retirement) and 1938 (when their names appeared on a ship's manifest together). She died in 1969, just four years after her husband. Her first marriage, to Wouter Nijhoff, was ended by divorce on 16 June 1925.
DICK
Richard McGillivray Dawkins, of Plas Dulas Llanddulas Abergele Denbighshire, died 04 May 1955 at Oxford.
ILLUSTRATIONS
1) Tommy, Dorothy & Ivor Peyton with Tony, Teddy & Ela Stevenson
2) Thomas "Tommy" Grenville Pitt Peyton in 1939
3) The Children of Lady Evelyn Mason by St George Hart
4) Richard "Dick" McGillivray Dawkins
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