Michael D.Heath-Caldwell M.Arch.

1930

General Frederick Heath-Caldwell CB aged 71/72.

Constance M.H. Heath-Caldwell aged 60/62

Lt Cmdr Cuthert H. Heath-Caldwell DSO aged 40/41

Violet Heath-Caldwell (ne Palmer) - aged 44/45

Patricia C.M. Heath-Caldwell - aged 9/10

Diana Heath-Caldwell - aged 8/9

Rosamond Heath-Caldwell - aged 4/5

James A. Heath-Caldwell - aged 0

Cuthbert Eden Heath OBE aged 70/71

Sarah Heath aged 70/71

Leopold C. Heath (Griggs) aged 35/36

Genesta Long (ne Heath) – aged 30/31

Admiral Sir Herbert Heath KCB, MVO, etc aged 68/69

Madeline Marion de Salis (ne Heath) aged 36/37

Rosamond Heath (Posy) aged 35/36

Memoirs of J.A. Heath-Caldwell
My father was in the Navy, a Commander in the Navy, three stripes on his arm, and he was about to go out to Hong Kong. He had another two years commission there and he was the officer commanding the HMS Tamar, and it was the dockyard that supplied all the ships in the Far East Station. But he had been out in that area, in the Pacific, earlier on in his naval career but he went out and became a commanding officer, he was one under the NIC, that’s the Naval Officer in Charge. He said that on one occasion when the NIC was away he had to entertain some politicians and he did that and had an idea then of what the NIC had to do. 

My mother got pregnant at a house party in Sussex, it must have been 1929 before the Wall Street crash, and in the following year I was born on March 28th, end of the first quarter day, more or less. And what happened was that I was born on the 28th March which has some bearing later because my term that went into the Navy in 1943, I was the youngest bar one in the term. If her pregnancy had been three or four days longer I would no longer have been in that lot of cadets who went to Dartmouth in 1943.

At the age of one or two we went out to Hong Kong in an overseas liner, I think it was a P&O, and apparently I escaped out of the nursery through a very small window and on one occasion they wondered where I had got to and had not fallen overboard. I had got as far as the ship’s company, I just remember, on the after hatch of the liner and being entertained by them before I was put back. 

The house I can remember, my father and mother had a house right on top of a peak, which was near Victoria Peak, in Hong Kong, and it had a view of the harbour out of the window and if there was a typhoon or anything like that we got the, that’s what they called a good old gale, its called a typhoon, it was quite exposed on top of the Peak. And there I can remember canaries in a cage and I can remember, I can’t remember but I am told, and I have seen a photograph of myself, in a little boat about that long when we went to the beach over the other side to a place called Aberdeen [Repulse Bay] where my nurse used to build sand castles in the sand. I don’t know how much I thought I helped her build them, and apparently when living at home on top of the Peak I invariably ate with the Chinese servants in their quarters, so quite what language they spoke, whether it was Chinese or whatever they spoke I can’t tell you, but I can tell you some of the things around,

I can remember the ants first of all, under the stones beside the path leading up to the house, I can remember an ant swarm, when the males all develop wings, I can remember some lizards in some rocks where my nurse took me for walks. I can remember that she said “Ladybird Ladybird fly away home, your house is on fire, your children will burn.”

I can remember the railway, what do you call that thing, the elevated. Like in Wellington, a cable car, which took people from down at sea level right up to the top of Victoria Peak, so I went in that a few times, and were there about two years, so I don’t quite know what sort of effect that would have had on my speech development. Spoke Chinese with a Gwangdong dialect.

My parents liked having servants about because they were used to that, my grandparents place up in Cheshire and there the servants, I think there was one called “Ah Tom.” And my nurse was called an “Ahmah” that what I was told and that was my first observation of the world from a small age. I can remember that there was another small peak just below the level of ours where the Chinese decided they were going to build a house there so they built, with shovels, lots of them.

Chinese type group portrait of the household staff in Hong Kong 1931

They put a railway line round the Peak and then with little trucks which they pushed by hand on this rail line they shoveled up the top of this hillock. And they then pushed these little wagons and tipped them to make a causeway from this peak to the road all by hand. And when they brought the bricks up to build they were all carried on poles across the shoulders with three or four bricks balanced at the end of these poles, a stream of them did that.

I can remember that there was a German doctor and his children who lived quite close and I used to play with their children and the funny thing that he was a doctor and he looked forward to another war because he had had plenty of surgical experience. Another war would have suited him.

And my father out there, so I am told later, he was a bit suspicious of the Japanese, this was in 1932, anyway we came back to England at the end of 1933/34. I can pinpoint those dates because I have his records of his service which are in his journal. He was in the Navy, this was 1932, so he would have missed the Invergordan Mutiny which shook the British and English establishment in England when it happened because it was an unhappy experience for the Navy, but I shouldn’t dwell on that as that is all that I have learnt since.

And one day while there, I pulled at the cloth an in the centre of the table was a three legged bronze incense stick burner and that got to the edge of the table then fell off and landed on my toes and squashed them a little so I think I lost my toe nails. At the German’s place I pushed a black cat out the window of a Bungalow. 

Diary of Genesta Long (ne Heath)

Saturday 15th March 1930

I have had to leave Kenya again and take Heather (my daughter) to England. When we passed Aden all the hills were covered in green - an amazing sight! No one in our ship, not even Grogan or Mr Bulpit (one of Kenya's veterans) had ever seen it before. Where has the seed hidden and kept alive all these years; perhaps centuries? The ship's carpenter said to Mrs Wybrandts, 'We shan't be able to sing "the barren rocks of Aden" no more - it'll 'ave to be "Coom inter the garden, Maud"!'

28th March 1930 - Birth of JAHC
Letter to MDHC – 2014

Your mother and I gave you the initials as M.D. because we hoped you’d be a doctor of medicine as my grandfather on my mother’s side was, an Irish doctor practicing in Armagh, Northern Ireland, the Cathedral City of All Ireland (equivalent to The Archbishop of Canterbury and York all rolled in to one). And of course my grandfather on my mother’s side was an acute businessman too. He got his M.D. from Trinity College, Dublin and paid his own way through Medical School there by being employed as a Pharmacist’s Assistant and so by the time he went to Trinity College he knew all about how to make up medicine. 

And in Armagh, N.Ireland, he came to own the only hospital there, and he treated both Roman Catholic and Protestant Bishops. And their main complaint was too much of all good things, ie alcohol and food. So he treated them with Bicarbonate of Soda suitably disguised by colouring and flavouring. And they invariably came back for more (at a cost of course), for he never told them what the medicine was as they didn’t ask.

He was an acute businessman. And he in the end died and left all his estate to my mother (in England). And, of course, she wasn’t able to take a great deal of interest in this business matter as she was married to my father who was a complete simpleton [ahem, ed] when it came to business matters. He’d bought the Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset by the proceeds from the sale of the family estate in North Staffordshire (and the area would be or is very valuable being on the cross roads of the A30, I think, where there is a large Inn called “The Caldwell Arms” next to a Transport Café which was the center of black market deals for stuff which fell off trucks or lorries as they are called in England.

And having sold the family estate in North Staffordshire at a faction of its real value he bought the Pound House, as I’ve written, for a formidable sum of money and I think he was diddled there too. For the Pound House had to be brought up to date to qualify for the local council bylaws etc and he put in a second bathroom, downstairs, and two additional loos.

At the time the cottage was not connected up to the local sewage system so the cottage effluent was pumped up to the top of the garden (quite a big one) and left to seep down hill towards the cottage. 

My sister, Patricia Constance Mary Heath-Caldwell, who remained a spinster all her life after being a midwife. She’d got her credentials after training in Newcastle, N.S.W., after she’d shipped to Australia from England after WW2 after getting a free passage in exchange for looking after the children of a wealthy family who’d sought pastures new in Australia. Then there were quite a lot of Palmers in quite well off circumstances. Although she got her initial training in midwifery in Newcastle, N.S.W., and returned to Scotland where she got her U.K. credentials at Royal Edinburgh Infirmary and went on to be a midwife in Dorset and East Somerset and finished up her working life as a Night Sister in Exeter Hospital. She returned to Dorset and nursed both my father and mother until they died. 

 Diary of Genesta Long (ne Heath) continues..

Tuesday 8th April 1930

Father (Cuthbert Eden Heath) met me at Marseilles with Admiral Candy, the captain of his yacht 'Anne of Anstie.' They had a fearful passage through the Bay of Biscay, and were all sick except the steward, who was too frightened! All the crew are ex-naval men; some have been in destroyers for fourteen years without a qualm of a gulp - but the Anne defeated them!

We went one day to San Remo - and what a grand feeling it is to put to sea in your own ship, go anywhere, stop anywhere, do anything you like. She bucks about in the smallest seas like a fresh horse - she seems almost alive.

1930.

Memoirs of a Canadian Student in England

I Was There: A Century of Alumni Stories about he University of Albert” by Ellen Schoeck.

We were far from home, and in those days it was much too expensive – and took too long – to go home for the holiday. There was a Lady Frances Ryder who decided that this group of young men needed some exposure to proper English culture and so we were placed with various families at the Christmas Break and for other holidays. Let me begin by telling you that all of use knew we had to pack a tux for dinner. We did know that the upper class of English society dressed formally for dinner.

I arrived at the magnificent country home (old crumbly, ed) of Mrs Heath-Caldwell for a week-long holiday, and was whisked upstairs by the servants, with instructions that tea would be served in a half-hour. I dressed quite smartly and came downstairs to meet my mud-splattered hostess (she had been out riding) and her (ladies maid) Joyce (Pool). Mrs Heath-Caldwell didn’t mind at all sitting down for a very proper English tea in her muddy habit.“It was a lovely, very civilized tea, and I learned that (the General) was down with gout and confined to bed. So it would just be the three of us for dinner.

When we parted Mrs Heath-Caldwell advised me very politely but in no uncertain terms – to dress for dinner. I walked up the very long staircase, in a quandary. Surely a tux would be overdoing it given that my hostess had sat through tea covered in mud. And there would only be three of us for dinner – my hostess, her (ladies maid) and me. I had no idea what to wear. I opened my bedroom door, and to my everlasting relief, a servant who was to be my valet had not only unpacked my suitcases, but had also laid out my dinner clothes. The tux. I was saved.

The three of us, Mrs Heath-Caldwell, Joyce and I – were seated at one end of a huge table in a vast dinning room. And attended by a host of servants who served a five-course meal. I never lifted a finger. Glasses were constantly re-filled and empty glasses immediately whisked away.

 After dinner came the port. This was the one item we handled by ourselves – the port decanter – no servants. Mrs Heath-Caldwell passed the port to Joyce. Joyce passed the port to me. And I passed it back to Joyce. At that precise moment, Constance HC’s sharp intake of breath stopped all conversation. Joyce looked at me aghast. Joyce turned to Mrs Heath-Caldwell, and said in a shocked tone, “He reversed the port!” I was 18. I didn’t know that  port had to be, by tradition, passed around the table in one continuous direction, without being set down on the table. 

But the next day I felt much better when Joyce and I were out in the woods, for a walk and she asked me what ‘necking’ was. I guess there were a few things we Canadians knew that the English didn’t. 

The Short Mysterious Life of Fritz Schindler

Caswell “Boy” Long married a wealthy, pistol packing beauty, a safari client of Bror Blixen’s named Genessie.

Nine Faces of Africa by Elspeth Huxley.

Boy and Genessie, with whom I spent a week-end, have one of the “stately homes” of Kenya, three massive stone buildings on the crest of a hill at Elmentaita overlooking Lake Nakuru, in the centre of an estate which includes almost every topographical feature – grass, bush, forest rock, river, waterfall, and a volcanic cleft down which we scrambled on the end of a rope. On the borders a bush fire is raging, a low-lying cloud by day, at night a red glow along the horizon. The fire dominates the week-end. We watch anxiously for any change in the wind; cars are continually going out to report progress; extra labour is mustered and despatched to “burn a break”; will the flames “jump” the railroad? T

he pasture of hundreds of head of cattle is threatened.In the evening we go down to the lakeside to shoot duck; thousands of flamingo lie on the water, at the first shot they rise in a cloud, like dust from a beaten carpet; they are the colour of pink alabaster; they wheel round and settle further out. The head of a hippopotamus emerges a hundred yards from shore and yawns at us. When it is dark the hippo comes out for his evening walk….Again the enchanting contradictions of Kenya life; a baronial hall straight from Queen Victoria’s Scottish Highlands – an open fire of logs and peat with carved-stone chimney-piece, heads of game, the portraits of price cattle, guns, golf-clubs, fishing tackle, and folded newspapers – sherry is brought in, but instead of a waistcoated British footman, a bare-footed Kikuyu boy in white gown and red jacket. A typical English meadow of deep grass, model cowsheds in the background; a pedigree Ayrshire bull scratching his back on a gatepost; but, instead of rabbits, a company of monkeys scutter away at our approach; and, instead of a yokel, a Masai herdsman draped in a blanket, his hair plaited into a dozen dyed pigtails…

A Lion on the Bedroom by Pat Cavendish O’Neill. 2004

We spent the night after that with the Hamiltons at Nderit. Mummy and I often used to stay there. Lady Hamilton was truly remarkable, with flaming red hair and an exquisite complexion, and she surrounded herself with Masai. She would float amongst them in robes in their own colours of red and ochre. Her house was a fairytale of exotic fairytale exotic splendor, a perfect setting for this fascinating woman. Lady Hamilton, or Genessie, used to lend me her horses and her Masai syce with his red-robed but otherwise naked warrior 

Out in the Midday Sun by Elspeth Huxley.

Genessie Long was slim, elegant and rich, she wore long pendant ear-rings, had a well developed sense of drama and was tougher than she looked.

She had come to Kenya as a bride in 1923 on safari with her first husband – Blix was their white hunter – and fallen in love with Africa, the safari life and the prospect of adventure. Subsequently she also fell in love with Boy Long, and they married.

She bought the ranch at Nderit on the shore of Lake Nakuru, where she designed a splendid house with enormous rooms built round a patio with a fountain playing in the middle. Even larger stables accommodated, she told me, about seventy horses. She was an accomplished horsewoman and a good shot. A semi-tame hippo used to share the cattle’s drinking troughs.

Boy and Genessie lived in style and entertained generously. The standard dress for house-boys was the kanzu, a long robe like a nightshirt, generally white and sometimes rather grubby; grander employers added an embroidered waistcoat of the kind worn by Arabs and Swahilis at the Coast, but Genessie went on better and dressed her house-boys in dark red kanzus with beautiful gold-embroidered waistcoats and scarlet turbans.

She had a penchant for travel in the world’s remoter regions, inspired by Rosita Forbes, and an ambition to ride to Petra on a camel. By then Petra has ceased to be to be remote and mysterious, and people reached it by car. This she did, and then hired camels, a guide, a servant and two Circassian policemen and proceeded, on her own, to Shobak and two Crusader castles, sleeping in the open or, sometimes, in the women’s quarters of hospitable, if unhygienic, desert Arabs.

In those days this was a bold achievement for a woman, and I listened enthralled to her descriptions, but when I re-told some of them to Nellie, she was unimpressed. Nellie reacted with suspicion to anything that smacked of what she called swashbuckling.

There was an occasion when Genessie arrived for lunch with mutual friends in Nakuru clad in beautifully cut white jodhpurs and a white silk shirt, a neat little revolver with a mother-of-pearl handle tucked into her belt. Nellie, eyeing the revolver cold, asked Genessie whether she had found it useful when shopping in Nakuru. ‘Oh yes,’ was the reply. ‘I’ve just shot a cobra in the drive.’ Nellie looked at her with skepticism, and was somewhat abashed when  a dead cobra was brought in. 

By this time Genessie has married Lord Claud Hamilton, a tall and handsome former Guards officer whose taciturnity was a perfect foil to her lively eloquence. They had taken over Nderit, and Boy Long had also found another wife. 

Tuesday 8th April 1930Father (Cuthbert Eden Heath) met me at Marseilles with Admiral Candy, the captain of his yacht 'Anne of Anstie.' They had a fearful passage through the Bay of Biscay, and were all sick except the steward, who was too frightened! All the crew are ex-naval men; some have been in destroyers for fourteen years without a qualm of a gulp - but the Anne defeated them!

Tuesday 8th April 1930

Father (Cuthbert Eden Heath) met me at Marseilles with Admiral Candy, the captain of his yacht 'Anne of Anstie.' They had a fearful passage through the Bay of Biscay, and were all sick except the steward, who was too frightened! All the crew are ex-naval men; some have been in destroyers for fourteen years without a qualm of a gulp - but the Anne defeated them!

Cuthbert Eden Heath OBE aged 70/71