The BC Adventure 46

5 August. 1923

Cedar Creek

My own Lovey Darling,

A lovely letter again last Tuesday.

I'm not very good today, Darling. Don't think my letter last week was bitter. Still, you've known how utterly irresistible you are to me, and you also know how cold everyone except your sweet self leaves me. Which is a blessing and yet most natural, seeing how inferior every other human being is to my sweet wife. I long to make a stake – not necessarily so very large – so as to be with my darling all the time and give her lots of lovely things – bless her.

This week we've been surveying. I'm running the transit round the 400 acres and getting the lines slashed, not huge but so as to get more money. Then Bagshaw goes over it. Pretty tough country to go through all of it. Should be nearly through this week and I shall try and earn some money again. The final payment on Cedar Creek should have been make to the trappers on 1^st August. Not I've not been to the Dam since last week. Maybe the news will be where it should be.

I've just been reading a letter from the Padre. He says Eric talks of going to the prairies for harvest and California for the winter, as there is more carpentry work down there. He ends “all sort of good wishes from the family for you.” I believe they all feel so proud of your baby as if she belonged to them.

Thank you for Aunt Georgie's letter. Very sweet of her to write and I must tackle answers sometime.

Poor lamb, you'd been feeling the heat in July and thought it might be 'cos you were so much fatter. You poor old Fattiwigs, you must be just a mountain of flesh. As to your programme, I think you are doing too much. Don't over do it, Darling girl.

I heard from Mums last week. She was with Duncan en route for Stamford. I managed to get a letter to her in Vancouver the night before she left, as a Prudential Trust man was going straight through to Vancouver at that time and left it at the Grovenor Hotel.

We've had a change of diet from beans and bacon to beans and moose, as Jeffrey and McDonald went out hunting and got one about 2 meters from here. Took 5 of us with pack boards to pack the meat down. It was a 2 year old cow and is nearly as good eating as the Cariboo you cooked last year. Would be quite perfect if you had the cooking of it. Very tender.

Did I tell you Buggins met a skunk. I didn't, only heard the smell. He was tainted very slightly but only slightly I'm glad to say. You know their smell is their method of defense of course.

The mosquitoes and flies have nearly gone I'm glad to say. They were very bad for awhile.

Well cheerio, precious. God bless you both. All my love and kisses.

For always your adoring Mark

Epilogue

Much of the material for this story came from the Salt Spring archives, to whom I owe a great deal of credit, and especially the diary of Beryl Scott. I couldn't believe my luck when I first started researching the story, and turned to January 1, 1922 in her diary and found the signatures of all five of the relatives that I was hoping to research.

When I started writing, Rosalind was a great fan, and she helped me with the Day section of the family tree book I wrote. I was able to use quite a bit of what she told me at that time for this book. She also entrusted me with her mother's diary and father's letters – as well as many photographs of her family – as she had no closer relative to give them to. At the moment, she is still alive, but not very with it, so doesn't know of this latest project of mine. I hope she would have been as excited about it as I have been, and also would have approved of the way I presented her family in this book
and in the Burma Letters book.

Mark returned to the UK in August, 1923, and went to live with his wife, daughter and in-laws near Brecon  in Wales. Then as you know if you read my book, Letters from Burma, he and Gwenllian spent 15 years or so there where he was in charge of a tin mine. When they returned to the UK, from Canada, he did Civil Engineering in Wales between 1923-26. Then from 1926-40 they were in Burma. Then from 1941 until his death in 1953, they lived in Christian Malford, Chippenham, Wilts. During the Second World War he commanded a home guard company,

Gwenllian lived almost 40 years beyond Mark. She bought a huge property in Ponsanooth Cornwall, with a small cottage. Her daughter went to live with her when she retired. We went to visit them several times when our children were young. Their house was full of cats.

In 1964 Gwenllian and Rosalind went back to Salt Spring, and to the Cariboo, to visit the places she remembered from her time with Mark. (pictured above) They also spent time with Joey Springford, who was very active in the social life of Salt Spring. Their visit was written up in the local
paper (and the article is now in the Salt Spring archives).

Rosalind, (who was never called Julia, which was her first name) as you will know from my Letters from Burma book, was sent to boarding school, and then went to University. She married John Lyle in 1951 when she was in her late 20's. They went as missionaries to India. They divorced in 1972 and she then became a teacher until her retirement when she went to take care of her mother in Cornwall. She had no children. In her later years, she became a lay preacher for the Methodist church, and well into her 90's was giving sermons and making house calls in her little village.

Una and Dick stayed longer in BC and might have kept an interest in the violet business after they left, as there was a newspaper article saying how it had closed during the depression in the 30's. However, Una and Dick had gone to Burma to stay with Mark and Gwenllian sometime before 1935. Then then went to Market Harborough where they had a market gardening business. Una died in 1970.

Their son Peter was in the Navy and afterwards went to live in Australia. He married three times and had four children. His great grandson has recently had contact with my son, and sent him Una's birthday book, which was a wonderful side effect of family history writing. Peter died fairly recently.

Their daughter Nancy never married. She made pottery, and her wedding present to us was a cruet set she made, which I still use (except I broke the mustard pot.) She died young in 1978, aged 56.

Caroline (Bammy) Day left Salt Spring in May 1923, and went to live first with her son John Duncan who was headmaster of Stamford School. He was in my book called Day after Day.

Then she went to live with her son George, called Jimmy, who was a teacher in Nottingham. His death is mentioned in my Burma Letters book.

Then she went to live with her other son, Harold, who was my husband's grandfather, who lived in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and then moved to Bridgeport, Somerset later, which was near to where
Harold's son, also called Mark lived. She died about 1960. I have inherited (and passed on to my daughter) her davenport desk. But I have kept her many photographs.

This is from the public school magazine, The Breconian, April, 1917, and July, 1917
telling about Gwenllian's brothers who were killed in the war.

IN MEMORIAM.

ARTHUR
S. MIDDLETON BEST: Day Boy (1897-1901); second son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Best, of Penbryn, Brecon. Killed in Mesopotamia in February, 1917, while serving as Lieut, in the Royal Engineers. He was at College four years and a half with his elder brother Walter, and for a short time overlapped his younger brother Stephen, who in his turn overlapped the youngest, Frank, so that for about twenty years there was always one of the four at College. A quiet serious fellow at school, his interests centred about the mechanic's shop there was at home rather than in games or other school excitements. As a consequence, he left at sixteen from the Fifth, whereas his brothers all stayed to the
full age and attained to Sixth Form dignities. Some years of engineering work under his father followed, then a course at the Central Technical College, crowned by a diploma and the London University B.Sc. for Engineering. An appointment to a post in the Public Works Department of the Federated Malay States came shortly after. He liked the work and was very successful in it, but early in 1915 sacrificed his own preferences at the call of patriotic duty, and came to England at his own expense to offer his services in the war. He received a commission in the Royal Engineers, commanded a company for a short time in North Wales, and then volunteered for the East.

He was wounded last December, and only returned to duty in January. He, Stephen and Frank were all serving in the same campaign, and had unexpectedly met at Bombay, they from India, and he on his way out from home. There was a happy reunion of the brothers last Christmas Day.

FRANK HARRINGTON BEST : Day Boy (1909-1913) ; fourth and youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Best. Killed in Mesopotamia in February, 1917, while serving in the South Wales Borderers. He possessed his due share of the family abilities and had a successful school career, and just before the outbreak of war seemed to be making a promising start in the Engineering profession. Not by nature an athlete, he nevertheless showed more activity in games than many Day boys, and was always keen and interested in the general life of the School.

Personally he was a universal favourite; a wholly irresponsible but most charming boy with the gift of friendship. So much will he be missed by his schoolfellows that we can hardly dare to estimate the loss to his own family. Our hearts go out to Mr. and Mrs. Best, old friends of Christ College, in the terrible twofold sorrow that has so suddenly overwhelmed them. Frank was only 22 years of age, and before volunteering for active service in Mesopotamia, had been with the Brecknocks at Aden and in India.

STEPHEN WRIOTHESLEY BEST: Day Boy ( 1 9 0 0 - 6 ) ; 3rd son of Mr and Mrs. Charles Best, of Penbryn, Brecon. Killed in Mesopotamia on April 30th, 1917; the third member of this gallant family to fall in that country within the short space of three months. Stephen was a quiet, steady boy at school, but won general respect, and not a little affection, among those who came into close contact with him. He was a boy of ability, who mounted steadily up the School, and soon after leaving secured a good Civil Service appointment in Edinburgh. He left this in the early days of the war to join the Brecknocks with his brother Frank. They served together in Aden, India and Mesopotamia, and were not long divided in death. Arthur, an older brother, fell in the same country almost simultaneously. Those who knew Stephen, and recognised his real strength of character, can best gauge the deep sorrow upon sorrow that his untimely death has brought to his family. Mr. and Mrs. Best have been called upon for overwhelming sacrifices, and they have given heroically of their noblest and dearest, Breconians can but be humbly thankful for the splendid example of these three Christ College boys.

In 1925 Beryl Scott married one of the men mentioned frequently in her diary – Cuthbert Byng Wetherall. They had two children, David and Rennie. Her son carried on the family tradition of keeping a diary.

Of the miners frequently mentioned, Albert Platt died in 1923, of a heart attack. John Lynes continued living in the area.

Joey and Cyril Springford  continued to live in Salt Spring. She outlived him by decades, and was very prominent in many Salt Spring social events.