Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

went to live in Western Australia; I remember Rita well and indeed she visited us in
Cambridge in later years.
Aunt Alice and Uncle George had two sons and two daughters, my cousins, and
this was the part of the family that I had most to do with, at least until I was about 12.
Maitland, who was in the motor trade married Judy and we kept in touch with them
over the years, particularly when they lived in Bedford. I knew slightly one of their sons,
Julian. One daughter, Jill, married Robert Robinson and they had three children, Peter,
Margaret and Pauline, my second cousins. But except as a child I saw little of them.
Peter took up Law and was a Circuit Clerk, living in London latterly; he received a CBE
for his work. Margaret was a senior Civil Servant in Whitehall and Pauline married
Freddy Newton, Clerk of the Course at Gosforth and later at Ripon. My cousin Marion,
I don't remember and think she was unmarried, but Cousin Tommy and Yvonne had a
daughter Gillian, who married Bob Hughes, a Conservative MP; I saw quite a bit of
Tommy (who was Personnel manager at Unilever) and Yvonne, but met Gillian only
once or twice.
I was even less involved with the other side of the Laws family, but knew William’s
daughter Gertie, married name Howe, quite well and Francis Raphael, son by William's
second marriage. Francis had a daughter Anne, who was fond of my Mother and used
to visit. Actually, from the age of twelve, when I moved away from the North-East, I
had very little to do with the extended family, except for my cousins Maitland, Jill, and
Tommy.
I know nothing about my mother's family, apart from the superficial details of my
grandparents and the fact that mother was one of five children.
As to my own history, I was born during the early hours of 23 April l926 - St
George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday, and a few days after Queen Elizabeth II. I
had two brothers, Peter 7 years older and Michael 3 years younger. My mother, Florence
May, born in l896, was large and good looking, a remarkable, dynamic woman who was
very active in public life. My father, Percy Malcolm, born in [l886], tall and grey eyed,
was rather reserved, but had led a very adventurous early life. For most of my
childhood, we lived at Strathmore, 20, Brighton Grove, in Whitley Bay, a well-known a
holiday resort in Northumberland and a dormitory town for Newcastle. This makes me
almost a "Geordie" a root of which I have always been proud; as also that two of my
grandparents were Scottish.
My memories of the early years are rather vague now. We were a middle-class
family. My father had been an outstanding athlete in his younger days. He had
represented the county of Northumberland at cricket; he swam for the county and had
played for a precursor of Newcastle United Football Club. He had received a good
education at Dame Allan's School, Newcastle, but had then run away from home,
travelling to North America, where he undertook a series of outdoor jobs - and periods
out of work. I remember him telling me at a time when I was reading W.H. Davies'
"Autobiography of a Super Tramp", about life on the North American railroads, that he had
experienced riding the rails and outwitting the guards. When in work he lived a rough
life as a lumberjack in Canada, felling the tall trees with a double-bladed axe and huge
cross-cut saw. He had also worked on the Trans-Canada railroad as a surveyor; and had
been gold prospecting in the Yukon Gold Rush in the [l890's?]. He had tales of finding
gold and spending it in the saloons, on poker and whisky, using gold dust and the
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