A little about Marianne

It's unclear whether Cyril took a break from writing poems to Marianne, or if she stopped visiting Jon Ash bookshop quite so frequently, but there are no dated poems since the last one on 3rd March for a further week or so. There are more than a few undated poems to share too, but any kind of order to them is not apparent. I'll post some more soon, but in the meantime I thought it might be interesting to know a little more about both Marianne and Cyril. As Marianne was my mother, we have a lot more information to share...

She was born in 1936, in Wanstead, on the borders of east London and Essex. She was just 22 when Mr Nash started writing poems to her. At this time, she was still living in Wanstead with her mother Hilda at 22 Hermon Hill, and working at an insurance brokers in the City of London.

During a recent visit to our family home, my sister and I looked through a box of old letters which included some written to Marianne around this time, and therefore giving us a few more clues as to her life at the time. It seems that in 1955, she had a boyfriend called Michael, who lived in Ellora Road, Streatham. Google StreetView tells me that these days, there is a pub at this address (the Earl Ferrers) - I don't know if it was back then too? Here's a photo of Michael, and one of his letters to her.

May I, in this short note, just say, thank you! for adding so greatly to my happiness over the past year, and I have become in that time, so very fond of you.

My sincerest wish was (and is!) to see you happy and I would not have wished for any other companion on Monday.

Believe me in my sincerity,

love, Michael

Here's a photo of Michael with Marianne, and her beloved family dog Dandy, a German shorthaired Pointer, on a common somewhere in London - presumably near Wanstead or Streatham, I'm not sure... I don't think this was a very long or serious relationship. Although the dog was - Marianne had 3 German shorthaired Pointers during her life, all called Dandy! The last one was during my and my sister's teenage years.

And in 1959, during the time that Cyril was writing his poems to Marianne, she was receiving quite long but mostly chatty letters from a man named Dudley Kavan, who was a Private in the British Forces posted out in Cyprus. Quite the cartoonist!

The rest of Marianne's love life is sketchy. She was a bit of a dark horse really. She met Ian, our father, in the late 1960s, and they married in 1971, when she was 35. Any more information to share, Papa? :)