'From the crack of the pistol'.

‘From the crack of the pistol’ – F.S.Horan

Let me introduce you to Molly’s husband, my grandfather. He was known as Seymour.  I just about remember him – a rather pedantic type who wore plus fours. What are plus fours? They extend four inches below the knee – usually made of a Scottish cloth. They are still worn today in Scotland – but are not common. They would have been traditional dress for a man of my grandfather’s generation.

Not FSH but Plus Fours.

His claim to fame was holding, what would then have been, the world record for the Three Mile running race in 1895; this and teaching the Prince of Wales (Edward, Duke of Windsor who abdicated to marry Mrs. Simpson); so King George V and Queen Mary were parents of one of his students.

He wrote an autobiography called ‘From the Crack of the pistol’ which has been sitting in my parent’s bookcase, untouched, for the last fifty years.  The writing style and speech patterns are very Victorian making it a dreary read.

I was just about to dump it when clearing out my mother’s house when I decided, now I was older, to see if I could find if it had any redeeming qualities. It did!

"….there had been a tragic financial crash for us, the particulars of which I have never rightly known. I believe it came about through a fraudulent solicitor – anyhow father lost a large sum of money.

Mother started a school and strove hard to make a success of it, but though she rescued the family finances, it proved too much for her and she developed consumption (Tuberculosis) and died March 25^th, 1878.” My grandfather was eight.  “I can remember being taken up into her bedroom the night before she died, to wish her ‘good night’, which mercifully I did not realize was to be ‘good-bye’.  The school folded and without an income things went from bad to worse – they were now totally reliant on his father tiny army pension.

One day my father said he would take me and my sister into the country by train for a treat, to Hassocks, a few miles out of Brighton where there were pleasure gardens, swings, see-saws and a small lake with boats. It’s a day I can never forget.

“As father was getting the tickets at the booking office at Brighton Station, he suddenly collapsed and fell down, much to the consternation of us children. He was helped to the waiting room, where he rallied somewhat, and insisted on going on to Hassocks for the outing, so as not to disappoint us; but as the day went on, he got worse and we all had to come home hurriedly in a cab.

“He’d had a paralytic stroke. They got him to bed and he lay there for some months, paralyzed down the left side. At the beginning of August 1880 he had a second stroke and died shortly after “This left my grandfather orphaned and penniless at ten years of age. Friends came to the rescue. Very wonderfully we were helped to ride the storm. Our family motto was to prove true – “Dominus providebit” (‘The Lord will provide’)".

So how is it that a penniless ten year old orphan managed to go to a very respectable British private school (known in England as a ‘public’ school for some strange reason) and onto Cambridge University and end up by teaching the heir to the British throne?

Watch this space!