My Family Tree

Apprenticed at Marshall & Snellgrove
Ran seamstress business in Sussex
Died in car accident with Douglas Waring

Notes from letter to my mother from Jean Carter...

Dot stayed with Jean several times when they were living in Hampshire as children. She must have been about 46 when I first recall seeing her. Hair was thick, white and wavy, she was not what you call pretty , but striking for all that as she had a very elegant figure - never went to seed. Always smartly dressed. Always wore black patent shoes, always arrived with a hat box. Great fun and very good with children, made a lot of clothes for them.

Jean's mother told her about son (John) when she was in her 20s. Auntie Dot did an apprenticeship as a dressmaker and I imagine had already branched put on her own when she had to go home to look after Grandad (Joses) after his wife died - must have been a dash to her plans.

She was in company one evening when a married man plied her with alcohol to which she wasn't accustomed with disastrous results. I know that Auntie Nell and Uncle Fred were in quarters in Burford Camp as Uncle Fred worked for the War Dept after he was demobbed. Anyhow they went back to Enford to take over from Dot. I don't know where she went from there, only that Uncle Wilf (Wilfred Carter) found her in some South Coast resort and was just in time to stop stop her walking into the sea. I imagine that the boy was adopted soon after birth but I don't really know. Attitudes were very different in 1924 and it would have been very difficult to build up a business with a baby.

She must have regained her equilibrium because she was at mother and father's wedding in June 1925 and is in the wedding photos.

back to Auntie Dot, when I visited her in Wimbledon she and Auntie Olive (no relation) her partner in the business, had six girls working for them and a wealthy clientele. Auntie Dot was really very talented and never used patterns - she could see a picture of a dress and cut it out - she had a real flair.

Nancye lived with Auntie Dot when she left home and went to night school then worked at Australia House just before the war.