Helen Ethel Weeden - Skudder 1888 -1971
_Helen "Nellie" Ethel Weeden was born on 7th March 1888, to Richard James
Weeden, a cooper, and Louise Emma Hogg-Weeden, then living at 48
Haydock Road (now disappeared), New Cross. She was one of 7 children
having 4 brothers and 2 sisters recorded as living at 87 Monson Road,
Deptford, on the 1891 and 1901 Census returns. She remembered as a girl
going to the opening of Tower Bridge
on 30th June 1894, and recounted tales of experimenting with smoking at
her Uncles Hay and Straw Merchants in Tower Bridge Road, stubbing out
the cigarettes if anyone came near the hayloft, not then realising the
terrible fire risk. Her favourite brother Teddy emigrated to Australia
in 1914 and she fell out with another brother, Percy, not speaking to
him for 7 years.
_
She was well educated and won a place at Goldsmiths College, but due to the ill health of her Father went to work in the millinery trade to help provide income for her family. She told a story about one establishment where she worked in Pond Street, off Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, when having left a sausage uneaten at breakfast the supervisor said "Weeden you have not eaten your sausage and must not be wasteful of good food" to which she replied that it tasted of carbolic, whereupon she was told that the Master had eaten them that morning and had said what fine sausages they were and were there any more, Nellie never lost for words replied "Well he can have another one!" One wonders how long she lasted there? She did well in the trade and eventually was running several shops for a Milliners based near St Pauls, London.
She suffered from ill health from an early age and was seriously ill when aged 18, but as she always said "creaking doors hang the longest". As a young woman she was once frightened by a "flasher" in thr church and ran all the way home, when a hue and cry was raised to try and catch the culprit.
She was courted over a number of years by Ernest Skudder, and at one time refused his offer of marriage, he apparently turned up at the shop in Hampstead with a gun and threatened to shoot her, but was dissuaded when she said it would be a waste of a good mind - he was probably surprised at the idea that a woman had her own mind. Due to her Fathers continuing ill health, her family had moved to 2 Greystock Terrace, Ford Road, Arundel, and eventually Helen and Ernest were married at St. Nicholas Parish Church, Arundel, Sussex on 29th March 1915, the witnesses were her Father, Richard James Weeden, her Sister, Winifred Kate "Kitty" Weeden and elder Brother, Richard James Weeden jnr.
They first moved in to his Parents' home at 33 St Donatt's Road, New Cross, and bought a magnificent mahogany bedroom suite with floral marquetry panels which had been an exhibition piece at the Ideal Home Exhibition, Olympia. Their first son Derek Ernest was born on 15th August 1918 and their second son Ivan James on 15th February 1925.
After 11 years Helen was fed up with living with her in laws, and borrowed £50 from a friend, Mrs Gordon, as a deposit on a newly built house in Maclean Road off Stondon Park Road, Honor Oak Park. Helen was offered the luxury of switched gas lighting in the new house but ever the modernist insisted on electric lighting. She told Ernest that she and their sons, Derek and Ivan, were moving and that he could come or not, Ernest did go with her much to the annoyance of his Mother, Helena, who in floods of tears accused Nellie of taking her two boys away from her, to which she replied "I am taking my boy and you can keep yours if he has a mind to stay". They struggled to pay the mortgage during the Great Depression, but by taking in a series of lodgers they kept the house; Gran always said it was the best thing they ever did rather than hand in the keys like so many others.
She had beautiful long dark brown hair as a young woman and shocked Ernie by having it all cut off into the latest short style in the 1920's. However a piece was kept preseved in a long plait.
It has always been suggested that Gran favoured her first born, and there may been some truth in this as the second child was apparently a very difficult birth and she was advised not to have any more children. She was a doting Mother and insisted that meals started exactly on time, Lunch at 1pm and tea at 6pm and if you were not there they started without you, it was not unknown for her to cook three different meals to cope with various likes and dislikes. Suffice it to say she was an excellent cook her Coffee Walnut Cake and her Pigs Trotter Brawn were mouth-watering.
The family moved to "Wimereux", 36 Lakeside Drive, Bromley Common, around 1936, when they paid the huge sum of £550 for a mock Tudor Style house and had to take in yet another lodger to help pay the mortgage. The house was named Wimereux after a favourite holiday location on the French coast near Calais. Apparently once Ernie came home to find two legs sticking through the bathroom ceiling, Gran had been up in the loft and slipped and had to wait for rescue.
During WWII a business associate phoned Ernie to ask if his wife was OK saying that the terrace in Maclean Road had been bombed, fortunatley they had moved to Lakeside Drive, but the house did sustain damage to the back wall. Once Gran came eye to eye with the pilot of a plane hedge hopping down the street and thought "our boys are flying low today" only to realise it was a German Fighter. Her standard lamp still bore the scars where it had been blown out of the window. The treasured Deco coffee table was always protected with the cushions from the sofa. Gran also told the tale of a Gypsy woman who knocked onthe door and told her that her son Derek was safe (he was a Japanese prisoner of war) and would come home after the War.
With her usual clear thinking Gran purchased new wallpaper for all the rooms in the house, which were kept protected in the anderson shelter, then after VE Day was able to have the house fully re-decorated, not without being offered substantial sums of money for the wallpaper which by then was impossible to obtain.
She was well educated and won a place at Goldsmiths College, but due to the ill health of her Father went to work in the millinery trade to help provide income for her family. She told a story about one establishment where she worked in Pond Street, off Rosslyn Hill, Hampstead, when having left a sausage uneaten at breakfast the supervisor said "Weeden you have not eaten your sausage and must not be wasteful of good food" to which she replied that it tasted of carbolic, whereupon she was told that the Master had eaten them that morning and had said what fine sausages they were and were there any more, Nellie never lost for words replied "Well he can have another one!" One wonders how long she lasted there? She did well in the trade and eventually was running several shops for a Milliners based near St Pauls, London.
She suffered from ill health from an early age and was seriously ill when aged 18, but as she always said "creaking doors hang the longest". As a young woman she was once frightened by a "flasher" in thr church and ran all the way home, when a hue and cry was raised to try and catch the culprit.
She was courted over a number of years by Ernest Skudder, and at one time refused his offer of marriage, he apparently turned up at the shop in Hampstead with a gun and threatened to shoot her, but was dissuaded when she said it would be a waste of a good mind - he was probably surprised at the idea that a woman had her own mind. Due to her Fathers continuing ill health, her family had moved to 2 Greystock Terrace, Ford Road, Arundel, and eventually Helen and Ernest were married at St. Nicholas Parish Church, Arundel, Sussex on 29th March 1915, the witnesses were her Father, Richard James Weeden, her Sister, Winifred Kate "Kitty" Weeden and elder Brother, Richard James Weeden jnr.
They first moved in to his Parents' home at 33 St Donatt's Road, New Cross, and bought a magnificent mahogany bedroom suite with floral marquetry panels which had been an exhibition piece at the Ideal Home Exhibition, Olympia. Their first son Derek Ernest was born on 15th August 1918 and their second son Ivan James on 15th February 1925.
After 11 years Helen was fed up with living with her in laws, and borrowed £50 from a friend, Mrs Gordon, as a deposit on a newly built house in Maclean Road off Stondon Park Road, Honor Oak Park. Helen was offered the luxury of switched gas lighting in the new house but ever the modernist insisted on electric lighting. She told Ernest that she and their sons, Derek and Ivan, were moving and that he could come or not, Ernest did go with her much to the annoyance of his Mother, Helena, who in floods of tears accused Nellie of taking her two boys away from her, to which she replied "I am taking my boy and you can keep yours if he has a mind to stay". They struggled to pay the mortgage during the Great Depression, but by taking in a series of lodgers they kept the house; Gran always said it was the best thing they ever did rather than hand in the keys like so many others.
She had beautiful long dark brown hair as a young woman and shocked Ernie by having it all cut off into the latest short style in the 1920's. However a piece was kept preseved in a long plait.
It has always been suggested that Gran favoured her first born, and there may been some truth in this as the second child was apparently a very difficult birth and she was advised not to have any more children. She was a doting Mother and insisted that meals started exactly on time, Lunch at 1pm and tea at 6pm and if you were not there they started without you, it was not unknown for her to cook three different meals to cope with various likes and dislikes. Suffice it to say she was an excellent cook her Coffee Walnut Cake and her Pigs Trotter Brawn were mouth-watering.
The family moved to "Wimereux", 36 Lakeside Drive, Bromley Common, around 1936, when they paid the huge sum of £550 for a mock Tudor Style house and had to take in yet another lodger to help pay the mortgage. The house was named Wimereux after a favourite holiday location on the French coast near Calais. Apparently once Ernie came home to find two legs sticking through the bathroom ceiling, Gran had been up in the loft and slipped and had to wait for rescue.
During WWII a business associate phoned Ernie to ask if his wife was OK saying that the terrace in Maclean Road had been bombed, fortunatley they had moved to Lakeside Drive, but the house did sustain damage to the back wall. Once Gran came eye to eye with the pilot of a plane hedge hopping down the street and thought "our boys are flying low today" only to realise it was a German Fighter. Her standard lamp still bore the scars where it had been blown out of the window. The treasured Deco coffee table was always protected with the cushions from the sofa. Gran also told the tale of a Gypsy woman who knocked onthe door and told her that her son Derek was safe (he was a Japanese prisoner of war) and would come home after the War.
With her usual clear thinking Gran purchased new wallpaper for all the rooms in the house, which were kept protected in the anderson shelter, then after VE Day was able to have the house fully re-decorated, not without being offered substantial sums of money for the wallpaper which by then was impossible to obtain.
_Following the death of Ernie in 1949, she moved in the 1950's to a
semi-detached Bungalow at 59 Rusland Avenue, Farnborough, Kent, which
had been built on the old Rusland Woods and the garden still had several
oak trees, numerous silver birch, hollies and laurels and abounded with
briars and native bluebells. As children we used to catch the 47 bus
from Bromley South to Bromley Garage, then change for Crofton Lane, for
visits when we helped clip the privet hedges and mow the grass and be
rewarded with high tea and a thre'penny bit to be spent on raspberry
drops in Mrs Perry's sweet shop at Bromley South.
I always remember her Edwardian Cabinet filled with Ivy Leaf plates, the best Tea Service, a Sunderland Jug, Coffee Cups and Pall Mall Glasses from Woolworths. She still had the chrome framed glass topped coffee table, the chrome candelabra and clock from the 1920's and the deep 30's style suite and the treasured Art Nouveau Royal Doulton Vases bought many years ealier in Bon Marche, Brixton.
Granny Skudder died in Orpington Hospital on 2nd October 1971 after a long illness aged 83. Her body was cremated at Beckenham Crematorium.
I always remember her Edwardian Cabinet filled with Ivy Leaf plates, the best Tea Service, a Sunderland Jug, Coffee Cups and Pall Mall Glasses from Woolworths. She still had the chrome framed glass topped coffee table, the chrome candelabra and clock from the 1920's and the deep 30's style suite and the treasured Art Nouveau Royal Doulton Vases bought many years ealier in Bon Marche, Brixton.
Granny Skudder died in Orpington Hospital on 2nd October 1971 after a long illness aged 83. Her body was cremated at Beckenham Crematorium.
God Bless Gran, never forgotten and now always remembered - DV (Deo volente) as you used to say.
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No part of or any information contained on this or any page on the Skudders website may be copied or reproduced without the express permission of the Webmaster