Null and Void

Today

Paul has become enthusiastic about tracking down details of his family. He has spent a fair amount of time on Mum's side, eventually accepting that, contrary to family myth, that a direct link to Edgar Allen Poe was unlikely, but confirming that the family did originate from Co. Tipperary as Nan had always told him. 

He then started searching census and other records for details of his father and has indeed tracked down some convincing details. Unfortunately, his father was a bit of a rogue and used 2 slightly differing names. Paul, as I once before blogged, had known from the time he was 18 that Dad wasn't his father and believed that he and his mother were divorced.

In My Day

I think that Paul learnt the full extent of his father's roguery at the same time as I did. It was 1973 and we were holidaying with Tricia, James and Lizzie in a caravan at Blue Anchor Bay near Minehead.

One evening, after the young un's were tucked up, Mum started to talk about her husbands. Paul's father was her second husband, the first having bolted to India to teach tennis to Maharajahs.

She described how she was working as a waitress at the Grand Hotel in Leigh-on-sea and how this dashing, very tall man started to chat her up. (She always said that he was six foot four, which was enormous for the time.) She took a fancy to him and eventually they married. His name was William Watson. She already had Paul's sister, Jenny, and in 1950, when they were living in Hastings, Paul came along.

There followed an unstable period where the marriage was clearly not working. Mum described one occasion at a house in Brighton where Watson allegedly stretched a wire across the stairs in the darkened house so that she would trip and, maybe, be killed. Watson eventually disappeared and Mum began to put her life back together, joining forces with Barry (Dad).

Of course, one thing she wanted to do was divorce Watson, but it became very difficult to track him down. Dad was very shrewd and a few things occurred along the trail that roused his suspicions. Eventually he was successful, not so much in finding Watson as in finding his first wife, to whom he was still married under the name of Watts, and who was, I believe, living in Wales. This poor lady had had no suspicion that her husband was a bigamist, although I'm sure she suspected him of a range of shenanigans.

In this way, Tricia was able to apply successfully to the courts for an annulment and could put the whole sorry episode behind. Its only lasting joy was Paul.

"While I realise that it was easier to dodge the law and commit bigamy in those days", I remarked "It must make life a very complicated affair!"