1911-1987 Herbert Ralph Ward-Eversley ..........................



Below is Andrea's response to my efforts at getting pictures of Herbert Ralph Ward-Eversley.
The man who was Glennys' and Andrea's is a strange and shadowy figure and seems destined to remain so. But dammit ..... I wish I had photos of him for the family tree.

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"I don't think I have photos of Ralph. Don't forget I only met him about 6 times in my whole life.

I was brought up to hate him .

I remember him coming upstairs to see Glennys when she had pleuresy and leaving
her half a crown. He was a total stranger...a man who had come to see Glennys.

I remember him coming to the house when I was about 13. A handsome man with his coat collar turned up and a trilby hat set to one side, just like Clark Gable. Rena was working overtime and I didn't know who he was. I invited him in and he had a cup of tea. He then said, 'You don't know me do you? I am your father.'
I was horrified when Rena came through the door and told him to leave. He went across the road to Mrs. Ray. I was shaking, not because he was my father but how Rena had reacted. My life was absorbed in making her happy, making her proud, I felt that I had betrayed her.

I saw him with you in London.

Then when Mrs. Reynolds died, he had to move out of Tennyson Road. He invited me to go up and had all this market stall rubbish ready for me to put in my car. Then we went to lunch and I met his gay friends and I only realised then that he was possibly gay. He was full of venom for Colin and his wife (probably Mrs. Reynolds' son and daughter in law) who wanted to sell No.4. They got him the Council bungalow and sorted everything out for him.

Next time was when I received a call from the police, who had found my name and number by the telephone, to say he had died of a heart attack in his new, warden-controlled, little bungalow.

I had to go and clear everything out and organise his funeral.

I contacted everyone whose number I could find. They came to his funeral. Sherri and were late! ALL the people were gay and had no idea, apart from the 2 men that I had previously met, that Ralph had been married and had children and grandchildren. I wrote all our names down for the Vicar and who we were, yours included. The astonishment on the dozen people present was incredible.

I had his ashes scattered in the rose garden at the crematorium on the Rose Garden named 'Dark Secret'

I wish I had known him. it was obvious that I get all my drama and flamboyance from him.
I got on with him, I understood him. I was sorry for him.

Here endeth my recollections of my father. " Andrea

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And this was my reply which gives a brief look at my memories of the man:


"What a sweet write up for Ralph. Most of it you've mentioned before but having it all in one piece gives a better picture.

I met him 3 or 4 or 5 times? I can only recall three:

1) He came to Glennys and my wedding in 1959 in Norwich

2) I visited him once at 4 Tennyson Rd in Coventry and stayed the night. He was a terrible snorer and I sought refuge on the couch in the living room. He'd made a glorious garden at the back of the house. Somewhat embittered he complained about being neglected by everyone and I seemed to spend all the time trying to defend "us". We toured Coventry Cathedal together.

3) That strange meeting in London. Met him at Euston. We rowed on Hyde Park(?) lake with him and one? or both? of Martin and Mitchell. So I think he met his grandsons just the once. No ........ there are pictures of him at Warwick Castle where Glennys and the kids must have met him on another occasion.

I tried writing to him the way I wrote to Rena but he claimed that he got very, very few of the letters and in the end I gave up trying. Never managed to find anything out about his past or his origins. I have pieced together a bit. Don't know if you're interested.

A sad, lonely, little guy. I rather liked him. Rena and Glennys painted him pretty black. He seemed to think Rena threw him out for just being himself. Somewhere in all the bitterness lies the truth which we'll never know.

And yet he's the father and grandfather and great grandfather of so much of our scattered clan. Time to forgive and remember perhaps.

Odd parallels between Ralph and my dad. What a world of broken marriages children grow up in."

2009 Today I threw Away ................................



Sunday evening is time to "make-up" the garbage for Monday's collection.

I've just thrown two items away:

a) The 'Audubon' "bird" clock that came from my mother's apartment not long before she died. Not an old clock or even that expensive, witness the quartz movement that ate batteries far too fast. But it WAS one of the few momentoes I have/had of her.

b)My old R.A.F. flashlight (torch). I've had it for over 40 years! Technically stolen, I suppose, from H.M. the Queen. Oh well. I could have held it up and said to folks, "I had this in the Air Force!" But I realise such claims aren't really taken seriously, so out it went.

What we see as little treasures one day ............................. ? Then in the harsh reality of flying time.