Saturday 13th April 2024
Danny Howell writes:
Terry Cross (born 1942), who lived lastly at The Teasels, Warminster, told me a few years ago of an interesting chance encounter he had. Terry related to me that on a trip to London (he didn’t say when) he did his usual thing of going into bars and pubs, talking to people. He recalled how in a pub (he didn’t name it) he got talking to a man who was about three years older than him. The man asked Terry where he come from. Terry’s response was “I’m from Wiltshire, but you won’t have heard of the village where I grew up.” The man said: “Tell me, I might know it.” Terry replied: “I doubt you will know it.” The man said: “Tell me anyway.” Terry responded: “Sutton Veny.” Terry parents Fred and Vera (Alfred Cross and Vera Cross, nee Davis, married in 1941) had lived at High Street, Sutton Veny.
To Terry’s amazement the man said: “Oh I know it. I have good memories of it. My mother used to visit there for short holidays and during her stay she would call on people in the afternoons and have tea with them, during which time I was left to occupy myself in other ways. I would wander on my own about the village, looking over garden fences and walls, walking the lanes, making discoveries in hedgerows, and exploring the fields and the woods.”
It turned out that the man Terry met in the pub was Camillus Travers, and his mother was P.L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books. Camillus, born on 15th August 1939, was one of three sons born to Nathaniel Marlow Hone and Bridget Anthony. His birth name was John Camillus Hone and he had a twin brother called Anthony Hone. (The other brother was Joseph Hone, born in 1937). Pamela Lyndon Travers (born Helen Lyndon Goff, 9th August 1899, Maryborough, Queensland, Australia) when she was 40, went to Ireland and adopted Camillus. She said it was on the advice of her Californian astrologer that she only adopted Camillus and not also his twin brother Anthony. Camillus was unaware of his parentage and real family until he was 17, when his twin brother Anthony unexpectedly met him in a bar in London. Anthony had been brought up by his grandparents.
Pamela died in 1996. Camillus died in November 2011.
You might like to read an online article by Valerie Grove: www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2013/12/strange-life-creator-mary-poppins
Terry Cross died on Wednesday 28th July 2021.
I suppose a logical question for readers of this blog/website is who was Pamela Lyndon Travers calling on and having tea with in Sutton Veny? Does anyone know? Anyone with information please email dannyhowellnet@gmail.com