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Agnes Muriel (known as Muriel) was born at Wrangbrook on 20th October 1888, bore no children herself, but she had an enormous family. By letters and by visits she held together the Marr and Green families. In addition she was spiritual mother to the Scandinavian young people who had stayed with her before, during and after WWII and to a Singhalese. She was also an exceptional talent for making friends, and for keeping them until they died. From her autobiography, in which she wrote about her travels in a somewhat haphazard fashion, I had attempted to make a resume. Between 1908 and 1974 she made at least 29 excursions, beginning with the Rowntrees, to France and Switzerland, and ending with her death in 1984 on the Isle of Man at the age of 95. There were 10 trips to Switzerland, 4 to Denmark and Sweden, 6 to Austria, 2 to Belgium, 1 to France, 2 to Germany, 1 to the USA and Canada and, when she was 80, the last cruise of the Queen Elizabeth.
The full story is better told in her own way, but this study would be incomplete without a summary of her career.
When she was 17 she wanted to leave home and find a job abroad, as her cousins (Tom`s daughters) had done, so Ada asked Mrs Rowntree, neighbour at Folkton Manor when the Marrs were at Flotmanby, if she would provide a reference. Mrs Rowntree suggested that Muriel should go to them for a while helping with Esther, age 2. Muriel loved it, helping with everything, including a great bazaar to raise money for a new road to the railway station. The following year the Rowntrees went to Geneva, with a few days in Paris on the way, taking Muriel with them. In Geneva lived Mrs Rowntree`s sister, Alice, (who opted for Swiss Nationality and married Emile Vatter), who introduced Muriel to the aristocratic Derne family, who engaged her to look after their son Bobby, age 4. She remained there for about a year, moving to the mountains in summer. She met Bobby again in 1946, and seemed mildly surprised that he was no longer a small boy.
She felt that she had to come back for her 21st birthday in 1909, and remained long enough to see Alec off to Australia in January 1910, then she was off again to Germany this time to visit Vi in Berlin. Vi had married Hugo Hermann, and they lived in the centre of Berlin in a mansion apartment. He was an important figure connected with mining, and is said to have sometimes dined with the Kaiser. Everyday Vi`s hairdresser came to do her coiffure! Through Vi she found a job as a nanny-governess with a Jewish family, but suffered some minor ill health, and came home in time to be a bridesmaid at Kitty`s wedding in June 1911, remaining for the same duty at Lily`s wedding in Scarborough in 1912. After Kitty`s marriage Muriel was not exactly chained to the kitchen sink, for there were maids, but butter had to be made and farm workers fed, duties which had been Kitty`s. However she escaped for a pure holiday trip to Belgium in 1913 with Frances Parkin, friend from school days. (The previous trips abroad, which she had enjoyed to the limit, had of course been work!)
During WWI she was a VAD helping with convalescent wounded soldiers. She was broken hearted at Douglas` death from wounds in 1917, and as relief managed to arrange a cycling holiday with her cousin Bert and his wife Madge and their 2 sons, in Yorkshire, soon afterwards, taking Frances too, as a member of the party.
In 1920, when Horace married and took over tenancy of Barton Manor Farm, Harry, Ada and Muriel moved to 77 Hartington Grove, Cambridge. Muriel then took herself off to Queen Charlotte`s hospital in London to qualify as a midwife. Insofar as Ada`s health permitted, Muriel worked as a midwife in Cambridge for the next few years. Ada died in 1928, and Harry in 1933, leaving Muriel the house and a small legacy, but not enough to support her. She continued to nurse people in Cambridge and took in old folk who needed a room with some attention, and thus eked out her income. Between the deaths of her father and mother she snatched a trip to Switzerland in 1930 with the Rowntrees and Jean Foster, another life-long friend garnered from the Flotmanby days, when Jean was a governess nearby. From 1934 onwards until WWII she managed an almost annual visit to the Continent. In 1934 she took Kitty (just widowed) with Jean Foster and Margaret Heffer, to Oberammergau. In that same year she began her long association with Scandinavia, by lodging Mr Rosenmeier, a Danish schoolmaster, who remained a life-long friend and hosted her several times in Denmark. On some of her trips she took young people to show them the ropes, for she seems always to have made all her own travel arrangements, very few were package tours.
During WWII she accommodated several London School of Economics students evacuated to Cambridge and thus cemented many more friendships. One of these was the Singhalese Francis, who was very close for many years afterwards, until he died. There were Scandinavians, to whom she paid several visits after the War. One of her Danes was Bo Bendixen, who frequently called on her, who looked after her in Denmark, and telephoned her in 1984 to urge her to make another trip to Denmark, and who, on being told that she was too old, suggested a week-end with him in Paris instead. She was very flattered.
In 1948 Alec returned from Australia to make his home with her until his death, in 1955. Muriel again felt called upon to share her home with a cousin, Milly (Green) Gibbon who died in 1959. Her husband Owen had applied for a place in the Methodist Home for the Aged, but it seemed to have suited them both for him to join her in Cambridge. He stayed with her until he died in 1980 at the age of 95. (DWG – My father Granville Green told me that as a boy he boarded with Muriel at Hartington Grove in the winter when he attended Cambridge School to avoid the daily commute from Catley Park, Linton – estimated to be around 1920)
Muriel`s trips abroad resumed in 1946, and stretched to at least 1974, involving jaunts to Switzerland, Austria and Scandinavia. In addition to such, for her, routine expeditions there were 2 special ones. In 1962 she flew, for the first time, to America, touring Green and Marr relations; most if not all of them had been her guests in Cambridge. From Lawrence Green in Massachusetts she went to Sally Wilson in Ontario, to Betty Grant and a Shillito in Vancouver, to Norrison Marr in Detroit, and with him to Florida, then stopping over in Bermuda on the way home. The second highlight, in 1968, was to accompany a small party of Marrs, on the Queen Elizabeth`s last cruise, before she was scrapped by Cunard, with Geoffrey Marr as Commodore of the Line.
The last trip of which she put details in her autobiography must have been rather sad. It was to Vienna to stay with Olive in 1974. While there she accompanied Olive to Vi`s and also Paul Thomas`s graves, both of them having died since her last visit. Muriel had spent 5 happy holidays in that same flat with Vi over the years.
Muriel was unique, interested in everyone and everything. She seemed inexhaustible; take her to a Picture Gallery and she would look at every one, remember it and have an opinion afterwards on which she liked best. She sampled everything which came her way. She never criticized others. Blessed with boundless energy and an excellent digestion, she was a wonderful individual: We were blessed to know her. She used her personality and her clear handwriting and lucid news to hold this family together.She died while visiting Lilyanne in the Isle of Man, at the age of 95, on the 27th June 1984.
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