Auntie Betty’s Scrapbook
Nearly twenty years ago my father’s youngest sister, Auntie Betty, died, after a bloody good innings as they say. My cousin stayed in the family home until selling up recently to move elsewhere. She surprised me by turning up with a box full of ageing paperwork and an old, battered, locked suitcase which she had found clearing out the loft. Since I have long been the butt of jokes as the family’s history nerd, she thought I might be interested in its contents. If I wasn’t, I could bin them, she said.
I had a look through the papers in the box when I had a bit of spare time. Much of it was legal stuff, forms, old receipts and a few family photos. I had to force open the suitcase but what I found locked in there was far more interesting! It contained seven scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, postcards and photographs from the end of the 1930s. Auntie Betty would have been about thirteen or fourteen in 1936 when she started the first scrapbook.
Of course, as any student of history can tell you, that was when political problems that caused the last British Civil War began. What I had discovered was a personal archive of items which threw some light on the happenings of that turbulent period, mainly in and around the Forest of Dean and South Herefordshire area where my Grandfather had raised his family.
The first page of scrapbook one seems to be a few cuttings from the day before the “Royal Crisis” broke.
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| Royalists show support for Edward |
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| (1) This would have been Edward going to meet his mother to tell her he wasn't going to abdicate |
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| (2) She didn't speak to "That Woman", honest. |
The next page had pieces on the immediate period of the King’s rejection of demands that he abdicate.
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| (3) From the weekly "Wye and Severn Sentinel". |
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| The new Prime Minister | |
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| (4) Comments from the Archbishop of York post announcement indicating support for the Queen Mother and rather than the King |
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| (5) Comments from the Bishop of Bradford post announcement | |
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| Pro-Edward crowds outside Buckingham Palace |
I think the third page had some items on Edward’s fairly, private marriage to Wallace Simpson in Windsor but the text is now missing and only this photo remains.
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| Their Wedding (before the coronation). |
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The fourth and fifth pages are about the coronation but there are signs that the newspaper article about the actual coronation has been heavily scribbled over and then torn out. This picture of Edward VIII in his coronation robes has been tucked in between the pages, probably at a later date. The remaining cuttings cover the assassination attempt that day, the declaration of martial law and the infamous “Guards Purge”.
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| King Edward VIII at his Coronation, 12th May 1937 | |
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| (6) From the weekly "Wye and Severn Sentinel". | |
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| (6) From the weekly "Wye and Severn Sentinel". |
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| (7) From the weekly "Wye & Severn Sentinel". |
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Editor’s notes: Cuttings (1), (2), (4) & (5) come from original copies of the "News Chronicle" from 10th and 16th December 1936 which I have acquired. Information given in cuttings (3), (6), (7) & (8) is an elaboration of the background information give in the AVBCW Source Book (2nd edition) by Solway Crafts & Miniatures. Any the content of any other part is all my fault. The usual AVBCW disclaimer applies, see the disclaimer page for details.
