Marion WALKER 1893 - 1989
Marion Annie (Musset) was born at 218 Lower Barton Street, Barton
St Mary, Gloucester on 20th October 1893. Her father was Charles
Lindsay Walker, a fitter at the Wagon Works. Her mother was Annie Sarah Jane Sargent.
Her parents had recently got married and Annie was still only nineteen.
She got given the name when, as a child, she mispronounced this
poem:
Little
Miss Muffet
Sat on
a tuffet,
Eating
her curds
and whey;
There
came a big spider,
Who sat
down beside her
And
frightened Miss Muffet away.
In 1901, Musset was found at 19 Tweenbrook Avenue, Gloucester with her parents, brother Jack and aunt Frances (Fanny) Walker. This started a long association with the woman who would influence so much of her future life.
Musset was given a good education and in 1911 she was still
showing at a student. By this time she had two more siblings; Ruth and Sidney.
Fanny had married Henry Adair Richardson and was living in London.
Soon after this Musset started working for Guy Thorne, a writer
who dedicated one of his books “The Cruiser on Wheels” to her with the words “A
Dedication to Marion Walker, a slight return for many hours of laughter. Thornfalcon,
Somerset June 1915”. She is likely to have also helped with “The Secret Service
Submarine”, “The Secret Seaplane” and “And it Came to Pass”, although it may be
that by the time the inscription below was written in “The Secret Monitor”
Musset was more active in running the Gregor Macgregor household.
Certainly it is unclear whether Musset lived with Guy and his wife
Helena when she was working for him or whether she was able to carry out the
work from a distance. Clearly Guy moved around a lot and, although living at
Weymouth at the time, may have written “The Cruiser on Wheels” in Somerset.
She later moved to London to live with her aunt Fanny. Whilst there she met and married Ivor Gregor Macgregor, who was recovering from wounds suffered when his ship (HMS Paxton) was torpedoed and sunk. They honeymooned on the south coast of England.
Portrait of Musset Musset Dressed Up
Ivor was demobilised in 1919 but remained in the Royal Navy Reserve, serving as an officer on the Orient Line.
In the “The Secret Monitor” Guy Thorne wrote:
“Dear Ivor; whom the Pension Sun
Had baked you to a hot (cross) bun,
You sighed for hot dawn clad in russet, (a reference to Hamlet)
Grey skies – good English ale – and Musset!
Nor in your hellish furnace knew
The Purgatory in store for you.
No vision told you of the bed
In that large building by the Med
way’s turbid stream. And yet, how odd!
You, by the provenance of God
From Hades to Purgation go,
(Pyjamaless, sans portmanteau)
And lastly, all your sins forgiven,
Find Fitz John’s Avenue – and Heaven!!”
This was written on 14th February 1919 and may have
referred to the family moving to Hampstead after the war.
Marion and Ivor had four children:
· Marion (Bunty), born at 218 Adelaide Road, Hampstead on the 20th March 1920.
· Heather born Hampstead 25th March 1924, died Ismailia, Egypt on the 28th September 1945.
· Peter Lindsay born 26th June 1925 in Egypt, died Kensington Gore, London on 2nd January 2003.
· Angus Ivor Malcolm born 27th October 1929 in Port Said, Egypt.
Ivor took up a post as a pilot for the Suez Canal Company in
around 1924/25, carrying on this work until the early part of WW2. He had
obtained the post helped by Adair Richardson’s connections in Egypt. The two
boys were born in Egypt. Where the family lived an ex-patriot lifestyle in Port
Said.
When war was declared in the 3rd of September 1939, the family was together in Egypt, Ivor saying; “…..it will all be over by Christmas”. However this incorrect prediction did mean that the family was together for longer than they thought they would be, due to the difficulty in getting passage to the UK.
On 6th February 1940 Ivor joined STAG “for Examination Service”. This meant that he had to examine ships passing through the Mediterranean Sea, which at this time was controlled by the British.
Ivor became the British Military Attaché in Turkey during some part the 1941 – 1945 period, reporting to Admiral Cunningham, who was in charge of the Mediterranean fleet. It is not certain whether Musset accompanied him, however the boys were now able to look after themselves and Bunty was able to manage the household.
After the war was over Ivor returned to the Suez Canal as a Pilot,
retiring in 1951 to “Balquhidder” near Edenbridge, Kent. Ivor died on 24th
April 1952, the day before his 58th birthday.
Ivor in later life
Musset then travelled to Australia to visit her close friend Ella.
When she returned, she sold Balquhidder and went to live with Bunty in
Pittenweem. She lived with her daughter for the rest of her life, moving to
Camberley then Crowthorne and later Bracknell. The last few months of her life
were spent in Merlewood
Nursing Home, Virginia Water, where she died in December 1989.