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Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 1 NATIONAL LIFE STORIES FAWCETT COLLECTION BEATRICE NANCY SEEAR Interviewed by Betty Scharf C468/04 This transcript is copyright of the British Library Board. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 2 IMPORTANT Access to this interview and transcript is for private research only. Please refer to the Oral History curators at the British Library prior to any publication or broadcast from this document. Oral History The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB 020 7412 7404 [email protected] Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of this transcript, however no transcript is an exact translation of the spoken word, and this document is intended to be a guide to the original recording, not replace it. Should you find any errors please inform the Oral History curators ([email protected]) Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 3 Fl220 Side A So, first of all this is an interview of Baroness Seear, by Betty Scharf, on the l2th of February. [Now that's on the tape, we shall go ahead]. Right. I think that everybody is interested to relate their family beginnings to their subsequent career, so that we would like to ask you something about your family; where it came from, what jobs they had, how they encouraged you, or discouraged you, for various activities. And anything more that you'd like to add about your childhood and the family background, as against school, which perhaps we could come on to later. Yes. Well as far as I know the Seears are supposed to have been maraudering norsemen, coming across, settling in Lincolnshire. Where, I think, we were farm workers of one sort and another, for a very long time. You find that name there. They came up to London on the railway, when the railways were developed. Again, as far as I know. This is all a bit hazy. But my grandfather, which is the first bit I really know about, had a printing and wholesale stationer business. Which I think subsequently went broke. In London? In London. He had a works in... Is it Lower Thames Road, Upper Thames Road? Down there in the City. I never knew him at all. His wife was a Jewess. The name of Abrahams. You can't do better than that. Or half-Jewish, I rather think. And all this is very hazy. But I've always been told that her mother's name was King. Which is not normally a Jewish name. But she looked very Jewish. And there is quite a strong... My father looked Jewish. And one of my brothers is very dark. My mother's side is partly Irish. I don't know anything about where they came from. Except that there was someone called Discipline, who was, I think, my mother's grandmother. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 4 Because my mother's name was Catchpole, which is not Irish. But they were... I don't know a lot about them, except that I had a great aunt who was headmistress of a school in Hackney. And I don't know the dates, and I've never discovered the school in Hackney, and I've always rather wanted to. She was single. And she was an enormously enthusiastic Dickensian. And she was secretary of the Dickensian Society. This is a great aunt now? A great aunt. And she knew most of Dickens by heart. My mother thought her very vulgar because she loved repeating the bawdier parts of Dickens, which she did with great effect. But my mother thought that was all rather unrefined and didn't encourage her very much. And this was done in front of the children? This was done in front of the children. When she got the opportunity, which wasn't very often. I think she had struggled to make my mother into a more serious person than she was. My mother said she used to take her to the theatre, which I think she tried to educate her. But my mother was intelligent, but incurably light-minded. And I don't think any of it ever penetrated at all (laughs). My father was a mining engineer. And he had... was supposed to have had tuberculosis. And he had an uncle who had interests in South Africa. And so he went out, ostensibly for his health; well in fact for his health. Because it was considered that South Africa was healthier than the UK. And got involved in the mining industry out there. And then came back and was... He did quite well in South Africa. He... My mother was engaged to him for five years without seeing him. And then he came back and married her. She did once say to me that he did seem rather different when he came back. But it worked extremely well. Mind you, waiting five years for someone without really seeing them was a bit tough. That would have been what date roughly? Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 5 They married in l9l0. She was a primary school teacher. Froebel trained. Both she and the old great aunt, and I wish I knew more about the old great aunt, they were both teaching training college trained. So the old great aunt must have been a very early one, 'cos there really weren't very many teachers training colleges. My great aunt would now be - oh heavens - I mean she must have been born somewhere around the l850's, mustn't she? Late nineteenth century. Late nineteenth century. And I don't known when the teachers' training colleges started. Well, some of them started, I think, under the auspices of the National Society and the British and Foreign Schools Society. And the church ones. So I think that would have come in around the thirties. Around the l830's? As early as that? Although she could have been to one of those, but I don't know. My mother went to the one at Saffron Walden. But they were more established by then. And she would have gone at about... Oh, she was born in l883. So I suppose she went around the turn of the century. And she taught for five years while my father was in South Africa. And, of course, always said that there were 60 children in the class. And that no doubt was true. And she always maintained that her children knew how to do the four basic arithmetics, to read and to write. Whether it was true or not, I don't know. She certainly believed it. I find it very difficult to believe, or why they no longer cared, with 60 in the class, how she managed it. And she was quite - as I say, she was bright and intelligent, but extremely light-minded. Anyway, that's them. Oh yes, my father came back. They came back in l9ll. My oldest brother was born in Rhodesia. They came back. I don't know what they intended to do. They'd made a bit of money. And they took a rather nice house on the edge of Epsom Downs, where I was born. They came back. He had been ill. He had a bad crack on his head. I don't know what had happened. And then, of course, the war came. Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 6 You were the second child in the family? I was the second child. My brother was born in Rhodesia. Then I was born in Epsom. In l9l0? No, I was born in l9l3. My brother was born in l9ll. They were married in l9l0. My brother was born in l9ll. I was born in l9l3. I must have copied from the wrong... Oh, you have. I was born in l9l3. Don't give me three years or more, I've got enough years without adding them on. I'm sorry. So you were the second anyhow? I was the second. And in l9l4 he volunteered and got a commission in the Royal Engineers. But fortunately for us he was turned down on the medical. Because practically all the Royal Engineers were obliterated. They were the people who built the trenches and so on. So instead of that he said he'd go farming. And we went down to Gloucester. And he went as a farm pupil on a farm in Gloucestershire, in l9l5. But in l9l5 they lowered the medical standard. And he got in, but only into anti- aircraft. So he didn't see service in France, which from our point of view was very fortunate. While in Cornwall we - my second brother was born. So you went to Cornwall for the farming? We went to Gloucester for the farming. Near Chipping Camden. And I remember very well, I've got a very good memory for that early time. And we used to go - we had a ponycart, which you called it a governesscart, I think the term was. And we used to go shopping in Stratford-on-Avon. Which was the great event. And I know I used to stand out in front, smelling the manure, which I thought was from market Baroness Beatrice Nancy Seear C468/04/01 F1220A Page 7 gardens, which I thought was the most marvellous smell, I still do think good manure is rather a good smell.

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