Shop-keepers, builders and a date at the Ritz

Family history and the Marjorie Swallow series

Who is Marjorie Swallow? The heroine of my 1920s mysteries sprang almost fully-formed into my head two years ago, as I drank Darjeeling tea and nibbled cucumber sandwiches at the Ritz Hotel’s Palm Court. This week, I’m celebrating the publication of the free e-book of Murder At The Ritz, with a dive into the family history that inspired the series.

I’m not a regular at the Ritz. In fact, I’d never been before. I was so nervous as I walked up the steps past the smartly-uniformed doorman, trying to look like someone who wasn’t scared of walking into one of London’s poshest hotels. I was meeting a friend for afternoon tea to celebrate her five year remission from cancer. She’d suggested the Ritz as a suitably celebratory venue.

On my best behaviour in the Palm Court

I’d walked across Green Park in my pinching smart shoes, too embarrassed to take a black cab and announce my destination. My friend was waiting inside, and I was relieved to see her. We left our coats and I fretted about the appropriate tip to leave at the cloakroom. Once at the table, the service was smooth and friendly, and I began to relax and enjoy myself. But why had I been so nervous?

It’s a class thing, of course. I inherited a hefty dose of lower middle class anxiety from my mum - the sort that worries about either being too posh for family, or not posh enough. When I created Marjorie Swallow, who was named for my grandmother, I passed it on to her.

Most of the heroines of 1920s murder mysteries are aristocrats - Lady So-and-So, with her high society connections. But I didn’t want to write about someone who’d swan into the Ritz as if she owned the place. I wanted someone like me, from a background of small business and hard work. Someone who’d worry about how much to tip.

Mum (like my fictional Marjorie) went to the aspirational Sydenham High School for Girls on a scholarship, where she was teased about having a father ‘in trade’, rather than one of the professions.

Her father, my grandpa, was a shop-keeper, proprietor of the once-well-known Swaddling Toys and Prams in Catford. The shop closed down after reaching its centenary in the 1990s, but for years anyone who knew Catford knew Swaddling’s, with its painted pale blue sign and striped awning.

My fictional Marjorie is also a shop-keeper’s daughter from Catford, although I decided a draper’s shop (Swallow’s Drapery and Fancy Goods) fitted the story better.

Swaddling Toys and Prams, c. 1960s. Photo: Gillian Firth.

Dave Swaddling did very well out of the shop, and my grandparents bought a big house with an enormous garden. His success was possibly because he was extremely careful with money. When friends learned my grandpa owned a toyshop, they assumed I’d have the run of the place, with new bikes and all the latest toys. Not a bit. On the rare occasions my brother and I were taken to visit the shop, we were told to choose between a little bouncy ball or a farm animal. Our ‘big’ presents, like bikes, were all hand-me-downs, although we were wheeled around in a splendid Silver Cross pram as infants. Like Marjorie, we were taught to know the value of money, not to be extravagant or wasteful. It’s taken me a while to un-learn these habits in later life - hence my discomfort at the Ritz!

But it was my grandmother’s side of the family, the Balls, who dominated. Marjorie Ball (bottom right in the photo below) was one of nine children. My great-aunts and great-uncles were a big part of my childhood, especially when the whole family gathered at my grandparents’ house for Christmas.

William and Henrietta Ball, my great-grandparents, with their children, about 1920. Photo: Ball family.

The wonderful photographs of the Ball family children with their parents delight me because I can instantly recognise the faces of my great aunts and uncles in the children they were then. Elegant Auntie Dulcie, who always had immaculate hair and smelled deliciously of French perfume. Dapper, jolly Uncle Ron, with his neatly-trimmed moustache. Independent, stylish Auntie Vi, a career woman with a flat of her own. My most elegant belongings (a smart kid handbag, a silver letter-opener and a black-and-gold Parker pen) were once hers.

Most of them were small businessmen and women. Their father William Frank Ball, a remarkable man who spent his childhood in the workhouse (more of him in another post), founded a prosperous building firm, allowing him to send his three youngest children to paid schools. He bought land and built a big family home in Cromwell Avenue, Bromley, the last of several moves around south London with his growing family.

L-R Hetty, Dulcie, Bert, Arthur, Vi, William, Henrietta, Marjorie, Ron, Bill. Date late 1930s. Photo: Ball family.

Of his sons, Bert and Arthur followed their father into the building business, Bill was an electrician, Ron trained as a carpenter, then variously worked as a hotelier, ran a toyshop and moved into property development.

The eldest girl, Elsie, died at 17 of a heart condition. Hetty and my grandmother Marjorie worked as hairdressers, then both married shop-keepers.

Lovely, tragic Dulcie married her childhood sweetheart Bob in 1936, only to see him killed at the very start of the second world war in 1939. She later became engaged to John, who was killed on D-Day, 1945. She then married a much older man, “Mac” McCullough, who died within 18 months their marriage, of cancer.

Dulcie ran through various professions - manager of a country club, shop-keeper, employment agency manager, administrator. She finally married Frank, although sadly this marriage was marred by alcoholism.

Dulcie had an excellent collection of jewellery, and one of her engagement ring diamonds sparkles on my left hand. She had lovely clothes and always wore Guerlain’s L’heure Bleu. I bet she would have walked into the Ritz with her head held high.

Finally came Violet, always known as Vi, the baby. She too lost her fiance Billy during the war - he was brought back to Britain after being seriously wounded in Cairo, but died in hospital. Like my fictional Marjorie, she learned shorthand and typing at Pitmans Secretarial College, and set out to earn an independent living. She never married, although there were whispers of a close friendship with her married boss at the Midland Bank, where she worked for most of her life. When I was small, I very much admired her glamorous independence, stylish clothes and ever-changing hair. Only when I was older did I realise the hair-dos were wigs. She lost her hair overnight when Billy died.

L-R Marjorie, Vi (with my favourite handbag on her arm), Ron, Dulcie. Ron’s wife Doris is behind. c1990s. Photo: Brenda Sayburn.

It isn’t just names I’ve taken from my grandparent’s generation when writing my fiction - although as well as Marjorie the sleuth, I’ve used Vi as a nightclub manager, Hetty as a dancer, and made Dulcie into a film star, which seemed only fitting.

Those women and men, my grandparents and great-aunts and uncles, expected to work hard, and wanted to work for themselves. They also enjoyed themselves hugely. Some of my best memories are of Christmasses at my grandparents, with heaps of aunts, uncles and cousins gathered to feast, drink and play party games. The air was thick with smoke, the gin and tonic or whisky and soda flowed, and everyone laughed themselves silly during Charades or The Drawing Game (home-made pre-runners of Give Us A Clue and Pictionary).

It’s that spirit of self-reliance and a big appetite for enjoyment, based on the knowledge that you never know what’s around the corner, that I wanted to capture in my Marjorie Swallow books. I hope my readers have as much fun with them as I do.

The audiobook of Murder At The Ritz is narrated by actor Kim Bretton, and is free for subscribers. You can listen on your device, or download it to the Bookfunnel app if you prefer. It’s just over an hour in length, and introduces Marjorie Swallow, her detective boss Mrs Jameson, and the 1920s Murder Mystery series.

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