FRANCIS ANNIE MASTERMAN (ANNE TREMAYNE)
Anne was born on 21 May 1911 at 9 Cumberland Street, Wallsend. She was the second child of our grandparents, Henry and Mary Elizabeth Masterman. She was baptised with the name Francis Annie but changed her name to Anne (“with an “e”) when she grew up.
Her elder sister Effie was almost 4 years old when she got her sister, and Effie and Anne were great friends all their lives. Our mother, Elizabeth was born two years later and two brothers followed, Henry and Michael, in 1917 and 1921 respectively. The family lived in Copeland Terrace until a fire drove them out of the shop and flat there - see our mother’s autobiography for the details of where the family lived up to the time of her marriage in 1933.
Anne’s grandfather (our great grandfather) Michael Bell Masterman, was a Lay Preacher at Walker Methodist Church, (see Part 2 of Bette Masterman's autobiography) and Anne was received as a member of the Walker Primitive Methodists when she was 16 years old.
When Anne left school, she went to work in a small shop on Welbeck Road, Walker, owned and run by Walter Cox. The shop, very near the corner of Scrogg Road, is still there today. They sold fancy goods and hardware. Anne worked for Walter Cox right up to 1937, on a very small wage, but was an important member of the staff. Her wages were never increased over the years, but apparently Walter Cox promised her a rise on her twenty-first birthday. And when she became twenty-one, her wages were increased by two shillings and sixpence per week! Perhaps it was that that made her decide to leave him. She left in 1937 and received a glowing reference in which she was described as “a most conscientious and energetic employee”.
From 1937 to her marriage in 1940 Anne worked as a bookkeeper at a furniture shop called George Wilkes on Shields Road, Byker.
According to our mother’s account, Anne was “a dreamy child” who “always had her nose in a book”. She loved dressing u
p and acting, and in her youth took part in the amateur productions staged by the Dramatic Society of which she was a member. She played Lady Britomart in 
“Major Barbara”, Gloria in “You Never Can Tell”, and Mrs. Farrel in “Press Cuttings”.
She met her husband, Sydney Charles TREMAYNE, at a dance in Beadnell, in rural Northumberland where she was on holiday. Sydney, who was a Londoner, was making a tour on his motor cycle with some of his friends. They married right in the middle of the Battle of Britain, on 14 
September 1940, at the Methodist Chapel, Church Street, Walker. She was 29 years old, and he was 35, and they spent their honeymoon at Alston, in Northumberland.
I remember hearing the stories of that wedding day. Sydney’s friend, who was to have been the best man, could not get transport to Newcastle because of wartime disruption of the railways, and Effie’s husband, Harry Dodds, had to stand in for him at the last minute. It had been intended that Harry Dodds should give the bride away, but our father, Christopher Harrison Emmett undertook that duty. Anne’s father had of course died in 1935. I remember my mother telling us that Anne could have been given away by her mother but Anne did not want that because she wanted to be given away, as is usual, by a man.
We have a photograph of the wedding party. The bride and groom are in the centre, with Effie on Anne’s left as the Matron of Honour, and next to her our grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Casey Masterman, the Mother of the Bride, looking very old although she must have been only 57 at that time. On Syndey’s right stands Harry Dodds, the Best Man, with our parents Bette and Kit Emmett on his right. Our Mother looks very smart and stylish in a dress and coat which she bought at a jumble sale
, and wearing what she called “a halo hat”, also bought second hand. She was 27 years old at that time, and our Dad was 32. In front, as Bridesmaids are (left to right) our sisters Sylvia and Elizabeth (or Betty as she was known at that time) aged almost 5 and 6 respectively.
We have a letter from Anne to a friend describing her wedding dress. It was of silver cloth. Her head dress was modelled on one worn by Mary, Queen of Scots, that is to say, it was made in a “Tudor Bonnet” shape, of silver and orange blossom, with a veil, and she carried a bouquet ofpale pink roses. Effie's dress was of cloth of gold, and her head dress was of gold wire in a “Juliet cap” style, and she carried tearoses. The two bridesmaids wore white taffeta dresses with stiff white organdie over that, and they carried posies of sweet peas. It must all have looked absolutely lovely. I remember dressing up in Aunty Effie’s gold dress, and wearing her Juliet cap. I remember too a big jewelled aigrette (minus many of the stones and completely without any plumes) which featured in our dressing up, but I do not think it was part of the wedding outfit.
After the marriage, it seems that Sydney returned to his parents’ home in Forest Gate. He thought that area in the east of London was too dangerous for Anne, and found “a bungalow about 30 miles north of London”. This was 7 Tolmer’s Road, Cuffley, Hertfordshire, where Anne went to live at the beginning of May 1941. These details are contained in a letter from Anne to a friend called “Belle” (Isabella or “Bella” Logan) dated 30 April 1941. I do not know why this letter, and the other describing all the wedding clothes, were in Anne’s possession when she died.
Both Sydney’s parents lived with the newly-married couple. The father died in 1943, but the mother lived on until 1964 and died at the age of 96. According to our mother, Anne thought the Tremaynes were what we would have called “posh”. Her words to me were, “Our Anne thought old Mrs. Tremayne was a real lady.” I think this idea came from the fact that they did not speak like Geordies. Perhaps a London accent seemed “posh” to Anne (and later to us) in those days. But, again according to our mother, Sydney’s father was a violent, drunken beast, and had on many occasions thrown his wife and children out into the street.
This information apparently came from Sydney himself: he described his father as “a beast, and no good to anyone”. I remember old Mrs. Tremayne: a little Cockney sparrow of a woman. She would have a regular day out in London, shopping, right up to the 1960s, and she would bring clothes home with her, alter them and then take them back to the shop because she had changed her mind about keeping them. Amazingly enough she got her money back.
Sydney had a brother called Bert who apparently married and had a son. My brother Chris remembers mee
ting Bert and the son at some time in the nineteen-sixties.
Both Anne and Sydney worked at de Havillands, the big aircraft company in Hatfield. Anne worked in the Engineering Office as a Bookkeeper and Sydney was a Draughtsman. When Anne retired a presentation was made to her. A card which accompanied the gift was signed by dozens of people, and declared that it was given “on behalf of her many Friends and Colleagues in the Engineering and associated Departments of Hawker Siddeley Ltd.”
It seems that Hawker Siddeley bought de Havilland in 1960. They were kept as separate companies until 1963 when de Havilland became a division of Hawker Siddeley Aviation. The Tremaynes always seemed to me, when I was young, to be very wealthy. They had a car, and their house was in a private road, they took up horse-riding and tennis, and they went away on holidays, things which in my youth seemed to betoken a very wealthy life style.
Anne was always well dressed, and she seemed to have an exotic touch about her. She would wear a blouse and skirt but add a belt made out of a scarf twisted and knott
ed with pearl beads. I remember a jumper which was knitted from side to side (ie from one sleeve across the body to the other sleeve). This jumper was a talking point in our house. Anne also wore a high necked sweater, very close fitting, with a zip up to the neck. This was thought to be very daring when I was young.
She always looked nice. She wore makeup and her lips were bright red, in the full nineteen-forties cupid bow style - think Margaret Lockwood in any of those old films. Anne was a charming and attractive woman, extroverted and with many friends. She spoke too in a very attractive way which is difficult to describe. She retained something of the Geordie accent, but she had what one might describe as rather a theatrical delivery. Her voice was full, rich, mellifluous, melodious - extremely attractive and very distinctive.
Anne’s mother, our grandmother, visited the Tremaynes in Cuffley, and in fact she died there in April 1945. She was buried in Northaw Cemetery, not far from Cuffley.
Anne and Sydney never had any children. This too was a matter of much discussion in our house. My mother would frequently tell the story of how Sydney had told them that “he wanted his wife to be able to put her hat on and go out at any time” - in other words he did not want to be bothered with children. It seems that Anne however would have liked to have children. My brother remembers an occasion when old Mrs. Tremayne was complaining about Anne’s having said she had been prevented from having children because of having the old woman living with them. Anne would have made a wonderful mother, I think, and her children would have adored her.
Effie and Harry did not like Sydney: he was rather a domineering character and made his dislike of the north-east and the “Geordies” very clear. He complained about the dirt of Newcastle - then of course given over to heavy industry - and about the rain which was full of grime and smuts. His idea of humour was not what we were used to and he sometimes made questionable jokes or comments. Never dirty or obscene - just “questionable” to the Dodds and the Emmetts.
He was however quite an interesting man, with some talent as an artist, and was full of energy. Even in his 70s and 80s, when he could barely see, he would climb up on the roof of their house to do maintenance or repairs, and Anne would stand below him calling out where his attention should be directed - “to your left” or “another foot up above where you are” etc.
When Sydney retired, which must have been about 1970, he and Anne moved to Cornwall. They bought a small house
which they called “Chynalls” in a new development and lived there for the remainder of their lives. Sydney created a magnificent garden and worked in it tirelessly. They would go away on cruises for their holidays.
I think the Tremaynes' marriage was a very happy one. Sydney liked to rule the roost, but Anne was by no means a cypher. She could give back as good as she got. I remember hearing the story of a row they had had, when Anne flung her wedding ring at Sydney and declared she wasn’t married to him any more. He thereupon said, “Well, let’s go to bed and have a night of sin.”
On another occasion, Anne, having cooked the meal, put Sydney’s plate in front of him. He made some comment about it, there was too much, or not enough, or he didn’t want it, or whatever. She, who was sitting next to him ready to eat her own dinner, picked up his plate and without a word threw it out of the open window onto the garden, then went on eating her own meal.
Anne carried on a correspondence with many friends from all stages of her life. When she died, my sister and brother-in-law, who had lived near them in Cornwall at one stage, and still visited them, had the sorting out of their affairs. Elizabeth told me that she had to communicate with dozens of people who were regular correspondents to tell them of Anne’s death. She had been suffering from cancer of the throat and was taken to the West Cornwall Hospital in Penzance, where she died on 16 August 2001. Sydney lived on for another four years and died at the age of ninety-nine in 2005.