The French Connection

Dad finally got work and for a time all was well. We lived in the same house as Granny Fordham who originated from Southern France, where we still have French relatives.
Granny’s father, Edmond Barthouel, was a master butcher and a very important and respected man in their village. He and his family owned property, farmland and a pork butchery. My mother told me the following tale about Granny Fordham, my French grandmother.
It seems that Granny was a somewhat rebellious teenager, and would not confirm to the rules and regulations laid down by her strict Gallic father. I don’t know exactly what prompted him, but my great grandfather had her sent away to a convent where she became a novice Nun. I’m uncertain how long she stayed there but, as a novice, she was required to have her head shaved.
My granny’s pride (which was considered a sin) and joy was her beautiful, waist-length hair. The thought of losing her crowning glory mortified her. Being of a headstrong nature, she hid in a laundry basket awaiting collection from the convent and, like Mr Toad escaped.
Her name was Marguerite Barthouel. During the course of her employment she must have made her way from Europe to America, because it was there that she later met my maternal grandfather, Frederick John Fordham, whose father was a publican and was deceased before Granny and Grandad Fordham married.
There’s an amusing little story about their meeting, which was told to me by Aunty Sissie, Mummy’s younger sister.
Grandad was a gentleman’s valet and Granny was a ladies companion. Both their employers happened to be staying at the same big house on the edge of a lake or river that I understand is part of the border between Canada and the U.S.A. My Aunty Sissie said that it was possible to sail on a boat to the middle of this expanse of water and be in both countries at once.
The story tells of how, on this particular day the weather was glorious and the staff of both parties of gentry were out in rowing boats, having fun on the water. Grandad Fordham doffed his straw boater and asked Granny if she would honour him with her company on his boat. And offer she graciously accepted. Grandad Fordham began joking and fooling around in an effort to impress his newly found ladylove, and fell overboard.
I don’t know whether or not he could swim, but he certainly got into serious buoyancy troubles. As he sank beneath the waters for the proverbial third time, he was fortuitously plucked from the sea by a companion and, accompanied by the sounds of my grandmother’s hysterical crying, conveyed to terra firma. Whilst they were attempting to resuscitate him, Granny, being an ex -novice nun and a good Catholic, prayed to God to let him live.
Grandad fully recovered from his ordeal, and he and Granny became a little better acquainted. It wasn’t long before Grandad Fordham proposed to my French Grandmother. She didn’t know him terribly well but considered God had answered her prayers and bought them together, so she said yes.
When they returned to England they were married at St Catherine’s Church in London.
I must break the story here to tell of an interesting and puzzling piece of information that I stumbled across during the research for this book. I have Granny Fordham’s death certificate in my possession, and on it is recorded the fact that she died at the age of sixty-three in the year 1934. This would mean that she was born in the year 1871. So far, so good.
I recently acquired my grandparent’s wedding certificate and on examination it appeared that they were wed on 28th March 1909. This made my grandmother thirty-eight years of age when she married her beloved Freddie. I was always aware that she was considerably older than him, but here is the interesting and strange thing I unearthed.
The wedding certificate gave Grandad Fordham’s age as twenty-one, and Grandmother’s as twenty-six! This must mean that she falsified her age on her wedding day to appear to be only five years older than her husband when. In fact she was seventeen years his senior. I assume this was done for Grandfather’s benefit: who else would care? Whether he ever became aware of this fact, I really don’t know.