Biography

Nellie wrote many handwritten notebooks which are a source of Middleton family history, and gossip and have been painstakingly transcribed by Mike Middleton, to whom she was a Great Aunt.

Nell recalled ‘I wish I could have gone to art school but my father could not afford it. He had educated two of his sons at Dulwich College and then they all bottled off to the other end of the word. I think he had lost heart in planning for his children.’

But she attended art classes at the ‘Crystal Palace’ and pursued her own artistic career; hand-painting dresses for the Nightsbridge stores being one of her occupations. One feels that, today, she would have sold her wares at’ Camden Market Lock’ and a boutique in the ‘Kings Road’ would surely have been within her compass.

At one time, Nell told fortunes under the name of ‘Viola Fortune’ which caused some confusion.

In later years, her brother, Arnold, embarked on some publishing ventures of his own. Eric, his nephew, informed me that his uncle had named one of these the ‘Fortune Press’ - so named after his sister. Eric was in error as the ‘Fortune Press’ was one of the few publishers who published poetry during the second world war and it’s immediate aftermath. Arnold’s name occurs in the same list as Dylan Thomas and Philip Larkin.

Some time after 1896 Nell sent this picture of their family home in Brasted to ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The text reads:
"The Laurels Brasted Chart
my old home far far away
Oh There is a happy land far far away
1894
Daddy died here 1896"

The back of the card

Could this be Nell herself on the porch, with her dog looking out through the shrubs under the porch?^[3]

Her great nephew Frank recalls "My only recollection of [Great]Aunt Nell is the day of the coronation of Elizabeth II on 02 Jun 1953 when I was less than 4 years old. She sat upright in an old kitchen chair on the pavement [sidewalk] outside her house in Norwood, dressed in black with a lot of lace. She was already very old, and reportedly lived to be well over 100 [well, there goes one myth]. A lot of waving of flags and such excitement as the Queen rode past!"

As it turns out she lived to the ripe old age of 85, and she saw the procession from her nephew Hugh's house. It must have been some other occasion when she was sitting in a chair in front of her house that a 4 year old dimly remembered.