Christmas was coming and with it Nelly’s husband, Frank Mellersh. He was buying a Christmas tree and what a great big tree it was - the height being about thirty feet. He was also bringing toys and presents - something for everyone.

I have written so many stories about this Christmas but I can only gloss over it here. So many sat down to dinner at Alec and Alice Conan’s at Mount Alverno. The sea of faces; the waiters and the turkeys; the boiled and roasted beef and pork and ham and the wines - everyone had two to five glasses.

There were names with pictures on cards on the banqueting table. I crept in early to see who would be near me and saw that I had a man on either side - Alec’s brother and Mr Strathen. Frank and Nelly were right opposite and Aunt Clara to the left of me - barely in sight.

Alice wore her wedding dress of white satin and she got me to sew three rows of frills to her petticoat so that the skirt billowed out.

I simply had a black dress with a high black crepe collar - much to Alice’s disgust. I heard her telling her mother - my Aunt Clara: “What a shame for her to dress up in black. She’s only a child.”

“She’s in mourning for her father. He only died last June,” Aunt said.

“Well, anyway,” Alice added, “She could have worn a white dress with a black sash. The poor girl looks so unhappy but what lovely gold hair she has.”  

 I heard all this and was so lonely for my heart was at home. What beautiful Christmases I used to have with my big brothers coming home from sea and my father always had presents of 15lb turkeys sent from Scotland and jars of whiskey.

Horace, my eldest brother, knocked off the top of champagne bottles like they did at sea.

Anyway, here I was amongst them all. Lovely cards I had sent to me from everyone and Frank Mellersh went up a ladder to gather presents off the Christmas tree. He came down about the twelfth time and gave me a photograph frame (which I still have in 1959) saying: “Put your father’s photograph in this.”

They were dancing when Frank came up to me and asked me to dance with him.

“Oh, no - no - no - NO!” I said.

The day finished. Many people stayed the night but I was packed off with the servants and the three boys. Frank Conan, the only son, who was sixteen, was very nice to me. When I left, he kissed me.

How I spent another six months in that house at Rathgar is impossible to imagine. I remember Frank Mellersh meeting me in the hall and saying, “I know sweet Nell - your aunt really loves you - everyone does.

“She has a funny way of showing it,” I said.