Ihad two sisters. Rosie was my favourite and near my own age. She was beautiful to look at and the darling of my heart.She had become engaged a year before the death of my father - to the son of John Watkins, the brewer of Westerham.

We we all surprised when this came about as she was a beautiful girl and I think my father felt she ought to marry a duke or a Lord or something. (Although Harry Watkins was a younger son, his family were, as one might say, well off and lived in a lovely old house at Westerham.)

We often went to stay there as John Watkins married my mother’s friend and first cousin, Polly But Polly died and John Watkins married Ruth Marchant. He sent out to Australia for  

her to come to England to marry him and she did.

She was a dark, handsome beauty. I was very much attached to her and she used to call me Princess.

I remember painting her grey, silk dress whilst she sat before the looking glass. It was all done in oils - lovely pink flowers on silver grey. It tickled her fancy to see me going round her painting those flowers with nothing to copy. The dress looked wonderful.

I used globular glass - very tiny specks which one showered on the paint while it was still wet and when it got quite dry you could wash it and it glittered - just like my Crystal Palace.