There is a lot in between that ought to be written here. I sit down to write the events as they happen but something sets me off on quite a different footing. However, it was somewhere about the painted dress time that I met Guy Lewis and we fell in love.

Fall? Fall is about the right word as when falling in love you do actually fall; you are everywhere and nowhere; you pass out of one dimension into another and you are not only in love with reality but the illusion carries you up into a golden light.

It happened a long time ago, nevertheless the event remains in my memory so vividly that it might have been yesterday - with the exception of the fashions of the period. Long dresses were worn and hair was piled up high on the head or worn low on the nape of the neck. Also etiquette was observed by the upper and middle-classes alike and it was as difficult to become acquainted with a man as it would be to mount over a six foot wall.

So, when Guy Lewis smiled at me from across the road and gave a salute, it was a staggering surprise and became an epoch in my life ever after.

How can I explain in common everyday words the thrill it gave me?

We were walking along the road - my sister Rosie and I. She was to be married very soon and we had been shopping together. She was such a lovely girl. I was seldom noticed when she was around, therefore it came as a wonderful surprise - that smile and salute from a perfect stranger.

It was a quiet road. We were on one side - he on the opposite. He had hazel eyes with a twinkle and a uniform the most attractive I’d ever seen. Just to see him walking along a quiet road - it would have caused a disturbance to our mental vision. I blushed furiously but acknowledged the salute.

My sister asked me in if I knew him?

“Never seen him before,“ I replied.

“He’s got a nerve to smile at you like that,” she said and then, laughing in her sweet tempered way, she hummed the old song, “All the girls love a sailor/ All the girls love a tar.”

Then, as we entered our gate, she looked straight at me saying, “We know what sailors are!”

“Well! We ought to,” I replied, “All our bothers are sailors.”

I ran upstairs to my studio which was situated at the top of the house.

Miss Florence De Savour Irwin, who lived close-by had been giving me a few painting lessons and I was now earning a little money at flower painting on glass. I loved my work and much preferred it to taking a job and leaving home. It had been a terrible blow losing our father whom we all loved so much. The painting was of good solace to me.

Guy Lewis was evidently on leave as I now saw him on several occasions from my window. He lived in a house round the corner from Clifton Road.

Also, he seemed to be on friendly terms with a girl who lived nearly opposite our house - a fast looking hussy who reddened her cheeks and wore a hat over one eye with cherries dangling from side to side. She always seemed to be hanging over the gate. He either saluted her or stood for a moment talking to her. I counted those moments in heart throbs.

My sister’s wedding had been arranged to take place at a  

cousin of ours at Uplands Farm near Edenbridge, Kent and we were terribly busy preparing things. I was, of course, to be chief bridesmaid - with two little mites of children. We were to be dressed in long, white silk dresses and picture Leghorn hats trimmed with ostrich feathers.

I was secretly hoping my sister would invite Guy. He had introduced himself by calling on his cousin, Miss De Savour Irwin, whose house abutted onto ours. He managed to be in her garden at the same time that we were in ours when my cat escaped over the fence. Catching the cat, he doffed his peaked cap, saying, “Yours I believe?”

I tried to take it between the rose bushes but it was very awkward. In a jiffy he was over on our side - pussy clinging to him. My sister arrived on the spot. I was embarrassed.

“What name?” I mumbled.

“One Guy to another,” he added and, laughing, he took my sister’s hand which she had so graciously extended. Then said he, “And a guy to a beautiful girl.”

And so he became Guy to us and it seemed impossible to think of him with another name and my sister did invite him to her wedding. Unfortunately his ship sailed a few days before the celebrations so he could not accept. Needless to say, I felt most disappointed, but later I was greatly elated in receiving a letter from him - very endearing - calling me his sweetheart.

My sister was married on the 24 June and I missed her for I loved her dearly. Then my elder sister, Amy, arrived home from Spain where she had been governess to a titled person’s child. For some unknown reason she left in a hurry and arrived to make our lives unhappy for she happened to be the reverse of Rosie - domineering and jealous and she made herself felt.

I was very miserable at home except when I was painting in my studio and for recreation and sympathy I used to go down to my sister-in-law about an hours’s walk from our house. She was a pretty soft spoken thing with large brown eyes. I did not know it at the time that she had a passion for men.

Her husband, my elder brother, had given up the sea and got a job but he only spent the weekends at home. And there was no doubt that she had a fine old time with men of her choice. She got hold of Lionel Irwin who was sweet on me.

I knew nothing of all this until Guy came home and he said, “Why do you make a friend of that class of woman?”

I was offended and stood up for her as I really did not understand. He was puzzled and called me “Babe’” Then he had a conversation with my elder sister.

“Not so innocent as you think,” she had remarked with scorn.

I was furious and ran out of the garden. He chased me and put his arms around me and begged me not to see Tiny again.

He went away again. Letters came and cards and one day his photograph - which I cherished and I stood it on my bedside table saying, “Good night.” to it as I lay in my bed.

My elder sister made mischief and I always believed that she was the cause of my losing Guy. I cannot even now speak of the sorrow I went through and three years of abject misery when I heard that he had married. I was painting pansies when Florence blurted it out. The pansies danced before me like purple fiends as I dashed in the crimson and violet paint. The yellow centres and streaks of dark umber all helped make them seem human, laughing faces. Never in all the years that I’ve painted flowers have I cared to repeat the process of painting pansies.