A Notable Woman. Jean Lucey Pratt
Saturday, 21 March
In this week’s Wembley News (they rang me to enquire earlier in the week):-
Favourable Progress
Mr G.P. Pratt, who, as I mentioned last week, has undergone an operation for appendicitis at Wembley Hospital, is, I hear now, progressing favourably. Mr Pratt lives at ‘Homefield’, Crawford Avenue, Wembley, and has lived at Wembley for 42 years. His enforced, but fortunately only temporary retirement from public life, is being deeply felt in many circles, particularly among the parishioners of St John’s Church, where he is vicar’s warden.
Friday, 3 April
Daddy is to be X-rayed again. They don’t know the cause of the pain about which he complains. Sister told Ethel that we must realise Daddy will not be the same again although he has come through the operation so far very satisfactorily considering his age.
Wednesday, 15 April
Daddy came home from hospital last Saturday. ‘Good,’ I thought, ‘he will not mind if I don’t go to see him now until Wednesday (today).’ But the first words with which I was greeted: ‘So you have managed to leave your friends to come to see me. I was very disappointed you didn’t come yesterday to see your poor old father.’
How to convince him that I am not playing in London, that my book is my job which gets badly neglected? He looks so thin and tired and beaten; I can’t bear it. He still complains of a pain. Daddy would like me there the whole time, but Ethel leaves no room for me, and I cannot tell him that.
Have just been trying to write a letter to Pooh, but find an explanation of the situation to him quite impossible. He would only reply, ‘Ethel be damned. If the Governor wants you at home, you jolly well go home.’ And so a truth comes to light: I do not want to go home, even to please my father.
Met Mrs Barkham in the High Street after tea. She is the wife of our squire, Titus G., who is a director or something at Express Dairies and caused a scandal some time ago by having an illegit by one of his parlour maids. He is a hunchback. Mrs Barkham said to me, ‘Been to see your father? He’s had a bad time. Touch and go. Touch and go. You nearly lost him.’ I’m damned. I think I’m the one to know that.
Monday, 20 April
I must endure this torment until – yes, let me write it – until my father dies. I admit my deep contempt for Wembley and all things suburban. Perhaps Ethel is right, and I am conceited and selfish. I try to offer my services, but my intense fear of her makes the offer appear ungracious. There is not a spark of generosity in her nature: she bristles. I shall call these disturbances at home Wrestles in the Dark with a Pygmy.
Friday, 1 May
Papa is to have another operation tomorrow morning at 8 o’clock. When will all this agony be over? Ethel would have it that it is very serious, but I shall not believe it. He is in good condition and the doctors are not in a hurry to operate. ‘He’s wonderful, isn’t he?’ Ethel said as we left him in hospital this afternoon. ‘A little abnormally cheerful perhaps, but not thinking of himself at all, only of us.’ Dramatising, dramatising the whole time. ‘The garden, so lovely, and he not here to see it …’
Saturday, 2 May
My father died this afternoon at half-past two.
I am free. But at what cost. He died in such terrible pain. We had to stand and watch him die.
Sunday, 3 May
Death is lovely. Only life is cruel. I know that now. He lies in the drawing room now, awaiting the final rites, and his face is like an exquisite wax mask of him at his very best asleep. I am so happy. All agony for him is over.
11 p.m.: I have been mean and selfish. If my love for my father had been allowed to grow as I know it was capable of growing, Ethel’s threats and tantrums wouldn’t have mattered. I let my subjective fear of them stifle my love’s development. Love when it is strong enough defeats such miserable obstacles with ease. If I had loved my father as I should, I should have known how much he must have suffered. I was too impatient and cruel.
Tuesday, 5 May
4 a.m.: Death is a great healer. All animosity between myself and Ethel has shrunk to nothing now that the object of our love and jealousy has gone.
I cannot sleep. I would like to marry some well-armed and powerful fighter of disease that I might help to make living and dying easier. My mother suffered dreadfully for years, and Daddy must have suffered much more than anyone ever realised. I had wanted to believe he would live to see my book published, but perhaps it is well he didn’t; he might have found my ideas difficult and hurtful.
Birds are beginning to sing. We shall be leaving his home and garden. How that would grieve him, but neither I nor Ethel have any wish to remain here without him. I have the power to create the same loveliness elsewhere; I hope I may even be able to improve upon it, although I shall be told I expect that nothing my father did could be bettered. There is a great deal of sentimentalism one has to fight, but the feelings he inspired are genuine. He was very greatly loved.
The doctors spoke of his operation as a simple affair: just another three weeks in hospital. That was the way in which I was seeing it. It was so cruel that it had to be so unexpectedly terrible. He was like a child with the pain: it must have been awful.
When love is real and big enough, the ability to see things in their right proportion cannot lessen it. There have been things about him at which I was irritated and impatient, but what makes me go on my knees to him now, as it always did, was the natural unconscious sun of his spirit. It is that sun in the heart of men that makes them great. We were all warmed by it, so that only the brightest memories remain.
Thursday, 7 May
There will be no more green springs for us in this garden, no more summer hay or night-blue grapes at autumn. The blossom-starred branches nod in the evening wind, but his step is not on the stairs, he locks his doors no longer and sings no more in the morning, for his long trick is over, his quiet sleep and sweet dream found.
Oh God that he should have died before I could show him how much I love him! But I shall take my love away. I shall take it with me all over the world and plant his roses everywhere.
Friday, 8 May, Wembley Observer and Gazette
Death of Mr G.P. Pratt
Vicar Warden at St John’s
One of Wembley’s Oldest Residents
It is with deep regret that we record the death, which occurred at the Wembley Hospital on Saturday, of Mr George Percy Pratt, of Homefield, Crawford Avenue, Wembley, at the age of 70 years. Mr Pratt, who was taken ill in March, went into hospital to undergo an operation for appendicitis. He had been a resident of Wembley for 42 years. His life was an extraordinarily active and varied one and his interests were numerous. By profession he was a chartered architect and surveyor … he was chairman of the Acton Bench of magistrates up till his death … a prominent freemason, a member of many lodges. His principal hobby was gardening, and for many years he was a prominent member of the Royal Horticultural Society. He grew roses mainly.
Mr Pratt leaves two children, a son, Leslie, who is in the cable business, at present stationed in British West Indies, and a daughter, Jean, both by his first wife, who died in 1923. In August 1925 Mr Pratt remarried, his bride being Miss Ethel Watson of Sudbury, daughter of the late Mr Dewar Watson, who owned the old Sudbury Brewery.
Saturday, 6 June
I am battling with house agents, expiring and antiquated insurances, solicitors, removals and warehousing plans, bills, relations. If I were the great artist I want to believe I am I would sweep all these things aside and allow nothing to come between