Somewhere in the Middle: The Stories I Need to Tell

By Geoffrey D'Ombrain

So many stories have come down to me about my remarkable family going right back to escaping from France in an open boat in 1572. There was a great-grandfather who was City Surveyor of the Melbourne Corporation and a remarkable hero, Sir James D'Ombrain, who refused to follow Westminster orders and delivered grain, aboard the revenue cruisers, to the starving in Ireland during the potato famine. Then at age ninety I am blessed with a clear memory going right back to the days when I was but three years old. I have so many memories I wish to share. Some are amusing and some hard to believe. There are simple stories that bring life to many family members I have known, past and present. A love of the sea and craft that sail upon it is also woven through the text. I tell stories of friends, and people whose contributions to society should not be forgotten. I tell the story of how I came to establish a ground-breaking tertiary music education program. I share my reflections on war, religion and politics and tell some amazing tales of closer contact with our remarkable First Nations' Australians. Our family has long displayed a passion for botanical and zoological pursuits. It is appropriate that I conclude the book with a few unbelievable stories about my encounters with birds. In all my stories I am "somewhere in the middle" closely watching life's cavalcade.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Dec 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781982292263

Geoffrey D'Ombrain

Geoffrey d’Ombrain has lived a very long life, turning 90 while completing this book. He has engaged fully in all aspects of the life that he has encountered. Creativity in education and musical performance/composition has been the hallmark of his career. Growing up in the great depression he became conscious of the sharp divides in life. He describes himself as a socialist. He was old enough to experience the horror of World War 2, be it at a distance. Geoffrey is famous for telling stories; but Geoffrey’s stories are about real people and real happenings in life. He has a remarkable memory and eye for detail. More than this research skills honed in the field of education are expertly applied to historical stories so that authenticity is diligently sought. Geoffrey still attends reunions with former students from the course he established in music at Melbourne State College and they never cease to sing its praises. When Geoffrey first went overseas to American 1972, he asked himself what he could be proud of in being an Australian? He had and still has only one answer to this question, the remarkable cultures of our now appropriately called, First Nations’ Australians. Geoffrey is very fortunate. He can still exercise his passion for singing folk songs from around the world and improvise on the flute with virtuosic prowess. Geoffrey’s life has displayed a passion for music, literature, visual arts, theatre and dance.

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Copyright © 2021 Geoffrey D’Ombrain.

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All scriptures taken from the King James version of The Bible

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ISBN: 978-1-9822-9225-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-9226-3 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date:  01/05/2022

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Somewhere in the Middle

Chapter 2 Our Little Family Members

Chapter 3 Wider Circle of Family and Friends, Uncles Tom Minogue and Ron Adams

Chapter 4 Teddy D’Ombrain and Roy Stott

Chapter 5 Gertrude, Ned, Sheelagh and Kalorama

Chapter 6 Frank’s Legacy

Chapter 7 I Return to the Lakes and Other Youthful Memories

Chapter 8 Home to Dublin, Sir James, a Hero

Chapter 9 Religion, War and Politics

Chapter 10 Tertiary Music Education

Chapter 11 Closer Contact with Indigenous Australians

Chapter 12 Birds Beggar my Belief

Dedicated to my wonderful children -

Timothy, Peter (deceased), Louise, Suzanne, Marthe, Nicholas and

my amazing grandchildren - Daniel, Jason, Emberley (Kristyn),

Mandi, Trent, Jordan, Monique, Ned, Miranda, Harvey and Lelia

PREFACE

This is not an autobiography. It is a series of stories about family, friends and sometimes places, even thoughts, that because I am somewhere in the middle, are frequently only known to me. There is much that is not included. I have tried not to tell stories that are related in the three volumes of Music Theatre Works for Children, Balboa Press 2021. These books tell much of the story of the Pirra years giving the context in which the works for children were written. There is one exception and that is the Chapter, Closer Contact with Indigenous Australians. There is of necessity some repetition here, but this inclusion is needed to make the link to my first encounter with indigenous people on my childhood visit to Lake Tyres. Nomenclature in relation to Indigenous Australians, synonymous with Aboriginal Australians, is evolving as we approach a more appropriate recognition of their history on this continent. The current term today is First Nations’ Australians. Note the plural, Nations. We now understand that Australia was occupied by many Nations of Aboriginal people each with language and country specific to that Nation. Long ago my anthropologist friends informed me that the terminology Aboriginal and Australian must be linked as a specific reference. In the text of this book I have stayed with the terminology current at the times about which I am writing and mean no disrespect to my First Nations’ friends. I applaud the inherent recognition in the present-day terminology and hope for the time when the true history of human life on this continent is taught to all Australian children and these great peoples fully recognized in our constitution.

I have traced early family history from many sources in my possession and extracted stories from these sources. Because of my considerable age and the fact that I can remember events that occurred when I was very young, arising from the great depression, I relate memories that will be known to very few people today. Will my stories be of interest to the public in general? Time will tell, but I have felt that there is much that I need to tell before it is lost forever. In general, stories that centre on me, are from my earlier years and there is no attempt to tell the story of my later life, except where early stories have endings in more recent times. Most of the photographs are from family collections. Some are well over fifty years old and a few even over one hundred years. The chapter that contains youthful memories is a very large chapter, but so are the memories.

CHAPTER 1

Somewhere in the Middle

As long as I can remember I have been preoccupied with the land that suffocates beneath the structures we have placed upon it. What creek beds lie imprisoned beneath its surface in concrete shrouds? What was the nature and distribution of the flora and fauna that has now almost completely been displaced? Where were the tracks and campsites of the aboriginal clan that lived, hunted and gathered here? Somewhere written in the earth is all this past. Most of Camberwell and Hawthorn, suburbs of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Australia, where I spent my childhood and youth were already covered with roads and buildings when I was born in 1931, but not all. The Deepdene and Balwyn part of Camberwell, where my father had entered into a mortgage contract to buy a spec house in 1926, was largely paddocks and poor farmlets, crisscrossed by several interesting creeks that eventually found their way into the Yarra River.

My grandfather Francis was born in Dublin in 1858. His father Edward (1832-1907) was the fourth son of Sir James D’Ombrain R.N., who had been sent to Ireland (1818) from his post as, Deputy Commissioner of the Coast Guard of Great Britain, to establish the Coast Guard of Ireland and be its first Commissioner. In 1854 Edward had married Catherine Fetherstonhaugh (1833-1908) in St Peter’s Church, Dublin. The Fetherstonhaughs were a Protestant Irish family, which had in the past opposed the rule of Westminster. To bear testimony to this, I have in my possession today a ceramic statuette of an old man carrying upon his head a bowl of fruit. The story passed on to me is that, at the first uprising against the rule from Westminster, this man, immortalised in clay, came into the midst of the protagonists and said, When this bowl falls our cause is dead. Almost as he spoke these words the Redcoats came over the hill, a musket fired, the bowl fell, and he was dead. This is a cherished possession of the family and I hope for the best reasons. The story just related came down to me through family tradition and it was also related to me by Hector McDonald, brother to Hugh the folk musician, quite independently. I have been unable to verify the story in Ireland and one expert did not think the ceramic looked like an Irish work, rather more Germanic in character. The identity of the maker does not necessarily discredit the story. Cuthbert Fetherstonhaugh in his wonderful book, After Many Days confirms that the family favoured home rule for Ireland. The Fetherstonhaugh family had resided in Ireland since the mid-Seventeenth Century, having grants of land in Counties Meath and Longford, grants resulting from Cromwell’s invasion of Ireland. Cuthbert also refers to his grandfather, also Catherine’s, having forty blood horses at the Mossman stables. He goes on to add that his grandmother bore twenty-eight children and outlived her husband. Seventeen of the children grew to adulthood.¹

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When this bowl falls our cause is dead. A family legend.

Sir James, as are all D’Ombrains, or d’Ambrines² was a descendent of Jacques d’Embrun. He was attached to the French court, and along with several other Huguenot families heard rumour of an impending massacre.³ His, with six other families⁴ fled to Rouen, bought an open boat, hid in the crypt of the Cathedral and on the ebb tide floated down the river to the sea and sailed across the channel to England. There are some suggestions that Jacques d’Embrun fled from Embrun, the village in the Haute Alps from which the family name is derived, but I think that is an assumption simply arising from the name. Jacques settled in Canterbury. Nine days after they set sail, August 19th, 1572, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew took place. How many families did not survive to recount such tales one will never know, but these are and continue to be the ways of man? It took several generations for the family to become essentially English, as marriage within the French refugee community was the common occurrence. Some of the family became silk merchants and it would appear that at least one branch may have returned to France (Picardie) in pursuit of this trade. A large family of Dambrains live today in French-speaking Belgium (Ath) and may well be descendants of those who returned to Picardie, possibly making their way to Belgium following their trade.

The Rev. Henry Honeywood D’Ombrain, the eldest son of Sir James, was at one time Vicar of Bray in Dublin (1840-1847); but spent most of his ministry as Vicar of Westwell, Kent. The little Saxon Church, restored at the beginning of his incumbency, still stands today and bears considerable witness to his long presence. It was from this idyllic setting that he carried out his great love for the rose, being a founder member and secretary of the National Rose Society of Great Britain. His descendants include several Anglican priests. He was happy to remain Rector of Westwell for thirty-seven years permitting concentration on his work with roses. The rose was not the Rev. Henry’s only favourite. He first gained public notice with a little book on growing and exhibiting gladioli⁵. His branch of the family today is well represented in Canada and USA. The Rev. Henry made quite a name for himself as a horticulturist. I well remember a photograph of him in a bath chair, very late in his life, being presented to Queen Victoria at a National Rose Society gathering, when this august body added the appendage, Royal, becoming the Royal National Rose Society.

Since Henry Honeywood was the eldest son of Sir James, and in consequence the head of the family after the death of his father, this seems an appropriate place to add more detail with respect to his line. When I was in England, 1988, Sheila Field, my partner Jenny Abella’s sister-in-law was kind enough to drive us to Westwell in Kent to look for the old Saxon church where the Rev. Henry Honeywood had spent thirty-seven years as vicar. We discovered that there was also an Eastwell. The church there had been destroyed by a bomb attack during World War 2. Eventually we drove down a long narrow lane surrounded on either side by well-groomed hedges. If we were to meet another car one driver would simply have to back out of the lane. At the end of the lane the land opened out into a tiny cluster of houses and the old church. At that time one of the houses was the vicarage, now a private residence. We knocked on the door and the Anglican vicar in answer to our question about the location of the grave of the Rev. Henry, replied that he thought that my ancestor had something to do with the coming of electric lights to the church. We were, however, free to search for whatever we could find in the graveyard and in the church. We found the grave and next to it the grave of Rev. Henry’s wife. Great Aunt Ida had photographed the gravestone on her visit well over sixty years earlier, a copy is in the family collection, so I knew what I was looking for.

Inside the church we were in for a surprise. Our first sighting was a plaque on the rear wall of the church commemorating Henry’s son Lieutenant Robert D’Ombrain, who died in the Zulu war in South Africa, April 8th, 1879. Moving towards the sanctuary of the church we found the choir stalls dedicated to the Rev. Henry Honeywood and in a similar manner the pipe organ. How the current vicar was unaware of these plaques one indeed wonders. A couple of final notes. It is the descendants of the Rev. Henry Honeywood D’Ombrain that account for D’Ombrain/d’Ombrain families in Canada and the USA. A family legend is that one of the Rev. Henry’s sons married a Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) princess. Marriage records show a son of the Rev. Henry, bearing the same name as his father marrying Sundari Tamangi, August 18th 1908, Nowong, Bengal, India. Son Henry was a tea planter. Is this the source of the legend?

I have often wondered what brought my great-grandfather Edward to Hawthorn in 1877, with his wife Catherine and eleven children. They berthed in Melbourne in October of that year aboard the ship, Cassiope. I suspect the death of Sir James in 1871 could have been a factor, but the earlier arrival of other D’Ombrains in Hawthorn prior to 1877, no doubt, had some influence on this destination. An Elizabeth D’Ombrain had settled in Hawthorn in 1853 and Henry Honeywood’s son, Henry Athelstan Acworth was also in Hawthorn, being married at St John’s Camberwell (1883), most likely a later arrival. He and his wife Edith (nee Maund) had a son Sydney, pictured in our family photograph album as a young schoolboy. Henry Athelstan at some time migrated to America and gave rise to the branch of our clan there.

Edward was a maritime agent, but as well as his work had three abiding interests - birds, the bulldog and the Church. The order is mine and is convenient rather than preferential. In 1878 he was already busy with his sons paying visits to the wilds of Box Hill and the You Yangs, near Geelong, collecting and classifying specimens of native birds. The collection was eventually handed over to the Museum of Melbourne. An obituary upon his death in 1907 in Kennel Gossip has this to say:

But it was as a lover of caged birds and waterfowl that Mr. D’Ombrain was more widely known. He was perfectly familiar with every English bird, and with most Australian ones. His mind was a storehouse of bird-lore, and it was my privilege on several occasions to enjoy his conversations about birds amongst the trees and shrubbery when unseen birds would call to each other. His recognition of the various bird’s songs and sounds was most interesting to me. During our friend’s estimable residence in Australia he always kept a great variety of English, Australian, and foreign birds and these were always at the disposal of those who wished to view them.

From what I was told by my (great) Uncle Jim, Edward was a noted judge of the bulldog fancy. I remember his showing me some of his father’s charts displaying the criteria for judging these dogs. The, Kennel Gossip obituary also makes mention of this bulldog connection,

Mr. D’Ombrain was a great admirer of the bulldog, and at some time exhibited the old-time winner Viking, which dog in his hands never met defeat. The advent of Viking was, I think the beginning of the bulldog fancy in Victoria, if not in Australia.

With respect to the church suffice it to say Edward was for many years the Superintendent of the Sunday School at St Johns, Camberwell and vicar’s guardian. A silver-plated tray, in my possession, presented to Edward on his retirement, is inscribed:

Presented to

Edward Dombrain Esq.

by his fellow Churchmen of

St John’s Camberwell

April 27 th, 1905

in slight recognition of the long and

valuable services to the church

It must have been a proud day for Edward and Catherine when surrounded by their eleven surviving children and a few new family members, not shown in the photograph, they celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, the year, 1904.

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Front row: Ernest, Moriet, Edward, Catherine, James, Frederick

Back row: Harry, Ida, Edward (son), Francis, Ethel, William, Gertrude

There was something else that Uncle Jim told me about his father. He had developed considerable skill in identifying edible fungi and would fearlessly eat all species he knew to be palatable. Here I have tried to follow in his footsteps.

My father Noel James, born 17/3/1901 was the second son of Frank. Frank had married Alice Higgins in 1880. The marriage certificate of Frank and Alice shows that they were married in the Hawthorn Methodist Church. This fact illustrates the strength of the Methodist faith in the Higgin’s fraternity, given the strong connection the D’Ombrain family had with St Johns, Church of England, Camberwell. My great- grandparents James and Caroline Higgins had twelve children, the last, born in Hawthorn in 1883, died 18 months later. I know very little about my grandmother’s family save that several of the family came to live in my grandfather’s home. This included Caroline, my father’s grandmother. As a very young man my father contracted Spanish flue. Near death, his grandmother, whom he dearly loved, nursed him. When the crisis passed for him, he was aware of considerable noise downstairs. Upon recovery he was grief stricken to find that the noise had been his grandmother’s funeral. She had caught the flue and died. I believe this had a profound effect on my father.

From information that I picked up as a child, Caroline’s husband James had been a Methodist local preacher and very much against drink. Most of the sons had more than a passing taste for alcohol, in fact were quite addicted to it. Charles, when drunk would recite Shakespeare at great length. It was probably conveniently unfortunate that my grandfather was a traveller for Reynella wines. Samples were always on hand, including a barrel of port in the stable. This was ready to be decanted into small sample bottles to take on country trips. At one time my grandfather became very puzzled; the level of port in the barrel was falling daily. Visiting the stable one evening to decant the port for a country trip, what did he find? There was Uncle Billy Higgins lying on the floor doing his own expert direct decanting job with a rubber tube.

On another occasion it was pouring with rain, darkness had fallen, and Uncle Billy had not arrived home. They went out to search for him. There he was lying in the gutter, the water pouring down the neck of his shirt and out his trouser legs. These stories were told to me by my father. Regrettably my D’Ombrain grandfather and grandmother both died before I was born. I think my grandfather was a very generous man. The family lived in a two-storey rented home in Hawthorn. There were six in the family, but with all the relatives, who lived, or visited there, Sunday nights were always a full roast topside and at least seventeen sitting at the table. As my Uncle Ron, my mother’s brother said, Old Dommie’s table was always open to whoever came. No wonder he didn’t ever own a house.

I shall return to my grandfather Frank shortly, but I would like to add more detail about James Higgins (1830-1885). He was born on the Isle of Man and had a first wife Margaret Melvin, to whom he was married in 1847. James married his second wife, Caroline Butt (1836 -1921) in Albury in 1857. His occupation is shown as storekeeper, Finch Street. It was a general store in Beechworth, where my grandmother Alice (1869-1924) was born. One can only assume that James’s first wife had died, he, being that very devout Methodist local preacher, as family tradition has informed me. From the scores of oratorios that I have inherited with James’s signature and markings, I can only assume that he was a skilled chorister. By 1883, and possibly earlier, the family had moved to Auburn and this is how my grandfather came to meet Alice. On the Isle of Man, the Higgins family can be traced back to Phinlo Huggin (1614-1686), a dirt farmer and fisherman living in a mud brick cottage on the farm, fishing in summer and planting crops in winter.

Now back to my grandfather Frank. There are three other things that my father related to me about his father, Frank. He loved his food and, in particular, country butcher’s sausages. Returning from one of his trips, he carried with him in the train, a parcel of these favoured items. As he collected all his belongs to alight at the Hawthorn station, he left the treasured parcel of sausages on the seat. When he arrived home, he was practically in tears as he told my father of this loss of his favourite fare. Two things of note occurred on his deathbed. He called for a pint of fresh spring water from the bottom of the valley below his brother Jim’s property in Kalorama, Mt. Dandenong. The water was collected from the spring and duly drunk. This spring still runs today; but the man-made drinking bowl is broken. It is hidden by undergrowth. I do not know if it is still drinkable, such is the degradation to the fern valley and Mountain Ash forest around it. Even closer to death Frank said to my father, Don’t waste money on flowers for my grave, put on it a lovely stick of celery.

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The spring still runs today, but the man-made drinking bowl is broken.

Well the two-storey house in Beaconsfield Parade, Hawthorn, where my father grew to manhood backed onto 10 Clive Road. In fact, there was a gate connecting the two properties. It was not long before my father fell in love with the beautiful young woman who lived there, so close. Her name was Mabel Adéle Adams. She went by her second name Adéle, but because of her manner and appearance was generally called Blossom. They both attended St Johns Church, where my father, as a boy, had been in the choir, so with the local church and the homes back-to-back courting must have been a delight. My father was kept at Camberwell Grammar School until he was eighteen because he was captain of the football team and a somewhat gifted player. For the rest of school, he had very good reports for handwriting, but otherwise the curriculum did not hold much interest for him. There was one teacher whom he admired very much, a Mr. McMenamin. He felt angry that this teacher had been passed over, when the post of Principal became vacant. It was because he was a Roman Catholic. How strange, in the mid 1940’s, to have this same man as one of my high school teachers. Book prizes were commonly given to students in those days and they were generally the works of romantic poets. My father received two copies of the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one in 1914 for a neat exercise book and the other in 1918 for industry. My father sometimes recited the first verse of Longfellow’s, "The Wreck of the