1906-1946

Always Smiling

My grandaunt, Alice Churnside Thomson was the third child (and the only daughter) born to James Kinghorn Thomson and Martha Evan. Born on 13th February 1906 in Chelsea, London, Alice seems to have been a very happy individual. I have dozens of photographs of Alice, and in almost every one, she is smiling.

The earliest known photograph of Alice (named after her paternal aunt, Alice Chirnside Thomson (1863-1933) appears to show a pre- or early teenage Alice with younger brother Roderick (1912-1968). Taken on the steps of their home in Markham Square, Chelsea:

The same front door is still in existence. It’s painted bright red today – I wonder if it was red then? Alice would have been fourteen years old, Roderick about eight.

Alice was a fabric buyer for Harrods, on Brompton Road. It would have taken her twenty minutes to walk to work from Markham Square.

The Thomson family were still living in Markham Square in 1927, when this family portrait was taken:

Above, L-R Front row: Alice, her father James Kinghorn Thomson, her mother Martha Thomson (nee Evans) L-R back row: James Frederick Thomson, Roderick Andrew Thomson, John William Thomson (my grandfather).

It’s not known when Alice first became ill, but my father (John Frederick Thomson 1925-1998) remembers his Aunty Alice having ‘the shakes’. He was very fond of her. When her father James knew he had terminal cancer in the early 1930’s, he purchased a house on Irene Road, Fulham, for his wife and daughter to live in, and asked a neighbour, an ex-policeman with whom he was on good terms, to ‘please keep an eye out for them’. Sadly the neighbour’s name isn’t known, although it should be possible to find out through electoral rolls.

Alice was well enough to accomany her parents on a trip to Scotland taken sometime in the early 1930’s. Thanks to a photo album full of photos taken on that trip, we believe it was most likely following the death of Alice’s grandma, Louisa Thomson (nee Freeman) who had lived with various members of the family in London since the the late 1880’s, following her husband John Thomson Snr’s death in Edinburgh infirmary (also from cancer) in 1887. He is buried in Tweedmouth cemetery, just a few hundred yards from where the family lived in Brickfield Lodge, now in the middle of a housing estate. Perhaps the family had gone to arrannge for the burial details of Louisa to be added to John’s headstone, or to view the inscription. Whilst in Scotland, they also visited Alice’s aunt Alice (after whom she was named, even though their middle names were spelled differently! Chirnside is the maiden name of John’s mother – although since she didn’t marry John’s father, it was her surname throughout her life! Perhaps the family had not known the exact spelling and so Churnside was the spelling used for James’ daughter.

Alice’s aunt Alice died in May 1933, and her grandmother Louisa in May 1929; so I believe the trip was made sometime between summer 1929 and summer 1932, when Alice jnr would have been in her late twenties.

But by 1939, the wartime Register taken on 29th September of that year showed Alice, a visitor in her brother James’ new home, Oak House Farm at Ranskill, Nottinghamshire, as an ‘invalid’, so it seems that for the last seven years of her life, she was unable to work and grew increasingly incapacitated by her illness, presumably cared for by her mother, Martha (who died in 1959).

It must have been hard for Alice to lose first her grandmother in 1929, then her aunt Alice in 1933, and then her father in 1936. I think Alice’s illness must have manifested by the time James became ill, and he probably knew that his daughter might need care in the years to come. I think this is why he sold Markham Square and found a house where I imagine Alice probably had a ground floor bedroom.

We know that Alice liked jewellry (her will lists several items bequeathed to family and friends) and that she probably played the piano, which her father left to her in his will.

Alice never married or had children. Whether she had suitors is not known! From the many photos we have of her, she comes across as a fun-loving lady who loved her family, and I imagine her as a very sociable person. My father and his twin (Roderick Andrew Thomson 1925-2011) who was named after Alice’s little brother, were twenty-one years old when their aunty Alice passed away. My father, not a man for talking about his emotions, did say that he was ‘very fond of aunty Alice’. I think Alice was the ‘favourite aunty’ for many of the Thomson children who knew her – there are photos of her with her first ever nephews (my dad and his twin) and she has big smiles in all of them!

Had she lived a normal lifespan, Alice would have been just fifty-two years old when I was born, and fifty-five when my sister came along. I am sad we never got to know her.

In memory of Alice, and to all the young women whose lives were taken from them too soon by Parkinson’s disease, here is a selection of Alice enjoying her too short life.