Catherine Gurney

MEMORIES OF LIFE AT SPROWSTON HALL BY MISS CATHERINE GURNEY

As life begins to fade one looks back on its many years and wonders why things happened as they did. One is apt to think that one rules ones life, but circumstances are different and one finds that one has had to do what one had to, and not what one wanted, In fact one could imagine that some supreme power had all the time dictated what was to happen.

My Grandmother said “ The way will open” and one just waited for the opening and tried to have the will to seize at the time it came, of course one made a hundred mistakes from lack of force or energy but sometimes just from weakness of the flesh.

After all very few people, in this enormous world are distinguished. To have force of character, brains, real beauty of person or personal charm the rest of humanity gets by with mediocre lives often humdrum and undistinguished, yet here and there, there is a glint of something worth while and something better.

I can’t see there is anything distinguished or better in mine but I have been lucky in some periods with a chance to do a few things and see a few places. Sometimes I have jumped when the way has opened and sometimes I have rebelled at no opening and just the burden of the every day living and now as the flesh weakens and maybe senile dementia drives to the depths of despair I will note one or two facts to amuse myself rather than entertain my relations.

We were a family of seven children all born between 1905 and 1916, spaced with two to two and a half years between most of us. John, the eldest was a charming baby with deep violet eyes and brown rather than fair hair. Boys were very much favoured in the family, girls taking a very secondary place so when I arrived only thirteen months later no one pleased.

My mother at having a second child so quickly and then a girl who was extremely healthy, plain and with nothing to charm or recommend her. John proved delicate and constant nursing, so Catherine could be pushed to one side and fought for her rights as she got older with some determination. Rosamund the third came gracefully, a pretty baby with long limbs, blue eyes and fair hair, followed by two boys and then two more girls, but by the time the youngest arrived I was ten years old and put in the position of setting an example, giving way to the eldest and helping the younger ones.

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  Sprowston Hall 1900

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  Catherine Gurney second left? at Sprowston Hall

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