Hilda Mary Langhorne (1901 - 1999).  Hilda Mary Langhorne (15 April 1901 died Gloucestershire 1999)
English: Hilda Mary Langhorne (1901 - 1999). Hilda Mary Langhorne (15 April 1901 died Gloucestershire 1999) lived with her parents in Egypt, worked as a governess and joined the Air Raid Precaution ARP in 1939, She worked as an ambulance driver in London during the Blitz. She was based at the London Auxiliary Ambulance Station at 39A Crawford Street, London. For this she received the Defence Medal in 1946. She became governess to Sir Sidney Woodwark, physician to Queen Elizabeth. Late in her retirement she resided at the Old Rectory, Whaddon and then a nursing home in Brookethorpe, both near Gloucester, England. She was known by her second name (Mary) or "Langy". Five separate recollections taken shortly after her death in 1999: "I first met Mary when I was almost 6 years old. I was eating tea when Mary arrived with my mother. She had come in answer to an advertisement asking for a governess who could teach a child to swim. Mary and my mother discovered that they both had the same names of Hilda Mary and wondered what we should call Mary. I looked up and announced that I would call her "Langy". The name stuck with our family for 70 years. She taught us to love literature and read to Dick and I each evening chapters of Conan Doyle or Dickens. Every week she took us to London museums, some of them small and specialising in amazing areas that widened our imagination. She was always a source of comfort when we were upset, but she never took sides in our quarrels. She was dearly loved by all our family. She continued to live with us during the war while she worked as an ambulance driver in the London blitz. She stayed on with my mother as a friend after my father died. [We] took Mary and Betty [Vowles, nee Langhorne] out to lunch 2 years ago. On leaning over to talk to Betty I heard Mary announce that my elbow was on the table. After I apologised she spoke to Betty in a stage whisper saying 'where did I go wrong?' Mary was a very special person --- a friend and a wonderful companion" "My first memories of Langy were as quite a quite small child. She took us off to places which our Grandmother thought we ought to visit, but to which Granny was unable to take us, like art galleries and museums. This was mutually rewarding as Langy enjoyed them and she made them interesting for us. However sometimes I suspect that she nobly took us to places she certainly didn’t enjoy, like the terrible Public Baths in Victoria behind Buckingham Palace mansions. But we liked them and she took us anyway. I think that I probably spent more time in Buckingham Palace Mansions than my brothers. I was always in quarantine for something and sent off to stay there. But I loved going anyway. I remember Langy drawing with me for hours and hours. She apparently never got bored with this or playing the only available game in BPMs which was Ludo. She made ordinary things significant and fun – like cutting up Granny’s breakfast toast into perfect triangles, or visiting the library. Sometimes she was stern with us, but never cross or cold. She had a natural authority – perhaps because she was a daughter of a soldier, or perhaps learnt in managing the young Woodwark boys! For me she was always there – modest in her demands, but for ever interested, accepting, encouraging, loving. When I was rather unhappily at boarding school she wrote every week to me – about ordinary things, like the cats and dogs – every day things that captivated home life. She went on writing to me all her life even when I didn’t see her much. I got a letter about a month ago –very confused [i.e. shortly before her death] but very much the essential Langy. Charles says that he has still got her painting of the Lifeguard soldiers that used to change guard up and down Buckingham Palace Road. Do you remember her other paintings – the dancer and the one of the old woman? I wish she had had more time to develop her own creativity. We will all miss her sadly" "I got to know Langy very well when we both lived in Holtye [in Sussex], we became good friends. I missed her such a lot when we both moved away. Such a wise, calm and intelligent lady. "Having worked for the family for 21 years I became very close to the family and can only say how very loyal Langy was to them all, I can’t ever remember hearing a critical word, a lovely lady. Langy would invite her to tea in her cottage at Bearwood [probably near Holtye] when [name] was out. They would often talk about painting". "Mary took the children to school, drove a donkey cart".