Sybil

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Dorothy Sybil Freke Hewitt born 25 February 1894

Stories and memories

Fred's diary note

Dorothy Sybil Freke Hewitt was born at 10 George Street, Hanover Square, London on Sunday 25 February 1894 at 5.25pm. She was christened at the church opposite, St George’s Hanover Square by the Revd. David Anderson when she was 3 weeks and 4 days old (March 22nd). Her godfather is my old medical school friend, Mr Marmaduke Sheild FRCS of Cavendish Place, and her godmothers are Aunt Emma Georgina Hewitt and Mrs W H A Jacobson of St Cumberland Place. Mrs Wilkes (her nurse) took her to church. She cried a little on entering but directly she heard the organ, which was playing at the end of a service, she immediately became quiet and listened to the new sound.

Sybil most definitely enjoyed being the oldest of the three siblings. It suited her ‘patronising and superior’ character admirably to rule the roost as is often the case with a first born, especially if the mother is the very definition of haughtiness. She and Wyn must have made a heady pair in the nursery.

Dec 25 1896 – For several months we have been calling Dorothy by her other name – Sybil. Nearly everyone I meet has a Dorothy. Children in railway carriages never seemed to have any other name. The fact really is that as in other things, fashion has an immense influence; and even those who, like ourselves, do not desire to follow her, may unconsciously be dragged along in the stream. So we have decided to use Sybil for the future.

Alright for a first marriage

Sybil was presented at court by Eve in 1911 (or perhaps 1912 ) and was only 19 when she married a Lieutenant in the artillery called John Scott on 11 November 1913. He was 26 and very much Scott by name, Scot by nature being heavy and dour, and his family were very religious; they kept every blind in the house drawn all day Sunday. Her new father-in-law was the charismatic Revd James Moffat Scott who eventually died in his ‘Wee Free Church of Scotland’ pulpit delivering an overly emotional sermon, or so the story goes. John was the eldest of his four sons. Her choice confounded Wyn utterly as she was a real pistol and he a damp squib. He was good officer material though and went on to have a very successful military career, rising to Brigadier in the Gunners by the time he retired with a string of initials after his name - DSO BWM VM OBE. They had two wonderful sons; John in 1920 and Freddie in 1922.

A sharp brain

Wyn: “Sybil certainly had a brain for numbers. She loved racing and cards (she was a very good bridge player), and in the run up to WW2, she and I ran a very successful betting business. That is to say, I financed it, and she did all the work! We had an office with a tape machine in Victoria and every afternoon she betted. The system was simple - we only backed favourites excepting odds-on or joint ones. We backed the first one £3 to win. If it lost, we backed the second to win £3 plus our losses on the first. Once we were £3 up we started again. Usually, we got three in a day, and we’d be up £9. As there was racing every day, we were generally up £50 on the week and all cash in hand. All went well until even Ladbrokes, the largest bookies at the time, refused to take our money as we were consistently winning. We then hit a bit of luck and found a Brighton publican who took all the favourites money amongst the professional bookies and distributed it to those amongst them who needed it for their book. Once he agreed to take our bets all went well and it was a very profitable side line for us that lasted right up until the war started when we had to shut up shop.”

An eventful second marriage

Wyn: "Sybil divorced John Scott in the late 1920s and married a chap called Johnnie Epworth Hubbard Gelston in July 1932 at St Martin’s in London. A former Captain in the 16th (Queens) Lancers during the Great War and then in the Indian Army until 1922, he was a charming, delightful Irishman just a couple of months younger than Sybil. The problem was he loved booze as much as he loved his bride.

When the war kicked off, Sybil was serving in the ATS and was living back in London, so Johnnie was at a loose end down on the coast having bought an interest in an electrical firm in Brighton (he wasn’t part of the work force though). She asked me to give him a job, and as he was off the drink at the time, I employed him at Crolls on the condition that he’d be fired if he ever drank on my watch.

Johnnie moved up from Brighton to be nearer Crolls, renting a beautiful cottage called Wellow Wood Thatch in Wellow Wood near Romsey. Then as things progressed and went well, he took a house called Fairfield in Calmore which was much nearer the Totton Works. He was a competent secretary and did all the books very well, and he was amusing to have around. He stuck it out for about a year without touching a drop and then one Saturday night he hooked up with a floozy in Southampton’s notorious Polygon Hotel and fell off the wagon as hard as could be. Together they went on a monumental bender. As Fairfield was nearby, it was to there that they retired to bed for six weeks during which time they consumed over 200 bottles of gin, rum etc. helped admittedly by Johnnie’s manservant. I of course sacked him right away.

After this, Johnnie went into homes to dry out from time to time but found it hard to stay sober. Sybil divorced him, he married another woman called Kathleen Dymond in 1944 but they subsequently divorced. He did finally manage to dry out completely, so my sister agreed to remarry him! And then she appeared to take over where he left off - he polished the cards while she quaffed copious amounts of her favourite tipples gin and Dubonnet during endless rubbers of bridge. They started an EBU affiliated Bridge Club in Hove in 1960 which I believe was quite successful until Johnnie’s eventual death in January 1971. He was also secretary of the Brighton and Hove Golf Club for years and did an excellent job. As someone who always liked to make a statement, Sybil tinted her hair an extraordinary shade of blue in her later years, wearing matching sequins when she thought an occasion warranted dressing up."