Patricia Malvinas Audrey (Patsy) Townsend (5A25)
| Date of Birth: | 8 Aug 1915 |
|---|---|
| Date of Death: | 23 Nov 2009 |
| Generation: | 9th |
| Residence: | Fairhaven, Batheaston, Bath |
| Father: | Commander Richard Herbert Denny Townsend RN [5A11] |
| Mother: | Hill, Phyllis Marion Gathorne |
| Spouse: | Unmarried |
| Issue: | None |
| See Also: | Table VA ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree |
Notes for Patricia Malvinas Audrey (Patsy) Townsend
Patsy was born at Steep, St Petersfield, Hants and was educated privately to age 13. Following this she went to Bath High School and then Westcliffe, Weston super Mare.
Aged 19, Patsy and 24 other young girls (including her sister Barbara), drawn from public schools across England, set off for a five-month tour of New Zealand and Australia on 2 August 1934 from Tilbury on the SS Rotorua. The group was chaperoned by Edith Thompson, CBE, the then president of the English hockey team.
Each girl took two suitcases and a hatbox, was forbidden to use lipstick and had to wear a hat at all times. On board they shared tiny four-bunk cabins and were roused every day by bugle call. The Captain inspected their cabins daily and they had to write a diary every night for their parents who had paid £150 for the trip.
It was a hugely exciting adventure for them; they travelled out via Curacao, the Panama canal and Fiji arriving in Wellington, New Zealand on 18 September. They visited Rotorua and Wanganui on North Island and left Wellington bound for Sydney, Australia, on 27 September. They remained in the country for the next 6 weeks visiting Canberra, all the main cities and Tasmania. They visited schools and universities, Government offices, ranches, mills, and the like, watched sheep shearing and were entertained throughout with picnics, receptions and dances. They set sail from Fremantle in early November and travelled back to the UK on the SS Moldavia via Colombo, Aden, Port Said, and Marseilles arriving in London on 14 December. The trip is recalled in an article in the Times of 17 August 2004 by Valerie Grove.
Two years later Patsy, her mother and sister Barbara, left Tilbury on board the SS Orontes on 26 September 1936 for a 6 month return visit to Australia and New Zealand. She kept a diary (222mm x 170mm) of this trip - 273 pages and about 50,000 words. It is very personal and detailed and even includes a list of the hotels in which they stayed and the films they watched. The voyage was arranged by Thomas Cook & Son Ltd and cost £272 - 10s. Unlike the journey out in 1934 they travelled out via Gibraltar, Aden and Colombo and arrived in Fremantle on 27 October. They spent the next two weeks touring Australia visiting those places they saw on the previous trip before departing Sydney on 11 November bound for Auckland, New Zealand. They spent the next month touring North Island and then departed Wellington on 19 December on the SS Rangatira bound for Christchurch on South Island.
During the 10 week visit to South Island, five were spent staying with friends in Waikouati, near Dunedin. They were royally entertained throughout - lunch & black tie dinner parties, tennis nearly every day, visits to the numerous beaches, horse racing and even a visit to the annual wool auction in Dunedin, with buyers from all over the world. The other five weeks were spent on the road visiting the grand sights of the island - Mount Cook, Franz Joseph Glacier, Lake Wakatipu, and lots more spectacular scenery. Sadly, the weather was not good and their plans were often spoiled by rain, but they still dressed for dinner every night! The roads were not good and they suffered several punctures during their travels; on one such occasion, having changed the wheel, they couldn’t get the jack down and had to wait for a pssing motorist to come to their rescue. They had a picnic whilst the puncture was being mended!
Following their travels in South Island they returned to Wellington on 2 March 1937 and set sail for the UK, via the Panama Canal, on board SS Rotorua on 6 March. The itinerary is shown in Patsy's 'Scrapbook'.
During the Second World War Patsy joined the Auxilliary Territorial Service (ATS) on 27 June 1941 and left in 1946 as a Captain. Trained as an Almoner at St Thomas' Hospital, London Patsy practiced in the Bristol Royal Infirmary until her retirement.
With her mother Patsy was presented to King George V and Queen Mary in 1933 and the invitations are shown in her 'Scrapbook'.
On her retirement Patsy lived with her mother at Fairhaven, which was previously a boarding school for young ladies, and was bought by her mother from Mr Brown in May 1920.
Patsy Townsend wrote in 1994 that she'd recently been to South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Canada, and was about to return to New Zealand, coming home via Singapore and Delhi. "I'm sure our World Tour as schoolgirls whetted my enormous appetite for travel."