I want to write to you about Fr Bellanti SJ[*]. You will see why at the end of my story of his life and how it strangely links into mine.

In 1917 he was serving in France in the 42nd brigade. Lt Robinson wrote of him; “A wonderful chap loved by us all and as brave as a lion.”

J C Nealy said of him “he would crawl into no mans land to succour the dying.”

Desmond Morton, Churchill’s man of Mystery said:
“The commitment of chaplains on the western Front won the respect of both troops and army establishment for their courage,endurance and leadership.”

The Military Cross has been awarded to Father Luke Eli Bellanti, S.J., for assisting the wounded and dying under fire. Born in Malta in 1882, Father Bellanti was educated at St. Ignatius’ College, Malta, and later at Pope’s Hall, Oxford. He was ordained at St. Beuno’s , and was attached to the Church of the Sacred Heart, Leeds, when he joined as chaplain. He took part in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

He was a former head of Stoneyhurst and of Grassendale in Bournemouth. At one time latin master at Corby Hall school where a pupil remembers “although recommended for the Victoria Cross he received the Military Cross instead as his regiment had already won a VC”.

I met him when I was a student at Manchester University and he was appointed Catholic Chaplain in 1946. He always greeted me as Sybilla recalling the mention of my name in the De Profundis.

Before long I discovered an almost impossible connection with my family over an impossibly long period of time. I was 20 and Fr Bellanti in his seventies, but we discovered that my uncle Frederick Bateman SJ, born in 1867 had taught Fr. Bellanti when he was a boy in the Jesuit college in Malta. I never met my uncle who died in his seventies in 1928 when I was 2 years old. My grandfather had been born in 1827.

Fr Bellanti was a delightful man a very good and caring chaplain. I think that none of us students in his charge had any idea of the wonderful care and bravery he had shown in the first World war.

Now in this season of remembrance of friendship I want to remember him and tell my friends about him .

Summary of Sutton House Mystery

1. Setting: The narrative primarily takes place in and around Hampton Loade, focusing on Sutton House and its history.

2. Main Characters:

   • The narrator (unnamed)
   • An 83-year-old man living in a station cottage
   • William Bennet (the old man’s brother, in hospital)
   • Jack Breakwell (provides some background information)
   • Mr. Patrick (former owner of Sutton House)
   • The Breakwell family
   • The Bebb family (described as “powerful people”)
3. Key Events:
   • The narrator visits an 83-year-old man to gather information about Sutton House’s history.
   • There are hints of a secret involving a “backward boy” and possible illegitimate birth.
   • Suggestions of blackmail or extortion related to Sutton House’s ownership.
   • Mention of destroyed documents (will and deeds) that might have proven ownership claims.
4. Historical Elements:
   • Mr. Patrick allegedly had Sutton House built by Cottons building society in Shrewsbury.
   • The Breakwell family’s connection to Sutton House is unclear but significant.
   • Jack Breakwell provides some historical context about the house and its former occupants.
5. Themes:
   • Family secrets and their long-lasting impact
   • The power dynamics in small communities
   • The challenge of uncovering historical truths
   • The lingering effects of past events on present-day relationships
6. Research Methods:
   • Personal interviews with locals
   • Online research, including finding old maps
   • Visits to local sites (e.g., Chelmarsh graveyard)
7. Unresolved Questions:
   • The true ownership history of Sutton House
   • The identity of the “backward boy” and his parents
   • The exact nature of the secrets hinted at by the old man
8. Atmosphere:
   The narrative has a mysterious and slightly ominous tone, with hints of long-buried secrets and potential consequences for uncovering them.

At 83 yrs old HARRY BENNETT lives in station cottage at Hampton loade. He remembers that there may be a backward boy born?! He thinks Mr patrick had Sutton house built by Cottons building society in shrewsbury. His boss tried to get Sutton house but bebb blocked it. He thought house not sold thru auction.

An old cottage stood next to the road just before a bridge under the railway at Hampton Loade station.Its small unkempt garden with a narrow path lead me past a low front door.Round the side of the cottage was a wood pile for an open fire. I knocked firmly on the solid wooded white back door.?Who is it? I paused silent. ?If your after William he aint here , he?s in hospital? came a voice from a window of a brick building with the door slightly ajar.who is it? ?I have just spoken to jack breakwell and he said you may be able to help. What do you want. I walked towards the pile of logs to prevent a premature end to the conversation and feigned deafness.I am just on the toilet , I will be out in a minute. A rather rotund 85 year old man appeared from his outside toilet . bending slightly forward and dripping saliva from his lower lip he invited me to follow him into his kitchen and then the ajoining living room. Little more than 10 feet square with beams in the ceiling and brown and grubby looking wallpaper. He manouvered his way between the healthy open fire and the settee and invited me to take a seat on the single chair.Hi I am chasing up some old history to do with Sutton house. About how the breakwells got the house from Mr Patrick.He smiled knowingly and proud that he had a secret??ah well I?m not saying anything? ?no nothing? There stuff that cant be told???.

As much as 30 minutes were spent trying to tempt him to release some of his secrets.Well what makes you think that your granddad was married , he lowered his head and grinned widely as he toyed with the chance of throwing my fathers status into disrepute.

A whistle came from the station across the road followed by deep breaths from the departing steam train. It slowly gathered speed clanking and hissing as it rattled past the cottage some few yards away. The whole cottage seemed to resonate as though in some symbiotic response in an age old language. ?I guess you don?t hear the trains any more? ?There was a boy as well you know, a backward boy? ?do you know, I have heard that story before.I have heard of what in those days was called a ?bastard? boy? ?And who do you think the father was?? again he smiled like a cat with a quarry under his paw .Teasing he turned to look away slightly .I waited he turned back and looked at me and raised his eyebrows to tease my further guesses. ?my Grandad?? ?Mr Patrick ?? I said in a raised tone of disbelief ?now I am not telling?.?your joking I said smiling in amazement to flatter and tempt him to spill more.?And the mother was a Breakwell? Oh my god I realised that we are now talking blackmail , extortion.?tell me she wasn?t under age? ?No she was a married woman?. I tried yet more to find out her name but he was immovable.

?So what do you think happened to the will and deeds? He held out his arm with a tight upward facing fist ?Puff? he gestured as his hand opened directing to the open fire.?but you will not be able to prove anything?

I moved to try to temp him to write these memories down. ?I will not go to court and wont sign anything. If I did I would not be worth it. I would not be spoken to by anyone.?Just drop it, just drop it, let it lie? ?If you probe Mr Bebb , he will probe you?.?oh good? I replied retaliatory?he will over step his mark and that in itself would point to his guilt? ?The Bebbs are powerful people, his son is on the council?

The back door opened as a woman peered into the living room ?I have brought you some cakes?. ?You can go now? ?well thank you for your time, I only wish you would have been able to help, but thanks anyway? I shook his hand as my mind wandered back to him appearing from the toilet. I tried not to show my inner revulsion.

I let myself out .
Many nights were spent researching the net.I had to find a way to meet up with the cottage owners older brother who is currently in hospital for a new hip.I managed to find that Hampton Loade station had its own web page with a phone number .I wonder if I could get a number for William Bennet who apparently lives in the station building.

Tried to ring Chantal . Her 10 year old boy answered in a mature non committal fashion ?she?s not in .She should be back about 9, half nine , 10 ish?

Jack breakwell wished me luck tonight. He didn?t hold much hope for me apart from the fact that there wasn?t any written proof , but also there are few of the original breakwell line left and they would not be wealthy. He recalled passing the house and a very smart Bernard Bateman made him feel very scruffy with his own dad. He guessed that Bernard probably had a good job. He also felt relieved that he hadn?t stolen any of the fruit from the orchard now knowing that Mr Patrick was a retired Inspector.
Jack said that his father used to cut the hay at Sutton house and would be paid with a well cooked meal.

Tues 15 may 2007 – managed to find old maps online that showed the street where Emily worked as a servant in Rose Hill. It felt strangely atmospheric almost like we were there at that time in 1910. I almost felt an emotional connection not a shudder,not a cold draft, but an emptiness of someone you had just lost. That echo of them tinged with knowing they cannot speak nor could you hear.

Visited the graveyard at chelmarsh. Some of the grass mounds seemed surprisingly soft. It felt strange when I came across the grave of George and Jane the original pair that denied me my inheritance. A fleeting desire to jump hard and defiantly on their grave was suppressed .Well no good to them now is it.I wondered if they ever repented for the misery they must have caused him and his close family. ?And thy shall be done? it said on their headstone it sounded somewhat ruthless in the context of their lifestyle. Would a young Cuckoo have remorse when it ruthlessly evicted its fellow occupants denying them the right to inherit the wealth that their parents bring to them each day.

My parents met in France and France plays a big part in my life. They were both in the army in the great War of 1914.My father was a professional soldier who had gone to France on the first ship taking troops in August 1914 he was in the Army Ordnance and stationed in Calais where he worked on the clerical side of supplies until well into 1919. My mother Laura Patrick joined the army, the WAACs  as a clerical worker and was a member of his team.

By chance both of my parents had been schooled in France. My father  told me that his family had run out of money by the time he was needing education he was the youngest member of the family and his brothers had been sent to good Catholic public schools in England. He lived with a priest to learn French before entering the school and he told me that the priest gave him wine to drink. He blames this for the fact that he was a rather shorter than his brothers. In my childhood there were some words where the French came more naturally to him than the English word. My mother was sent to finishing school in Versailles. It was called the Institut Dudouit (Jeunes Filles). I have postcards showing the dining room with a huge crucifix between hearted palms and one of the classroom with many statues on the walls. She must have found being plunged straight into French for everything difficult but she evidently enjoyed the company of the other girls and I still have some postcards which they exchanged during the holidays one of them was from Austria. In my twenties I visited Paris and found the building was still there.

Her mother lived at five Church Street Eccles,  when she came home for the holidays she seems to have gone to Chelmarsh where her father had bought a house called Sutton House with 25 acres of land around it in 1909. This was also my first home. I lived there intil I was 8.

My Mother studied millinery and also works in the post office. My parents are married in 1923 and I was born in 1925 their marriage was made difficult by the dreadful relationship between my father and his mother-in-law my Grandmother was very bigoted against the Roman Catholic Church and this made life extremely difficult for the young couple.

My brother was born on 9 October in 1927 we both loved Sutton  House. We were very blessed in having lots of space to live and play in. The house had no modern conveniences, no running water, no electricity. There was a pump in the yard outside and we had to pump up and carry in all the water we needed. We had a great blackleaded stove on which to cook and heat water. A little tin bath was used for our baths filled with kettle fulls of hot water. There was a big kitchen with a large food proparation table and a dining room used not too frequently which contained a big square table and six have the beautiful chair is made of carved yellowwood with green leather seats. There was a sideboard with carved figures of women on either side of the doors and a mirror above. In the centre of the lower part were bookshelves containing two complete sets of all Dickens novels. There was a drawing room where I was not supposed to go by myself. But I did because in this room was my Grand father’s set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica , the 14th edition of 1928 all the volumes were in a bookcase tailored to fit them. It was my secret pleasure to go in and take out volumes and read articles in them in spite of the fact that I found them diffiicult to understand . Eventually I was to inherit this set but alas my Mother gave it away when I had left home and was living in Austria many years later.

As for lavatories there were of course none in the house. We used chamber pots in the bedrooms and wash stands for washing and an earth closet in the garden in the day with torn up newspaper.

We used paraffin lamps in the evenings and candles to light us to bed. Going up the stairs we passed a window through which I could see and owl in a tree. The bedrooms were pitch black which frightened me but we had nightlights to comfort us. My brother and I slept in an iron double bed my mother had us kneel down beside it to say the “Our father” and God bless Mummy and daddy”.

In spite of the lack of electricity we had a wireless. It was powered by an accumulator a sort of big battery. There was a bus once a week on saturday mornings to Bridgenorth and it went with us to be recharged. This gave us a chance to buy shoes and get haircuts and buy meat. My Lloyd the shoemaker was a friend of my great aunt Annie and we used to sit for a while talking  in his shop, then walking along the street my parents chatting to acqaintances who invariable greeeted me with “Haven’t you grown? I had indeed. Two years later at the age of 11 I had reached my full adult height and my Father was very proud of the fact that I was 9 inches taller than my two year younger brother.

Back in the house we could again listen to the wireless, it was so faint that we had to sit very close to hear it and we regularly heard Childrens’ Hour. My Father read our night stories to us .It was invariably a book of Dickens. We heard Oliver Twist, Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations among others in nightly instalments.

My father had been in the regular army since 1902   from it a week after I was born I am sure very reluctantly becuse he loved the life but he did so to be able to go to Sutton to help my grandfather who was getting old to look after his 25 acres of fields, an orchard, big garden, pigs, cows chickens and dairy . We made our own butter and drank our own milk and ate our own eggs and chickens.

My Father had always been occupied in administration and was not really fit to do the hard physical work needed to keep Sutton House going. His name features in Kellys directory as a small holder in the hamlet of Sutton in 1934. For my parents this was an incredibly hard time.He was 60 years old . It was the great depression. Few people could afford to buy the produce of the small holding and they sold black currants which they had grown and picked for half a penny a pound, similarly half a dozen eggs for a penny. Their only income was this and my Father’s pension for 23 years of army service. So my Father decided his health would not survive much longer as a small holder and he joined the Civil service to do clerical and executive work at the Ordnance depot in Didcot in Berkshire. He had to live as a lodger and away from us. I was about 8 at the time and wrote to him in his absences My news was about which flowers were coming out in the garden.

We lived a very isolated life as there were only two families in the hamlet of Sutton, our family and the Mottersheads who lived in the King’s Arms inn. There were no visits from other families, no other children to play with and no visiting except walking to see my great aunts in Billingsley. At the time we were happy to explore the fields and area around about us.

We had a few cows each one had a name such as one called Daisy in the dairy we made butter and sold some of the milk I remember seeing it in metal churns put by the roadside to be collected we also kept some pigs and chickens which supplied us with eggs, and once in a while a roasted chicken. In the orchard there with cherry trees and apple trees and purse so in the season we had plenty of fresh fruit there was a large kitchen garden which supplied vegetables and I can remember seeing rhubarb patches and asparagus growing.

Our diet was conditioned by what was available and by the extreme cold of winter and a hard active life which made fat foods both necessary and acceptable. We had bacon and eggs with fried bread sometimes for breakfast and my brother and I  had coddled eggs. These were put in our own little white china jars with chromium lids, they produced very digestible eggs.

My mother spent the morning cooking dinner which was eaten at midday when the adults were hungry after hours of physically demanding work. It was usually based on meat, potatoes and another vegetable and a pudding. The circumstances of our lives lead to a standardised menu we had roast beef or lamb or pork or chicken on Sunday the same meat was served cold on Monday which was traditionally the washday. The meat was hashed into rissoles on Tuesday, the meat for the rissoles was minced by passing it through a hand mincing machine which was screwed into position on the edge of the kitchen table. The meat was forced through a metal screw of a disk with several holes as the handle turned, forcing  them through a desk now as long round threads. Sometimes my mother made suet puddings filled with steak and kidney and occasionally we had rabbits and hares which had been shot by my grandfather.

A second course was always served and it was a pudding. The concept of and the word ‘desert’ was  not in use. It was natural that fresh milk being always available and dry goods storing well that rice, sago and tapioca pudding should appear frequently. In the autumn stewed apples and custard or plums, damsons and rhubarb came from the garden. Junkets were made  using more milk.

Sometimes my mother made pies the fruit was put in a rectangular enamelled date the dish with shortcrust pastry cover over the top.

Another special thing was an ice bucket in which very occasionally ice cream was made. Occasionally a lorry  came wooden crates were slung down and empties returned and we were left a case of Corona in large glass bottles with spring loaded porcelain stoppers fixed with a little metal bracelets containing lemonade orangeade and so forth. We love these fizzy drinks.

The only alcoholic drink was cider and that was not much used. We drank water with our meals and at other times  milk for the children and tea for the adults with cocoa or Ovaltine at night, coffee was not known in Sutton House. The men were virtually teetotallers out of frugal habit I think rather than conviction and it was not done for women, that is decent women, to drink in public houses.

We went to Chelmarsh village school where we walked every day, there was no other means of transport. the two things which stick in my memory from these walks are loving to break the ice in puddles along the road in winter and the sound of peewits (curtews) in the fields which we were passing.  My memories of this school are learning history about the stone age, having nature walks, being told to cross arms and put arms on them to rest on our desks and playing ball games in the playground.

We walked everywhere sometimes we went to the village of Billingsley to visit my great aunts Annie and Ada who lived in the family house at the Brickyard which my grandfather had owned and where they had all been brought up. They looked after a boy called Bertie who was ‘simple” he was gifted  in making wonderful models from cardboard which my brother and I admired I also remember the harmonium in their sitting room which I liked to play. Years later we returned to spend a summer holiday with our great aunts in 1939 when I was 13. My mother left us with them and returned  to Eccles. We spent a lot of time looking for eggs in the old brickyard buildings and looking at the ducks on the pond. I caught a trout with my hands in the little stream nearby: and we followed the tractor  cutting the corn and running round the field seeing the area of corner getting smaller and smaller and finally the rabbits and little animals which have been hiding having to run out and we raised after them. We made friends with two children at the Post office Dorothy and John Shrimpton. My Great aunts allowed me to make cakes, Victoria sponges mainly. One Sunday we were told to come in and listen to the wireless we heard Neville Chamberlain announcing that he had heard no reply from Adolf Hitler to his last offer and therefore we were at war with Germany. This was 3 September 1939. Just before we returned to Eccles I put my foot in a wasps’ nest and my foot and leg were consequently very swollen. I had to make the journey back to Eccles with a slipper on 1 foot.

We returned to find our schools had already been evacuated to Accrington in fact my school was in the next  village of Oswaldtwhistle. My mother who was a good pianist had somehow found a piano teacher to be my host and I lived with the family of Tom and Clarice Bridge and their son Geoffrey a little boy of three, during the time of the evacuation. I was very fortunate. Many hosts and children did not get on with each other. (I remained friends for life with this family. They made me welcome as a member of their family, we had good food and I was introduced to coffee made form beans a revelation as previoully I had only known it as liquid sold in a bottle.on Sunday mornings they took me for a walk up the hill to a ridge where we all enjoyed fresh air and excercise. I also had piano lessons from Mr Bridge.

We shared Paddock Housse School in Oswaldtwistle, run by the Sisters of Mercy. They had lessons in the morning and we had ours in the afternoons. Both schools having homework to occupy the other half day. It worked reasonably well.

By an extraordinary coincidence I returned to this school for my fisst teaching job. the headmistress Sister Mary Anthony asked the Principal of my teacher training college if she had a history graduate and I was summoned to see if I would be interested to go and teach their 6th form.

Our evacuation was very shortlived . It lasted only one term, this period became known as the phony war as nothing much happened. My school, called Adelphi House, in Salford decided that we would stay there. During the Christmas holidays the war really began with intense bombings of London and Manchester. My friend Bob Churchhouse reminded me a week ago that it is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Gilda Brook Road where my family lived. A land mine dropped on a house in the road. some people were killed, we were fortunate that only our windows were smashed.

In the years that followed there were frequent air raid alarms and we were woken by out parents and made to get up in the night and go down into the cellar. I was most reluctant as I was very tired after the day’s school work but I had to go. Luckily I had a device which helped to make the time pass more placidly in the cellar. I took my portable gramophone down there and played records most of them were Chopin Nocturnes played by the Australian pianist Eileen Joyce. They were extraordinarily soothing and peaceful to listen to. Even today if one is played on the radiio my mind is taken back to that time.

DIDCOT

When I was eight or nine years old my father managed to buy a house in Didcot. It was three Hayden Road a newly built semi detached house. So we had to leave Sutton house, my brother and I were very sad to do so we have loved our first known home.

It was very different for my mother who was happy to get a new house of her own and to be try to create a family life in the more normal way.

Tehran

Kuwait