I have managed to take some photographs which are relevant to my blog.  They are of the poetry books and the wicker box that they were stored in and a sample of her handwriting. I also remembered that Auntie Babs wrote lyrics for songs and some were used by a well known composer in the late 1800s/early 1900s by the name of Guy D’Hardelot.

Interestingly Guy d’Hardelot (Aug 1858 – Jan 1936) was the pen name for Helen Guy, a French composer, pianist and teacher, who also composed the music to the song “Because” made famous by Mario Lanza.  She moved to London from a village called d’Hardelot in France.  My understanding is that Auntie Babs knew her personally.

I have the original copy of d’Hardelot’s “In England Now”,  composed in 1914,  and I have managed to take a photo of it showing clearly that the words were by Beatrice Helen Poole Her elder brother Frederick Victor Poole (known as Victor) was a very talented artist.  It is my deepest regret that I have no photographs of Auntie Babs as my late mother in law Mary Poole may not have kept them, but I do have a much cherished piece of music which Victor Poole gave to his younger sister Babs on April 3rd 1916 (her 39th birthday and I have taken a photo.  Babs told me that Victor was her favourite older brother, and she adored him. She called him an unrecognised genius and wrote a poem about him.  I will be including that later in my blogs.  Evidently he took a portrait drawing of his sister to Chappell and Co, music publishers and asked to have the song dedicated to her with her portrait and name on the front, together with her birth date.  The song is “A Little Love, A Little Kiss”, music by Lao Silesu, lyrics by Adrian Ross. I actually know the song well and have sung it at Old Time Music concerts. I will post a photograph of The Tudor House in Southampton as it is now in my next blog.

Today’s poem was, I thought, appropriate as I am talking about her love of writing song lyrics.

“I Have A Song Within My Heart”  

I have a song within my heart
That I shall never sing
I cannot put it into words
The sweet illusive thing

‘Tis ever knocking at my heart
Importunate and wild
And oh I often weep for it
The poor imprisoned child

In nature’s myriad voices
I sometimes seem to hear
Some note of my unwritten song
In echoes far and near

I hear it in the wind’s wild voice
As it soars among the trees
Or whispers through the rushes
Its plaintive melodies

And when the blackbird’s singing in
The greenwood’s leafy aisle
And spring is gladdening all things
With her bewitching smile

I hear it, oh I hear it
In the sea’s great lusty roar
As it rushes in wild splendour
Far up the wind swept shore.

Beatrice Helen Poole
1914.

More next time.  I am really enjoying this.  All this work is for my daughter Katy, and grandchildren Brody and Leyla who are direct descendants of the Poole family from The Tudor House, Southampton.  Auntie Babs would be their great, great, great Auntie, and she would have loved them.