the San Francisco YWCA’s magazine, one of whose editors she was. It is entitled ‘Fifteen hundred miles on the Yangtse Kiang.’ In it she writes:
Much of the charm of China lies in the mediaeval walls which enclose so many of the cities, the gates of which are closed at sunset and opened at sunrise, with the noisy beating of tom-toms and gongs.
And she goes on to say:
In the interior of China, things are now exactly as they must have been in the time of Marco Polo, and everything seems age-old. As we neared Chunking in the province of Szechuan, we were almost in sight of the Tibetan Hills, as they call the Himalayas. In Chungking one goes about in chairs carried by four bearers. There are no streets or roads, only paths, and miles of crowded stone steps. It is bewildering to have the coolies run up a steep flight of steps, with you almost falling out of the chair backwards on your head. The flowers of Szechuan are lovely, and golden pheasants lend color to the landscape.
Alice’s interest in the Far East had already begun with her friendship with Suzu Numano, the wife of Yasutaro, the extremely handsome, Spanish-looking Consul-General of Japan. They gave wonderful parties, at which Suzu sang fascinating old traditional Japanese songs, accompanying herself on the koto, the long horizontal plucked instrument with a harp- like tone whose place in the Japanese upper-class home is like that of the parlour piano in the West. It was at one of the Numanos’ parties that Alice met Opal, a talented pianist from Texas who was studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Alice thought Opal Perkins would be just the right girl for her favourite youngest brother Stanley, so she invited her home to meet him, and to her great joy, they fell for each other and ended up getting married! Opal was a fine pianist, and often played with the city’s leading string quartet. It was thanks to her that I studied in later years with the French composer Darius Milhaud.
Alice had become interested in Chinese art, and later when she was left some money, she thought she would use it to go back to China to study. Her hidebound elder brother Henry, however, tried very hard to stop her. ‘You’re forty,’ he said, ‘and you’re obviously not going to get married, so you must put that money in the bank so that you will have something to support you in your old age.’
But Alice persisted, and her Christian Science practitioner not only prayed that God would guide her, but he also asked an American couple he knew in Yokohama to meet her ship when it stopped there for three days en route to Shanghai. The kind couple were waiting at the pier when the ship arrived, and took Alice for a drive to show her the sights, including Yokohama’s Sankei-en, the beautiful park whose name means ‘Garden of Three Glens’. On the way back, via Zenma village in Isogo on the town’s outskirts, they approached a small Western-style house, and the husband said: ‘It’s tea-time, and Mr Britton’s an Englishman. Maybe he’ll give us a cup of tea!’
‘Mr Britton’ not only gave them a cup of tea, but it was love at first sight! He had a delightful little garden, and Mother told me that when she greatly admired a bed of Canterbury Bells, he started to pick her some, then realized it had rained and they would be muddy. But Alice said ‘Oh, that’s alright, I’ll wash them,’ which touched him deeply. Frank and Alice had much in common. They were both amateur musicians, loved travel, and had read lots of the same travel books, and were getting along so famously that the couple, who lived up on The Bluff, invited Frank to join them for dinner, after which they all had fun around the piano singing while Alice played the accompaniments.
Next day was Sunday and Frank invited Alice to go for a drive to Kamakura. While they picnicked, he proposed – having known her only four hours! And before the ship sailed for Shanghai two days later, she said ‘Yes’!
Alice had to go on to Shanghai, not only because of her luggage on board, but she had been commissioned by Gumps, the well-known San Francisco gifts and home décor store, to buy some Chinese artifacts for them, and so she was obliged to carry out at least some of that commission. The early twentieth-century Chinese rosewood set of quartetto tables here in Hayama in my drawing-room, were bought by her for her new home at the same time!
Besides that, Alice had been invited to spend some time in Shanghai with her childhood friend from Alameda days, Ruth Shreve, whose husband, Benjamin Haile, was there as manager for the Far East of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. When they found she was to be married, and after Frank duly arrived, they arranged for it to take place in the English cathedral on 15 July 1920, after first registering the marriage at the British Consulate. After the service Ruth strewed white gardenia petals in front of the pair as they came down the cathedral aisle. ‘It was beautiful,’ wrote Alice as well as describing the lovely reception given to them by the Hailes. When Frank and Alice returned together to Yokohama, and Alice’s elder brother heard the news, he cabled his sister: ‘Have you lost your mind? Marrying a foreigner in a heathen land!’ But to Alice, it was a dream marriage, in a fairytale land.
CHAPTER 3
My Father
FRANK GUYVER BRITTON was born on 10 May 1879 in Liverpool, but moved quite soon to Elmdon, near Thaxted in Essex, when his father John inherited the family inn with a farm. Frank thrived amid the beautiful natural surroundings, happily climbing trees and collecting bird’s eggs. But his real love was music. As a very small boy he helped the organist at church by working the bellows, in the course of which he managed to work out how to play the instrument, and by the age of twelve he was regularly filling in for the organist.
Frank was only about ten when his mother ‘Lizzie’ died. Elizabeth Sarah was one of the three Daniels sisters of Littleton Drew in Wiltshire, a beautiful town in the lovely green English countryside. But her elder sister Amelia Jane (‘Millie’) decided that living in a country inn that was also a public house, with a yeoman farmer father who probably drank heavily and certainly disapproved of Frank’s cultural bent, was no place for her talented young nephew so she took him off to London.
Millie Daniels was married to Alfred James Bannister, whose ancestor Captain Samuel Wallis RN, of Corsham Court, near Bath, discovered Tahiti in 1767. Alfred Bannister, artist and calligrapher, was an important influence on Frank’s upbringing. Alfred was the son of a cellist and member of the Sacred Harmonic Society, who had sung in the first performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah at the Exeter Hall in London, conducted by the composer himself. Their house in Sydenham, south-east London, near Crystal Palace, had a fine library. Frank devoured the books and set about learning to play Alfred’s father’s cello that stood in one corner, as well as the piano which was also there. It was an environment much to his liking. As a child in the organ loft in Elmdon Frank had been intrigued by the mechanics of the instrument, and it was not long before he took the piano apart in Sydenham and taught himself how to tune it. He graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1904 from the City College of London, and later became a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institute of Metals.
Frank enjoyed books on history, exploration and travel, and was intrigued by what he learned about Japan, especially about William Adams, the first Englishman in Japan. When he heard that the Japanese Shipping line NYK (Nippon Yusen Kaisha) was looking for engineers, he decided to try his luck with them. The Russo-Japanese War was in full swing, which whetted his youthful eagerness for adventure.
He set sail for Japan in the Sado Maru in 1904, via the Cape of Good Hope, under sealed orders. Captain O.A. Cowin, its skipper, became a dear friend and later my godfather, though I never met him. The Chief Engineer was also an Englishman, by the name of Kerr. But when they reached the port of Shimonoseki in Japan, Frank was transferred to the Shinano Maru as Chief Engineer. The skipper was Captain John Salter. Frank was lucky to have left the Sado Maru, for she was torpedoed the very next day. Kerr and three other British officers were
