30 November 1921
My Own Darling little Sweetheart of Old,
Oh, Ally darling, if you only knew what I am suffering, you would never have let me go through this. I cannot realise it all yet, dearest, and what it means to me, and to think it is all true. This will be my first of many nights in agonizing torture of mind, without any possible chance of sleep. It is driving me crazy. Any way I might express myself tonight in this letter is only one quarter of what I feel as words won’t express my feelings, but I shall make a feeble attempt nonetheless.
Ally my own, I am going to make one last pathetic appeal to you now, and for the sake of my sacred love towards you my own ‘little chicken’, do please listen to me. First of all, sweetheart, I love you to death itself, and honestly, I would go through hell itself to have one last small chance of winning you back. My cup is full of bitterness to think that it is really my own fault — that I had you, and so to speak, let you slip through my fingers. Yes Ally, I know that you had every right to wonder whether I was really in earnest, but I was, and I realise it fully now. I know I have been away so long, but I will be home soon.
Somehow your precious nature always made me turn to you, and now that is gone, I have only a dead world to face. Perhaps it was the unhappy relations that existed once between you and my people that has influenced your mind most. Our love for each other has been too great to think anything else, but that state (with my family) has passed long ago, although you may not think it. I have unfortunately, and bitterly so, been lax on that point. But sweetheart I promise you that I would become engaged to you tomorrow if you will only let me, and what is more, with the full consent of my people. If it is a case of your lifelong happiness, surely it is not too late. Ally, just think of the happy times we have had together during the last three years. Do you mean to say we could not have any more such as those? So think about that and your promise to me before I left. If you …
The letter was unfinished and never sent; Jaime often wondered whether it would have changed anything, had Ally received it.
It was now December and soon Jaime would be returning to Australia. He bid an emotional farewell to Agapito and his family and headed to Toulon in Southern France to spend a few days on the Côte d’Azur. Just prior to Christmas, he boarded the Ormonde in Toulon, bound for Australia. Christmas and New Year were spent on board, and although the voyage and ports of call were extremely interesting and enjoyable, his heart still bled for Ally. Jaime arrived home on 1 February 1922. He had been gone for nearly two years.
FOOTNOTES
1 St Abbs at 33 York Street, Mont Albert, still stands although on much smaller grounds. The cork tree that Antonio San Miguel planted was eventually ruined by possums and cut down by the current owners in the mid 1990s. Finding St Abbs was also a detective game. My research assistant, Jo Simmons and I went to York Street in May of 2012. I had been shown St Abbs as a little girl, but had only a vague memory of the property. We had no luck and returned a week later, as after more research we had found the street number. Jo convinced me to ring the doorbell, and after much trepidation, we did just that! After introducing myself to the owner, she knew the history of the home (and the San Miguels) and invited us back for a tour. This too was a remarkable experience.
2 Mr John Lothian came out from Scotland in 1890 as a publisher’s representative for English and Scottish books. By about 1900 he had set up his own firm, Lothian Book Publishing Co. He purchased the property in 1898 and named the house after St. Abbs Head, on the east coast of Scotland near Edinburgh. In 1924, the original 3.5 acre property came up for sale again, and Thomas Carlyle Lothian, now the director of Lothian Publishers, bought back the family home. Thomas, his wife Effie, his three sons and two daughters, were to live at St Abbs for fifty years. The publishing company still exists today, having been run by John’s son Thomas after his retirement. His great-grandson Peter is now the director of Lothians.
3 Surrey Hills and Mont Albert in Melbourne are both twelve kilometres east of Melbourne’s Central Business District. They are virtually the same suburb, so in the electoral rolls, St Abbs and other properties the San Miguels lived in are either listed as Mont Albert or Surrey Hills.
4 In January of 1908 an advertisement was placed in the Perth Sunday Times: An excellent opportunity to a money-making and established business is now before the public. A goldfields brewery, showing profits averaging £2500 per year is for sale on easy terms. Full particulars from Mr. F.A. Henriques of King St or Mr Harrison of Murray Street. On 15 February 1909, the business was sold to Joseph Duffell of Perth, who for the past four years had controlled the management of Harrison, San Miguel in Perth.
5 Now buried in the San Miguel crypt at Box Hill Cemetery is Antonio and Rebecca (Birdie) San Miguel, Lionel San Miguel, and Jaime San Miguel. I will be buried next to my father when the time comes. Close by in the Church of England section are the graves of James Albon Senior and his daughter Grace Albon. The Surrey Hills Historical Society takes tourists on a tour of the cemetery and one of the highlights is the San Miguel crypt and the nearby graves of the Parer family.
6 In the late 1920s, The Coca-Cola Company was well established in the US. Coca-Cola did not come to Australia until 1937, when a Perth company became the distributor.
During Jaime’s absence, his older brother, Tony, had been setting up a business and asked Jaime to be involved. Tony had married Muriel Hay Robison in 1916 and they already had one child, Richard John, and on 22 August 1922, Elizabeth (Betty) was born. They lived at a home, Riccarton , in York Street, Mont Albert, a few houses down from St Abbs, and eventually moved to a flat at Bluff Mansions in Barkly Street, St.Kilda. It was here on 22 January, just prior to Jaime’s return, that a thief broke in while the family were at lunch, stealing jewellery worth £100.
Although Antonio’s estate had been left to his wife, Birdie, she was generous with money for her family, and gave Tony the funds to begin the business. She had hoped one of her sons would be involved in her late husband’s companies, but they all chose different fields. Antonio had created a dynasty of businesses, which his associates all benefited from. The Ajax Tyre and Denby Truck Agencies suited Jaime from the experience he’d had in America with General Motors. They represented a number of tyre and truck companies, and were involved in the importation of tyres and parts. In 1923 they set up the Melbourne Suburban Bus Company, which ran Denby buses from the city to Middle Brighton. Later that year Tony took his family on a trip to Europe, and visited the Ferrans in Alella. The bus company became a public company and on Monday 14 July 1924, they put a block advertisement in the Argus newspaper, offering 100,000 shares of one pound each, with a nominal capital of £100,000. The secretary was listed as Charles Fitzherbert-Howson, who married their sister, Francisca, at Our Redeemer’s Church in Surrey Hills on 15 August 1922.
Lionel San Miguel designed a two-housed estate, Montalegre , situated on the corner of Mont Albert and Balwyn Roads, Mont Albert, for his mother . St Abbs was sold on 8 August 1922 to Martin George Brown of Studley Avenue, Kew, for £1850. The family, apart from Tony and Francisca, moved into Montalegre shortly afterwards. Lionel had installed a secret panel in the drawing room, where Birdie kept her jewellery, personal papers, cash, and a replica pistol. One morning after hearing a noise she spotted a burglar climbing in through an open window. As he made his way into another room, Birdie closed the window and retrieved the pistol from the panel, and confronted the hapless thief. By this time her housekeeper had appeared and Birdie instructed her to telephone the police, who
