The Savery Sisters - Children of the vicarage
A little over one hundred years ago the Savery sisters, Winifred, Doreen, Christine, Phyllis, and Irene, posed for a seaside snapshot. Their father, Rev. John Manly Savery, had exchanged livings at that time, leaving the flowering countryside of Froxfield in Wiltshire for a Birmingham parish, where there was a sooty garden but better schools and, presumably, an extra shilling or two at month's end.
Left: The Savery sisters, Winifred, Doreen, Christine, Phyllis, and Irene, as neatly haloed as a fond parent could wish (about 1906)
Even so, times were hard, and the oldest daughter, Winifred, wrote an unpublished account of how the fire was set ablaze in the hearth and the girls dressed in church finery for a visit from the bishop's wife. When the visitor sent word that she would not be there, the fire was raked out to save coal, the Sunday dresses were hung up again, and a special treat (oranges to be sucked through sugar cubes) was distributed. Inevitably, the distinguished visitor arrived after all to be greeted by sticky girls in a chilly parlour!