On 9 September 1916 at Bovey Tracey in Devon, Lieutenant John C. Leach married Miss Evelyn Burrell Lee, the only daughter of Richard Henry Lee, master of Yarner, his nearby magical country estate. When they commenced their life together, the end of the First World War was still over two years away. At the beginning and at the end, their marriage would be under the clouds of war. Notwithstanding two world wars separated by a tenuous peace, their marriage would be a joy to both of them, to their two sons and to everyone who knew them.
Lieutenant Leach had clearly given some thought to his choice of best man at his wedding. His first choice could not, however, accept the honour because he was at sea. His second choice was rather a surprise, a French teacher at Dartmouth called Percy Bashford. Subsequently, Bashford never had a significant place in Leach’s life but went on to marry the widow of Sir Arthur Sullivan, who with Sir William Gilbert established the distinctive English form of the operetta including HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance.
In the midst of a war which allowed only a brief leave of absence, the young couple’s decision to have a small wedding was almost made for them. Had they married in peacetime, quite a few of Leach’s Royal Navy friends would have been present. In the event Lieutenant Leach’s fellow officers from the gun room of HMS Erin presented the bride and groom with a gift that they would cherish for the rest of their lives, a silver salver.
The link between this silver salver and the Royal Navy continues to the present day. Through the generosity of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Henry Leach and his late wife, Mary, it has been made into the ‘HMS Nottingham Man of the Year Plate.’ Nottingham is a Type 42 destroyer. Each year this plate is awarded to the member of the ship’s company who in the previous twelve months has consistently performed beyond the call of duty.
The home that Richard H. Lee purchased just before the Great War
… is a Grade II listed seventeenth-century building but its origins are much older. The Devon Place Names book gives the place name Yarner as deriving from the old English [i.e. Anglo Saxon] for eagle bank or slope. It appears in the Patent Rolls of 1344 as Yarnuor/Yarnouere and in the Court Rolls of 1399 as Yarner.22
When Lieutenant Leach and his bride first made Yarner their home it consisted of 4 acres of gardens, 60 acres of farmland, and 800 acres of wood. The structures included the main house with walls four feet thick in places, ‘priest holes’ half way up the chimneys, battlements near the roof line and a slate roof. Behind the house were a large stable area and a coach house leading to farm buildings and a large garage.
In future years Evelyn and John would create their favourite garden, a water garden. The house, which had been built halfway up a steep hill, faced northeast. Even in the summer it never got full sun and was, therefore, deliciously cool. They had a magnificent view to the northeast toward Exeter and from the moor above their home they had an equally splendid view to the southeast toward Torquay.
There is a fine description of Yarner written after John and Evelyn’s children were born.
The outdoor staff included a cowman, woodman, chauffeur, gamekeeper and gardeners. The chauffeur, Jack Shepherd, married a local girl and lived at Pottery Road. He is particularly remembered for keeping the cars immaculate and taking the boys of the family fishing … Another character from the outside staff was Mr Heathman, the head gardener. Described as a quiet man who wore glasses, he had a glass eye that constantly dropped out, necessitating a search amongst the plants. Consequently his colleagues called him Winkie … Mr and Mrs Lee’s daughter, Evelyn, married Captain John Catterall Leach RN. When Mr Lee died Mrs Leach and her mother stayed on, with Mrs Lee having responsibility for the house and Evelyn Leach for the garden, which was her pride and joy. The acid soil of the garden encouraged rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolia and primulas. There was also a rose garden and herbaceous borders. The rock and water gardens were of local granite and the huge specimen trees were a feature, including a copper beech by the rock garden and a Scots pine in the centre of the lawn. In the kitchen garden was a mix of soft fruit and vegetables. Around the walls were apple trees.23
Yarner offered superb opportunities for fly fishing that John had seldom enjoyed before. It encompassed a mile-and-a-half of river front along the Bovey where he could fish for trout. John was also attracted by the gardens. In time he would become a keen gardener.
In the early years of their marriage the couple lost a child in infancy. They were then blessed with two healthy baby boys, Roger Lee Leach, born 10 December 1919, and Henry Conyers Leach, born 18 November 1923. They lost another baby only a few years later. For both boys Yarner was an extremely happy home, yet it must be said that after losing her first child, Evelyn was inclined to be overly protective toward her next child, Roger. For John and Evelyn, Yarner would be their only home during their 25 years of marriage.
From 1923 to 1925 Leach was mostly absent from home. He was then a full lieutenant and the fleet gunnery officer in HMS Calcutta, a light cruiser later converted into an anti-aircraft ship. She was the flagship of the America and West Indies Station and her home port was Bermuda. This gave rise to a grand adventure for the whole Leach family when they all moved to Bermuda. No cars were allowed on the island and the summer temperatures discouraged them from taking long walks. In order to provide transportation for his family Lieutenant Leach arranged for a carriage and team of horses to be shipped out from Yarner. Apparently the horses did not mind the heat. Shortly after the Leach family returned to Yarner, Andrew Browne Cunningham, later Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope, became Captain of the Calcutta. In May 1926 he took the re-commissioned ship and new ship’s company to Bermuda. He has left a candid picture of the social life of Bermuda, which the Leach family had experienced only a few months earlier.
On arriving at Bermuda we berthed inside the dockyard. I reported myself to the Commander-in-Chief, Vice Admiral Sir James Fergusson, and made the acquaintance of his wife and four daughters … The weeks passed pleasantly enough with dinner parties at Admiralty House and Government House, but most pleasantly of all were the supper parties in the grounds of Admiralty House with Lady Fergusson and her daughters, while the Admiral had a stag party. We used to spread out our meal near the gravestone of one Francis, a midshipman, whom rumour said had been knifed by the Admiralty House butler in the early nineteenth century for undue familiarity with a housemaid.24
There would be only two other occasions when Evelyn joined her husband in a foreign duty station. In 1933 or 1934 she went out to be with her husband in Malta, which was the home port of the Mediterranean Fleet. Malta was even hotter year round than Bermuda. In the mid 1930s she spent a year in the Far East (together with Roger) in order to be near her husband, who then commanded the heavy cruiser HMS Cumberland on the China Station. She and her son resided in the British community of Wei-Hai-Wei, a delectable little island on the north side of the Shantung Promontory. With its fine natural harbour it had been an important British naval base for over 30 years. In 1930 the British voluntarily surrendered their lease, but the Royal Navy continued to make it a port of call until late in 1938 when it was seized by the Japanese. After 1930 Wei-Hai-Wei retained its British colonial atmosphere with a club, a hospital and comfortable living quarters.
Wherever she was Evelyn found the social aspects of Navy life pleasant and rewarding; however, she was never content with an endless round of cocktail parties. She devoted much time and effort in helping the wives of junior officers who were experiencing difficulties, frequently visiting those who were confined to hospital, actions which won her the love and respect of her contemporaries. At home with the boys she was a strict but scrupulously fair disciplinarian. Her younger son recalls that ‘if Mummy says it is, it is, even if it isn’t.’
Before the outbreak of the Second World War the family would take their summer holiday at a tiny seaside resort on the north coast of Cornwall called Polzeath. Roger and Henry were then old enough to amuse themselves; their mother may have been a bit lonely. Most summers her husband was only able to join them for the odd weekend. Evelyn knew how much her husband loved to take their boys fishing and she greatly encouraged these all too infrequent outings. Their favourite river was the nearby Dart. The threesome would leave Yarner in the late afternoon and often enjoyed ‘the Spitchwick Water’ of a late summer evening. Starting about 18.00 they would fish (never with success when it came to salmon) for a couple of hours. Then they would wait for darkness during which time they had a picnic supper. When the bats came out and they could no longer see their flies, they took up their prime positions on Webburn Pool where the River Webburn, a tributary, runs into the Dart. There they would fish for sea trout, known to the locals as Peal, using 9-foot rods and light tackle. Around 23.00 the fish seemed to go to bed and the three of them would then head back to Yarner, tired but happy. Once young Henry landed a beautiful 5-pounder, a thrill he still remembers.
Evelyn Burrell Lee Leach was a lady of substance who played a vital role in her husband’s life and in the lives of her two boys, the younger of whom has written of his mother:
I was blessed with exceptional parents to whom I was devoted – more so than I realised at the age of ten. They had married young and there could not have been a more devoted couple; twenty years later they might have been thought to be on their honeymoon. Home [Yarner] on the edge of Dartmoor near the village of Bovey Tracey, was a very happy place.
Mother was beautiful with raven black hair, a lovely neck and clear grey eyes set in a rounded face above a humorous mouth. She was highly intelligent, soft-spoken and very strict, but always scrupulously fair, so that I knew exactly where I stood; a brilliant organiser, resolutely determined and with a bubbling sense of humour and appreciation of the ridiculous. She herself had a strong streak of naughtiness and was always game for a bit of fun. She had the guts of ten and little would stop her in the particular pursuit of the moment – especially if she knew she was right (as she normally thought she was!).25
The life of the wife of a Royal Navy officer has never been easy. For Evelyn her husband’s naval career meant long separations when he was at sea, modest pay for most of his career, infrequent wartime leaves, and finally, tragedy. Yet, there was never a time when she asked him to resign the King’s Commission and take up a new vocation that would involve fewer separations and less danger. Throughout their marriage she was a valiant companion.