Frequently, she was my guide and mentor. Frequently, she led me up the garden path! In some matters I turned more to my younger sister for advice than I did to my mother, and much more, indeed, than I ever turned to my father…It was around this time that, once again bewildered, I turned to Margaret. I had noticed several little hairs sprouting in my armpits. I don’t think I had bothered, or even thought of, checking lower down. ‘Don’t worry too much,’ she said…‘Well, not just yet. But if you see any growing on your hands, you’ll know you are turning into a monkey. Make sure you let me know when that happens so I can have a look.’ As always, I believed her. It’s all grist to a writer’s mill. I use this fragment in my novel I Hate My Brother Maxwell Potter! This fragment, along with a few other gems of the wisdom she imparted to me in my pre-pubescent years. There are distinct similarities between my sister and Great-Aunt Emma.

Back to the story of Mrs Hamilton-Reeves.

In recent years I have done a little digging on this part of my family, along with my cousin, Gay Buchanan. Gay has made frequent trips to Israel, where she for a time managed an Anglican guesthouse in Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims to the country eager to visit biblical sites. I asked her if she realized we had some Jewish ancestry of our own. This interested her both from the aspect of knowing more about our background and, equally important to her, if we did have Jewish blood it just might make her access to Israel significantly easier, regardless of whether we had all ended up Christian or not. We did some research.

All I knew of this had come from my parents. Emma Reeves had come from a London family of merchants. She had been born Emma, the second daughter of George Henry and Emma Matilda Blake. She married in 1869. Clearly a family of substance, both the Blake daughters married at St Margaret’s, Westminster. Not quite a synagogue. Mind you, Jewish families often apostatized—often for very good reasons, frequently for physical survival! Similarly, surnames were frequently anglicized.

Emma had not married a Mr Hamilton at all. God knows how he entered the story. She married a Mr Collins—whether from the publishing firm or not is not known—and had a relatively long marriage when compared with that of the family legend. Mr Collins lasted for six weeks before losing his life. Emma Collins endured widowhood in London for a few months before her sea voyage to Australia in 1871 on the ship La Hague. It was quite likely she was chaperoned. Lady Collins? Who knows? May have been an aunt by marriage or other family connection. She married Francis Reeves in Sydney, 1872. This is where the plot meanders well off-course.

Among my father’s papers, quite accidentally and quite recently, I came across the marriage certificate of Emma and Francis. The bride is detailed as ‘Emma Norris. Spinster’.