Sid was born 7th April 1913 in Whiddon Down, Devon, to Isaac 'Harry' Harwood Vernon (44), an agricultural labourer and farm carter, and Ellen Vernon (nee Tonkins) (37), a former domestic servant and now a housewife.
Sid had four older half siblings (one half sister and three half brothers) - the children of his father Harry and his first wife Lucy James - :
- Edith Ellen 1891 - 1971 (79)
- Walter Charles 1892 - 1965 (73)
- William John 1894 - ???? (?)
- Frank 1896 - 19?? (?)
And nine full siblings (seven brothers and two sisters):
- Frederick 'Fred' (born Tonkins, later Vernon) 1897 - 1915 (18)
- Mabel Ellen 1898 - 1993 (94)
- George 1900 - 1900 (0 - 3 months)
- George Henry 1901 - 1973 (71)
- Ernest Isaac 1904 - 1997 (93)
- Isaac Harry (went by Henry) 1906 - 1964 (58)
- William Harwood 1908 - 1972 (64)
- Florence Emily 1911 - 1993 (82)
- Sidney 'Sid' 1913 - 2004 (91)
- Percy 1915 - 2002 (86)
Around 1912 to 1915, the family lived at Turnpike Gate or Toll Bar House in Whiddon Down. A toll-house, which often had a gate across the turnpike road, was a cottage on which the charges for turnpike were often displayed. Sid and his younger brother Percy were both born at this house.
Sid was born with a clubbed foot. And was one of the first person in the South West to have a certain operation related to it. Due to his clubbed foot, he did not have to fight in the Second World War.
Sid was only a baby, when the First World began. His older half brother Walter and older brother Fred both served in the war. Whilst Walter, an experienced soldier, survived; teenage Fred was not so lucky. He was killed on Thursday 30th September 1915, during (or just after) the Battle of Loos, aged only eighteen. His name appears on the Men of Dunsford war memorial.
Later in life, Sid and Percy recalled the family lived between Bow and Down St Mary, around 1919. Sid remembered that, whilst the family lived there, their father would often send Florence and himself (about eight and six at the time) into Bow to get cider and tobacco for him.
By 1922, the family had moved to Westwood, between Exeter and Cullompton.
In Apr/May/Jun 1936, Sid (about 23) married Vera Louisa Hurved (18 or 19), in the district of Tiverton.
1939 Census:
I recall being told a story by my father: that in the Second World War, Sid's house (or the house next to it) was hit by a bomb. Sid survived, because he hid under the dining room table (which may well have been a Morrison shelter).
Sid and Vera had one surviving son:
- Roger J K 1948 -
Speaking with Roger in 2019, he sadly reported that his mother had alas suffered many miscarriages and/or stillbirths. For this reason, he was cherished by her the more.
Roger told us how, when was very young, Sid abandoned his wife and son, and soon sought a divorce. A shocked and saddened Vera was left to bring up their son, with support from her side of the family. Meeting my father and me in 2019, was the first time Roger had met any members of his father's side of the family.
Yet, when my father had done family research in the 1990's, the story he was told was that Roger's birth was the result of an affair, and that was why Sid sought a divorce. Speaking with Roger, getting his side of the story, and learning of his mother's soft-hearted personality, of her heartbreak at the break-up of her marriage, of her not remarrying but putting all her efforts into bringing up her one surviving child, of the sigma endured by her at being a divorced woman with a child; the Vernon side of the story seems the more unlikely and perhaps more of a cover up by Sid for his own actions.
Still that a divorce was granted meant there was deemed sufficient evidence of one or other party having committed adultery, cruelty, desertion (of at least two years) and/or having incurable insanity (such were the only reasons one could be granted a divorce before the Divorce Reform Act of 1969).
After his divorce, Sid soon remarried. In Oct/Nov/Dec 1951, Sid (38) married London-born Eva Fanny Midmore Hurcum (about 29), in Exeter.
Sid and Eva had two daughters:
- Linda W 1953 -
- Vanessa A 1961 -
Both daughters were born in Exeter, but the family at some point relocated to Exmouth. They lived there into old age.
At some point, Roger recalled the couple ran a fish and chip shop in the town, which he visited once or twice.
When my father began conducting his own family tree research in the 1990's, he paid a visit, along with my mother and myself as a baby, to his Great Half Uncle. A photograph taken that day, of myself as a baby held by an elderly Sid was the only photograph we had of him; but talking to Roger and learning he didn't have a single photograph of his father, and his earnestly asking if we had one, of course my father and I agreed he should have it.
My parents, my sister and myself moved to Exmouth in the summer of 2003. Along with our childminder, and the other minded kids, my sister and I would daily walk down the hill, on which an elderly Sid and Eva lived, on our way to primary school. As I walked, I would often look to the house.
In Oct/Nov/Dec 2004, Sid passed away, aged ninety-one, in Exmouth.
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