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Cynthia, the only daughter of Humphrey and Kathleen Alers Hankey, was born in Durban on 5 Jul 1914. She was the third generation, through the female line, to be born in South Africa. She was brought up in Johannesburg and, from the age of about 16, in Cape Town, where she attended Herschell School in Claremont. She later went to Southover Manor School in Lewes, Sussex.
Richard and Cynthia, 1933
In the Cape, Cynthia enjoyed a dazzling social life to the full, continuing to enjoy annual trips to England on the Union Castle. It was in 1933, aged barely 19, that she met Richard, a handsome Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, then serving as navigator of the sloop Rochester on the Africa station. Cynthia was unsurprisingly swept off her feet, to the chagrin of her many admirers. What an amazingly handsome couple they made. They were married in London the following year, on 4 Aug 1934 at St Peter’s, Eaton Square.
Cynthia moved to England, settling down as a young naval wife and learning the rudiments of cooking and housekeeping, but it was in Cape Town that her son Simon (the author of this family history) was born in March 1936. Richard first saw his son through a porthole of the Edinburgh Castle on its arrival at Southampton on 29 Jun 1936. Already Richard’s duties required his prolonged absence, and his wartime postings on Belfast and Illustrious and in Malta were dangerous and worrying. In 1940 Cynthia took a house in Greywell, near Odiham, and it was there that Camilla was born.
After Richard’s retirement from the Navy, they lived in Thursley and in Crondall, before eventually returning to Odiham. In each of these houses Cynthia threw herself into the furnishing and decorating, always creating a wonderfully warm and welcoming home. In the garden, too, she created the most glorious displays of colour, with always the very best of harmonious design. Richard and Cynthia liked nothing better than a good dinner party, or having friends in to drinks, and their house was always a haven of sociability and good cheer. In the kitchen, Cynthia’s own efforts resulted in her becoming a cook of considerable accomplishment.
Richard and Cynthia loved long voyages on passenger liners, and made many such trips. They returned to South Africa for several holidays, and at other times there was salmon fishing in Scotland, or motoring through the Black Forest or Italian Lakes, the car always being crammed with mountains of pillows.
Cynthia was noted for her good looks and appearance, even in old age, and was always immaculately turned out in her stylish clothes. Richard and Cynthia were an inseparable couple, and were blissfully happily married for 67 years. After his death, Cynthia left her house in Odiham to live in a home near Simon in Dorset. She died a year later on 17 December 2003 at Maiden Newton, aged 89.