Born in 1907, Frank Dix won a scholarship to a Blue-coat or poor-boy school in London. These schools were charity, for poor children. From there, he won a scholarship as a Master Craftsman Apprentice and Engineers. During his training, Frank witnessed an horrific accident. There were no guards on machinery in the 1920s and Frank was working next to a boy and saw him accidently cut his arm off. Frank resigned immediately.
That same day, he found a job working for Flora’s father, John Heard, a master cabinetmaker and woodcarver.
Flora’s father had eight children before losing his wife, Edith, in childbirth. He married again, but the step-mother did not get on with her step-children who were separated and sent away from the family home. Flora went to live with a Quaker aunt on a farm. Despite life being regimented, with no music or dancing, Flora became a Master Seamstress and even learnt to lay bricks. However, when the family decided it was time for her to marry a chosen local boy, Flora fled back to her father’s house where she met Frank Dix, working for her father.
John Heard forbid the relationship between Frank Dix and his daughter, Flora.
So Flora and Frank eloped to Gretna Green in Scotland, where they married and spent a short honeymoon. John Heard had nothing more to do with his daughter.
Jeanette Pitts, the daughter of Frank and Flora Dix remembers her father, Frank Dix, as a resourceful man, never out of work, even in trying circumstances. In what was at that time, called ‘short-times,’ when there wasn’t much work around and people would be laid off work, Frank would leave the house as normal on his pushbike and always returned with a ‘fill-in’ job.
A serious motor-bike accident resulted in a hearing impairment, excluding Frank from overseas service in WWII. Instead he joined the Land Army and Home Guard, rescuing people from the bombed docks and from burning houses, winning an award for bravery.
Doing her bit for the war effort, Flora was one of many young women who worked on Spitfires in the Spitfire factory, which operated around the clock. Flora was at home when a doodlebug bomb struck their street. They lost the roof, but Flora survived.
After the war, Flora became a clerical worker and also did charity work, making toy dolls and doll clothes for the Marie Stopes Cancer Foundation.
Frank and Flora immigrated to Western Australia, following their daughter, Jeanette and Frank Pitts out to Australia. Frank worked as a Master cabinetmaker and woodcarver, restoring antiques for ETA Antiques.
Later in his life, when Frank become ill, Flora visited him every single day. A love story that lives on in the memory of Jeanette Pitts and family.
Does your family history contain a romance worth sharing? We’d love to hear it.
Collated by Jenelle Hockley
Follow The Old Plank Road 