Helen Elizabeth (Nellie) Clemo 1918-2000

Helen Elizabeth (Nellie) Clemo 5-9-1919- 16-12-2000 Nellie was born in Bromley Kent to Richard James (Jim) and Rose Clemo. Jim was a despatch rider in the Army and was convalescing after his motorbike was hit by shrapnel. He received burns to his legs when the petrol tank exploded.

Jim returned to his unit and continued to serve in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Ireland before discharge in about 1922. They then moved to Devonport to live with his father Charles, an ex Royal Navy Petty Officer who had fought at the Battle of Jutland aboard HMS Lion in 1916. It had been almost the first great sea battle in over one hundred years, and the tactics adopted by Admiral Jellicoe were not far removed from the days of Trafalgar. The British fleet had major problems communicating with each other, and there were major tactical and operational errors that resulted in great loss of life. Three large warships were lost due to an elementary error of leaving the doors to the magazines open. One single salvo on target caused the battle cruisers Indefatigable and Queen Mary to blow up and later in the action HMS Invincible also blew up. Only an act of utmost bravery saved HMS Lion from a similar fate, when Major Francis Harvey, (no, not a Harvey from Hayle) although mortally wounded, ordered the flooding of one of the magazines, which had been set on fire following a direct hit on the ship’s Q turret. He died soon afterwards and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. That selfless action certainly saved my great grandfather’s life.

Charles wife Hettie erroneously received a telegram informing her of his death in battle. When this was followed by another letter telling her of the death of her eldest son Reginald Charles on August 14th 1917, it tipped her into insanity and she was sectioned and placed in the Asylum in Bodmin where she took her own life on 18th October 1917.
Charles mother Annie lived with the family in Devonport until her death in 1920, as did his brother in law Francis William Hayes, who worked in the dockyard and had lodged with his family. Francis died in 1930. Another brother in law Harry Vollmer Hayes also worked at the dockyard, so when Jim left the army he moved to Devonport with his wife and daughter and lodged with his father.
Life was hard in Devonport in the early 1920s. Jim managed to find work as a furniture van driver and as a chauffeur, but times were hard. Reginald Charles (Reg) Clemo was born on the 3rd September 1923, and his daughter Rose Davies recalls him speaking of being put into a home on more than one occasion because Jim and Rose could not feed him. Reg later vowed that his children would never be sent to bed hungry, as had happened to him on more than one occasion. Jim had a younger brother Leonard. He was born in 1908 and at the outbreak of war in 1914 he was sent to St Erth to live with his aunt Julia Hayes. In 1927 Leonard was married (for the first time) and the family posed for a photograph. Jim and Rose had a son called David who was stillborn in around 1925, followed by a son Richard James (Dick) in 1928 and another son Peter in 1932.

In 1934 Charles Clemo died in Plymouth Hospital. He was buried with his wife Hettie in St Erth cemetery. Jim and Rose must have made the decision to move to Cornwall soon afterwards because Jim used some of his inheritance to buy a Morris car which had two dickie seats in the boot. Nellie and Reg sat in the dickie seats and with Rose, the infant Peter and 6 year old Dick plus all their belongings inside the car drove down to St Erth and lodged with Aunt Julia. Nellie was now 15 and had left school, so a job was found for her as a telegram girl at the local Post Office, which was owned by Mr Trevaskis, a relative. (James Hayes married Betsy Trevaskis in 1822. Jim’s mother Hettie’s middle name was Trevaskis).
At around this time there was a row over Charles Clemo’s legacy. Jim believed that he had been cheated out of a significant sum of money by Leonard and they fell out, never to be reconciled.
After some months Jim and Rose found a cottage in Goldsithney and they lived there until Jim’s death in 1960 While living in Devonport Jim had had a dramatic conversion and was a member of the Plymouth Brethren Christian sect, and soon after moving to Goldsithney Jim called on the Vicar of St Hilary, Father Walker, (who had married Jim’s brother in 1927) and arranged for Nellie to work at the Vicarage as a scullery maid. However, Jim insisted that Nellie continue to live at home.
In around 1937 or so, Nellie had a sweetheart. He worked for Trinity House, who looked after the lighthouses and buoys that guarded the many rocks and reefs off the coast. When her mother Rose discovered that he had TB which was at that time incurable, she forbade Nellie from continuing the relationship. So Nellie married Albert Bond on the rebound.
Albert Bond was working as a lampman with a gang laying cables through Goldsithney. She would chat to him over the back gate and her father Jim did not approve. They married at Penzance Registry Office in 1937. Nellie was eighteen and needed her parent’s permission to wed. Even as they travelled from Goldsithney to Penzance for the ceremony, Jim begged her not to go ahead with the wedding but she was adamant she would marry.
Albert and Nellie Bond moved to the Scilly Isles when they were married. William was a labourer on a flower farm. Their first child William was conceived there but before he was born they moved back to the mainland, where they lived with Albert’s parents next to the old chapel in Kelynack, St Just. William Bond was born in 2 Church Square St Just in November 1939.
For the next few years Albert worked as a farm labourer throughout Penwith, and the family lived in tied cottages. Albert was blessed with charisma but at the same time was cursed with a devil may care attitude and a quick temper. Many’s the time he would walk out of a job without thinking about where his family would live and Nellie was more often than not penniless.
Stephen Bond was born in 1947 and Bernard Bond in 1949, but it was apparent even then that the marriage was failing. They lived in Boscrage in 1952 and Carnegwidden near Chysauster in 1956 in a house without electricity, drainage, running water or services of any kind. Water was obtained from a nearby stream, or if that ran dry in summer, it was a long walk to find another source.
Winter 1956 was spent in a cottage in Lesingey, just outside Penzance once again without running water or electricity. In May 1962 they moved to the old Army camp at Ponsondane where they lived in an old Army hut. In October they moved to a council house on the Gwavas estate in Newlyn.
By 1967 the marriage was over. Nellie was 48. Nellie went to live with Jack Matthews at 6 Little Trethewey Estate Porthcurno, later moving to St Erth.
She divorced Albert and married Jack. Stephen and Bernard stayed with Albert at Gwavas. In 1968 Stephen Bond married Mary Hayes and moved to Relubbus. They had three children.

Nellie Clemo was the black sheep of our family. She had a very hard life, was often penniless and had to live off her wits. She was rarely mentioned in our household and I never met her. I never met any of her family before 2011 when I met Bernard at Peter Clemo’s funeral.
Bernard Bond was estranged from his mother for 30 years until 1997 when he saw her at a Salvation Army lunch. He was persuaded to speak to her and they made peace. He discovered that Jack had died in about 1987 and that her brother Peter Clemo and their family had been keeping an eye on her.
Helen Elizabeth (Nellie) Matthews nee Clemo died in 2000 aged 81. She was buried with her parents in Perranuthenoe churchyard.