Doris M Holden - Biography

This short biography is a work in progress, as information about Doris's life is scarce even within the family. With only the simple factual milestone dates as uncovered in my eldest brothers family history research being widely known, and that she was a "writer". So this biography will be up dated from time to time as new bits of information about her life and times come to my attention.

Doris Mary Holden was born on the 07 October 1896 in Camberwell, London. She was an avid and imaginative storyteller and writer from a young age. As indicated by the success of her Evening Standard (London) competition entry "The Task of Fairy Ganzywing" in 1911. Maybe this was a development or fore runner of one of her many stories mentioned in her unpublished work "I Begin To Write"?

She was a business woman of some years standing and an A.C.I.I ( Associate ship Chartered Insurance Institute). This included a position at the now closed Provincial Insurance. Some of her work was published in their staff magazine "White and Red". She also referenced working at the head office of a "large Insurance Company" in her article "Job - and your Job" published in the Shorthand Typist.

She met Alexander Bell (A Languages School Master, and an Anglo-Norman Scholar)  on holiday - a coach trip to the Pyrenees organised by Arnold, of Wallace Arnold Coaches. They went on to be married on the 29 December 1927 in Muswell Hill, London.  Their honeymoon was spent in Paris.  Alexander and Doris lived together in Peterborough, which at that time was classed as being in Northamptonshire rather than Cambridgeshire as it is now. On marriage, as the laws and conventions of the time insisted, she gave up full time paid employment. However, as her family commitments permitted she put her typing skills to use writing short stories and articles for various newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. She was a regular contributor to the Yorkshire Evening Post- this choice of newspaper perhaps informed by her thinking presented in "Seeing the Funny Side"? Though as her father in law (Alexander Brown Bell) worked on that paper, it probably seemed a natural place for her to consider to publish her work. Alexander Bell taught at The Deacon's School Peterborough, while also contributing to various aspects of literature and historical research.

Doris and Alexander were both been active members of the Peterborough Debating Society throughout the 1930s with both of them referenced from time to time in the Peterborough Standard's reporting on some of the society's lively debates they participated in, as well as the societies business and organisation. Doris was an active volunteer for the Red Cross Library, and a devoted regular helper with the Fletton and District Infant Welfare and Mothercraft Association. She also participated in amateur dramatics as part of the Deacons School staff production as part of the schools concert programme. She was named in the Peterborough Standard and the Peterborough Citizen for her roles in several of these skits, though I do wonder at her continued participation given her experiences recounted in "That Staff Play". Interestingly my grandfather does not seem to have been referenced in the Peterborough local papers as participating  on stage in these shows! Though further research has uncovered his hand in the writing and participation, in the 1927 performance "a merry medley of scholastic scenes - The Inspection", as the Latin master. Though he usually appears to have been more involved in the direction and production side of various pieces for the show over his time at Deacons.

Doris usually published under her maiden name "Doris M Holden", though for many of her frequent short pieces in the Yorkshire Evening Post she was just "D. M. H.". She also contributed text for inclusion in some of the Yorkshire Evening Post regular columns which do not appear to have been explicitly acknowledged in the printed version. For some of her work she also used the pen name or "Nom de Plume" Susan. I am currently unfamiliar as to the reasons for this chosen name, though it was the name she used for her short lived illustrated magazine "Our Little Folks Own Picture Book" mentioned in "I begin to write", and was typically used for some some of her longer published and unpublished work in the "Scribbler" and the "Review of Reviews". The "Scribbler" my father recalled was a thick folder on Doris' desk of her, and other writers, articles circulated for comment and editing.

They had four sons Alexander (Alan, b.1929), Colin (b.1930), Jeremy (b. 1934) and Stephen (b.1937). Sadly Doris died of pneumonia on the 24 December 1937 barely 5 days days after giving birth to Stephen. Alexander, my grandfather, never re-married. However, thanks to the help of Doris's sister Winifred, and a remarkable Housekeeper Miss. Walker.  He was able to raise these four sons in the family home: 98 Lincoln Road, Peterborough. Miss Walker, known as Lulu by the young Bell boys, had been a personal friend of Doris's and stayed as part of the household until her sudden death, from a heart attack, at the end of August 1954 - "The day the first apple fell from the tree". The four sons went on to successfully become their own men with their own stories, which for now I will leave to others to explore and tell.

During her time in Peterborough, Doris became involved with the local Quakers - The Religious Society of Friends - and it seemed to be the right place for her, and she went on to become a regular attender. Her moving apparently unpublished short piece "Quaker Meeting " presents an account of a young woman's (May be in part inspired by her own?) first experience of a Quaker meeting. She clearly made an impression on the Friends, as following her untimely death, the Peterborough Friends, notably Cyril and May Fishbourne, rallied around the meeting to ensure that the boys could continue to regularly attend the children's meeting.

Due to their age at the time, and the circumstances of their mothers death, the passing of Doris had a profound impact on the four boys. It is only recently (2017) that the existence of the documents featured here came to be widely known in the family - other than "There was a box of Doris's papers" collected by my father from 98 Lincoln Rd following the death of Alexander Bell on the 03 March 1985. However, the true nature and extent of that trove of papers was unknown. It took the passing of my uncle Jeremy in 2017, and Alexander's (Alan) 90th birthday in  2019, which lead to prompting of my father about "I know nothing of your mother" and "so who was Doris?" from one of his sons for the existence of these papers and their nature to begin to be known. Following my father Alexander (Alan) Bell's death in 2021 the manuscripts and documents featured here became available for study, and I decided to transcribe and re-publish them and thus bring them to life. To ensure that her surviving children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have the opportunity  to discover something of this remarkable woman - the most influential woman on our families and lives who we never had the chance to know. So it is as much for their benefit, and the memory of those who lost her too soon, that I have compiled this site, as it is to acknowledge the literary work of my Grandmother, and to share her words with my cousins - Doris' grandchildren, and also maybe a new wider readership.

From the Peterborough Standard Friday April 12, 1935

(British Newspaper Archives)