Rhythms, Rites and Rituals - Dorothy Britton

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people and culture he developed a deep and sympathetic understanding.

      Frank was very conscientious and worked tirelessly, all the rest of his life, for Babcock, England and Japan. His 300 workers adored him. He knew the names of each one personally and they came to him with their problems and looked upon him as a father. He never uttered a word of anger to his men. The secret of his remarkable forbearance is revealed in a letter to his uncle in 1909 when Babcock & Wilcox were first considering taking over the Zemma Works. He wrote:

      If B&W bring out their own men it is doubtful if they can get on with or even stand the ways of the Japanese. I am irritated sometimes to such a point that I feel like giving them a good English thrashing, and to ensure keeping my temper I always keep cigars on me, and when I feel I cannot control myself any longer I light a cigar and reflect that if one lives in a foreign country one must put up with foreign ways. A cigar is the finest thing in the world to soothe the nerves, and I am quite sure cigars have saved my life many times over, for, without them, I should have struck some of the workmen with the result that the whole works would have been on to me like one man – not an uncommon occurrence in Japan.

      When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Frank was one of the first at the British Consulate wanting to enlist, but he was ordered to stay and make munitions for the war, in which Japan was Britain’s ally. He ran the works day and night, contenting himself with ‘getting at the Boches indirectly if not with cold steel’. He did not forget the need for good public relations, and even designed and organized a march by his workers dressed like bombs! I forget what occasion the march was for.

      Skilled at designing, he was also an inventor. He registered many patents, including a portable mudguard to be hung beside motor car wheels to prevent them drenching kimono-clad pedestrians on rainy days! It was very popular. And when gramophones were introduced, he did much for the local industry, devising useful improvements.

      CHAPTER 4

      How Marrying

      Changes My Father’s Life

      WHEN ALICE HILLER dropped in for tea that day in 1920, Frank was still a bachelor. In one of his letters to his uncle he writes:

      I control these Works with its 300 employees, and keep the company’s books as evening amusement, so you can see that I have no time to burn on social repartee.

      Frank did finally manage to obtain an accountant, a delightful Scot called Tom Chisholm, to take some of the burden off his hands. He had also told his uncle that the girls on The Bluff seemed to have little time for engineers. But my mother used to marvel why he had not married beautiful Elizabeth Keith the artist, who was the sister of the wife of his friend journalist John Robertson Scott. Famous for her wood-block prints of Japan and Korea, Elizabeth remained a good family friend of ours.

      Frank lived across the road from the Zemma Works and in the interim between marrying Alice in Shanghai and bringing her back with him to Japan, Frank had the house enlarged and beautifully improved. He resisted moving up to The Bluff where all the foreigners lived. Feeling privileged to be in Japan, he refused to live in that completely Western enclave where in those days no one socialized with the Japanese or learned to speak their language. I believe many people thought we were rather peculiar.

      While enlarging his house, Frank heard that the Shinano Maru was being decommissioned, and so he bought the nostalgic teak of its decks and used the wood, cut into small fish-scale-shaped pieces, imbricated and dyed a beautiful rose colour with the traditional Japanese persimmon juice wood preservative, to cover the sides of the house, He also used the Shinano Maru deck teak for our mantelpieces, not only in Yokohama, but later here in Hayama, where our original east side veranda, facing down the beach, was also made of that nostalgic teak.

      The Brittons’ first child, a son, was alas, stillborn – which my mother was convinced must have been the result of the visit by the accountant’s wife who had a frightful cold, which brought on Mother’s chronic all-night coughing. That is why I have always felt strongly about the necessity of people with colds staying home, no matter how important their reason for travel might be.

      When pregnant with me, Mother sent for her young sister Dorothy, who obtained a job as secretary with the Tokyo YWCA. She was a delightful girl, ten years Mother’s junior, who had driven ambulances in France in the First World War. I have a lovely photo of her with kimono-clad one-year-old me (see pl. 5), taken in June amongst the hydrangeas of our garden just four months before the Great Kanto Earthquake which took place on 1 September 1923.

      CHAPTER 5

      The Great Kanto Earthquake

      AUNTIE DOROTHY DID not have to work that Saturday morning of 1 September, but the YWCA telephoned and asked her to go in by tram to the Yokohama post office to send an important cable to their headquarters in America. Apparently, at the post office she met a YWCA colleague, who was there to pick up a fruit cake her mother had sent her for her birthday, by sea mail from the USA. Edith Lacy was a very young widow. Apparently, the two girls then took a rickshaw to a new confectionery shop called Meidi-ya (still spelt that way although it is pronounced Meiji-ya!). They may possibly have wanted to buy some chocolates for Edith’s birthday, as well as for a tea party Dorothy had planned for some Tokyo colleagues that afternoon. But just as they got to the Main Street shop, the shaking began, and the rickshaw man, his vehicle and two passengers were crushed beneath the tons of heavy masonry of that handsome modern building. It would be weeks before my father finally found their remains.

      Having estimated that a big earthquake was due, Frank had carefully studied the effects of small ones. He had particularly noted their whiplash effect on a brick wall. So he had strengthened his factory walls, buildings and chimneys with steel bolts and bands, as well as the chimney of his home so it would not fall and injure the neighbours.

      I was only sixteen months old when the earthquake struck. Frank and Alice had originally been planning to leave Yokohama that morning on a sort of delayed honeymoon in the mountains of Hakone. However, the previous night, after dining with friends at the illfated Cherry Mount Hotel, situated part way down a road called Sakura-yama (cherry-tree hill), leading from The Bluff towards the Motomachi shopping street below, they were sipping their coffee and liqueurs on the terrace facing away from the harbour towards the hills. Suddenly, a strange phenomenon caught Frank’s attention: he witnessed bolts of peculiar ‘upward lightning’ coming from the ground and branching out into the sky, like trees. It worried Frank so much that he insisted they leave, although it was still early. At home, their bags were already packed and ready at the front door for the early morning start they intended to make, but fortunately he cancelled the planned trip.

      Next day, Saturday, Frank Britton and Tom Chisholm, his Scottish accountant, were together in the office having closed the safe early, a little before twelve. Noon was the normal time for closing safes, and consequently most companies lost all their documents. Frank said: ‘When the earthquake comes that is going to destroy Yokohama, I propose that we hang onto the gantry crane. The stairs will go, but the crane will stand.’ The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the shaking began, with a great roaring, at exactly two minutes to twelve. ‘I didn’t know it was coming so soon,’ said Chisholm, ‘I’m going down the stairs while they last.’ Frank lost faith in his own plan and followed suit, more or less thrown down the stairs, for it was impossible to stand. Once down, they could only crawl. At the gate Frank turned and saw that a cornice had landed over their path like a protective cover from the flying debris, placed by a guardian angel. They carried on across the road to Frank’s house and stood up, facing each other. ‘There goes Yokohama!’ said Frank looking across Tom Chisholm’s shoulder at the great cloud of dust enveloping the city. ‘And there goes Yokosuka!’ said Tom, looking in the opposite direction. In spite of his slight limp, Chisholm hurried off on foot towards Negishi and The Bluff to see what had happened to his wife and young son. They were killed, and his home

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