Richard Rhys O’Brien: the Dinner Puzzle

Everybody has a story. Retirement has enabled Richard Rhys O’Brien to create music, books, articles and even a puzzle at a rapid pace, including a ballad of Highbury Barn through the ages. Now he’s turned history detective and needs your help to track down the missing pieces of the Dinner Puzzle. Perfect timing too while Islingtonians are part of the coronavirus lockdown, this could be a fascinating project to join in. Interview by Nicola Baird. Photos by Kimi Gill 

“A lot of people had never heard of the lively history of Highbury Barn pub, so it’s been nice to boost people’s recognition of our history,” says Highbury local and Eclectic Voices’ choir regular, Richard Rhys O’Brien. In fact, his £10 CD became a popular Christmas 2018 stocking filler and helped raise more than £3,500 for the Mayor’s charities – Freightliners Farm and CARIS winter night shelters for homeless people around Islington and for the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants

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Always a multi-tasker one of Richard’s projects now is trying to complete the missing back story about a splendid dinner party held on 23 March 1933 by one of that era’s great and good, Lady Rhondda. Richard has created a compelling website, with documentary film maker Liz Smith, which tracks the guests, their motivations and connection with Lady Rhondda who founded, 100 years ago this year, the literary, feminist and political weekly Time & Tide. There were three head teachers at the dinner and Richard says he’s willing to bet that one of the guests, Mrs Jessie White was vice-principal at Highbury Fields School, though he has not yet located a photo of her.

Richard was born in Banbury and jokingly refers to himself as an Oxfordshire boy – but the London gene is strong too as his father, born in Wood Green in 1899, went to school at Dame Alice Owen’s at the Angel. His enterprising aunt who ran her own North London dressmakers, from the 1930s, used to speak of her client in Highbury Quadrant – and a great aunt, it turned out, lived off Riversdale Road.

“The Wood Green Noel Park estate was brand new – the first Garden City they say – and was built for London’s booming population. But then my father was evacuated during World War Two to Banbury,” says Richard over cappuccino when we meet in Kissa Wa café, which is close to his home and well known in the Highbury Fields area for its delicious Japanese food.  “My Welsh born mother was evacuated too, as a teacher with her London school. She met my father, and they never returned. However there was an exhibition of her paintings some years ago in Highbury.”

Places Richard Rhys O’Brien likes in Islington

• When I was doing the Highbury Barn CD I was struck by how many local shops took the CD to sell and promote. The staff at the chains couldn’t do that, even if they’d liked to, because they had to go through hoops and the head office.
• Highbury is such a brilliant place for transport. I’ve been here for 40 or more years and worked in all different parts of London. We came here in the late 1970s, having lived in North, South and Central London, but it’s hard to match Highbury. Soon after we were married Christine and I rented a flat in Highbury Hill from a couple – she worked for the BBC, he was an artist – and we’ve never left Highbury.  Our daughter Sabine went to St John’s, Highbury.
• I like sitting outside Kissa Wa café, 15 Corsica Street in the summer – and inside in the winter….
• In the streets off the Fields we have a great community, have an annual street party, and were happy that our petition to keep us in Highbury in the recently ward boundaries reshuffle was successful.  If you make a noise you can be heard!
• Eclectic Voices, the choir that meets at Christ Church. “I sang as a small boy, then didn’t sing again until my wife Christine said there’s a choir, will you come? She’s a tenor too. Through music you meet another side of the community and after practice we go to the Highbury Barn tavern.
• Highbury Opera Theatre: we’ve done seven shows to date, and I enjoyed doubling up as a Gooner and one of the Invincibles in Fever Pitch – The Opera, written by local resident Scott Stroman, from the book by local resident Nick Hornby.

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Local focus
“I’ve been here for 40 years, and worked in all different parts of London,” says Richard whose twitter profile describes him as a singer songwriter, economist and futurist. When the spire of Christ Church at Highbury Barn became unsafe he helped the project that raised a quarter of a million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which required doing something to promote local heritage.” Richard contributed a dozen of the Highbury stories that can be seen on a touchscreen in the church. “That rekindled my interest in Highbury history and then I made a set of songs from the best stories about the Barn.”

Now Richard has channelled his energy for historical detective work in researching a blog about Lady Rhondda, the suffragette, publisher and businesswoman who was honoured with a large dinner party on 23 March 1933. At this dinner, 130 of her friends and colleagues presented her with a portrait by Alice Burton.

So how was he captivated by this event? The answer is magical – happenstance. Basically Richard found the guest list… “buried in a box of papers that had come down to me from my grandfather, the Rev J T Rhys, one-time Private Secretary to Mrs Lloyd George at Number 10 Downing Street.”

The papers had been largely untouched in a box for 80 years, but Richard noticed that his grandfather was one of the 28 men at the dinner, alongside 100 or so women, amongst them many pioneering women of the early 20th Century. “As one of the press attending commented, ‘I found it difficult to make a mental note of who was not there’. A handful were familiar names, such as Vera Brittain, Harold Macmillan, Eleanor Farjeon, Rebecca West, Winifred Holtby and Jonathan Cape.”

After much work Richard has identified nearly everyone at the dinner, and found photos of two thirds of them, as you can see on his Dinner Puzzle website – https://thedinnerpuzzle.com . This eventually went “live” despite missing info about five mystery guests – Mrs Gertrude Roberts, Miss Marian Hodson, Mr W B Valentine, Miss Phyllis Crossley, Mr Frank Marshall and six more who were the guests of a guest.

Where is she now?
Richard would also like to track down the original painting  – do you recognise it? There is an almost identical version by Alice Burton at the St. Fagan’s National Museum of History, near Cardiff.  The dinner was held at the Rembrandt Rooms in South Kensington. From writing to contacts and posting on LinkedIn (“good for keeping up with colleagues in former lives”) – and from people just coming out of the blue – he is now getting reactions from around the world about the people at the dinner, and the project continues to be “fun and educational”.

Richard studied PPE (politics, philosophy, economics) at Oxford and has used research skills throughout his working life. However, he says he started doing a lot of genealogy, “Having reached a certain age. History comes to life and seems so much more relevant when your own family adds that special dimension.” His first project was an album about his Irish family who “came over in 1844 just before the famine kicked in. They moved to the Dickensian slums of Holborn – all were christened in the now demolished Sardinian chapel off Kingsway – then after 50 years they moved to Wood Green.”

Not surprisingly Richard is a fan of Ancestry.com. “Half my Welsh family are Jones, so that makes research complicated, but once you’ve learnt a few tricks it is very useful – but be warned, family history can be addictive,” he jokes. “We put together a wonderful exhibition of the family story in the local museum in Lampeter.”

The Dinner Puzzle is a unique challenge as it needs other people to join in using their historic and genealogical research. Successful suggestions will enable Richard to complete the guest list and be clearer about why people were invited to Lady Rhondda’s wonderful celebration on 23 March 1933. Why don’t you have a look on the site now and see how you can help?

https://thedinnerpuzzle.com

• DINNER PARTY DETECTIVE: Can you help Richard track down the mystery guests? Please explore https://thedinnerpuzzle.com
• Next event by Eclectic Voices was scheduled for Sunday 5 April, 4.30pm at Union Chapel performing Handel’s Messiah, for free, with a great period instrument orchestra, the Bach Collective.
• LIMITED OFFER: Islington Faces has a limited number of copies of The Ballad of Highbury Barn (including the 36pp illustrated booklet on the Barn) available for £10 each, all monies to the Mayor’s charities and the Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants. If you’d like your own copy of The Ballad of Highbury Barn please email islingtonfaces@gmail.com explaining why you enjoy Islington Faces’ interviews. Deadline is 8 April 2020, but due to Covoid-19 this may not be simple to organise so please send a message and we’ll see what can be done after the London lock down.
• Richard’s albums include Don’t Believe the Crystal Ball; Sense in Our Brains, I Know a Little Place, Anguneau Sunset: all available on Spotify and all the usual platforms. His music and blogs are also on his website richardrhysobrien.com

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. Thank you to Carolyn for suggesting Richard. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola