Miss Chave's Diary

Monday 21st February 1898 Father had heard from Mac and they were both pleased with his letter. I think they are both rather afraid I've done it for the sake of matrimony. Hadn't that ulterior end in view, but if that was my only motive, poor me, what a forlorn hope!

Florence Chave, the eldest of Mr & Mrs Chave's six children, looked set to be the daughter who stayed at home to look after her parents, but at 28 years old she met a penniless Anglo-Indian doctor working in a mental asylum and fell in love.

They both knew it might be years before Mac could afford to support the daughter of a wealthy Hereford businessman, but Flo was not the sort of girl to waste her life in the meantime. Her days were crammed with tea parties, reading, craftwork, lectures, concerts, and above all, cycling expeditions. Flo and her family and friends were all mad about cycling.

Her diary July 1897 to July 1898 fills an exercise book. In it we meet go-ahead, sociable, try-anything Flo, her parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, and the kindly doctor she wanted to marry Dr William A McCutchan.

Dettagli