Featured photo is Charles Malet-Warden (Elizabeth’s brother) with his wife Jo and their children Ian and Nicola. Both Jo and Charles served in World War II.
Edward Charles Malet-Warden
Born 28th April 1919 in Wilson Street, Hillhead, Glasgow, Scotland
Son of Edward Cecil Malet-Warden
Engineer Lieutenant Commander, Royal Navy
and his mother
Agnes Helen Malet-Warden
m.s. Pennycuick married July 2nd 1915 Strathpeffer
Died 3rd May 1994 Scottsburgh Natal, South Africa
Edward Charles Malet-Warden’s (from now on referred to as Charles M-W) father Edward Cecil Malet-Warden went to the same school, that Churchill went to in Brighton, as a young boy and was in a Naval School after as a young boy. There is a lot written about Edward Cecil already on ‘Dear Grandchildren’
Due to his father being posted overseas (Simon’s Town, South Africa was one of postings)Edward Charles M-W (went to several different schools in Scotland, England and Ireland, because his mother Agnes would not follow her husband and moved the children around, it was an unhappy marriage.
Charles put himself through engineering school and he enrolled in the British Army and got his commission due to a boxing fight against the bully in the barracks, his uncle James Pennycuick, would not help him. In fact often, when he went to visit if Uncle James Pennycuick was playing with his model trains, the butler would ask him to come back another day.
He spent some time in Dover, where he invented a method of mining the beaches, that was very effective. He dated the Harbour Master’s daughter.
At the end of the war, Charles was posted in Versailles for 6 months and stayed with the le Page family in Rue de la Reine,(M. Le Page was Procureur Général), officers were often invited by the French. He liaised with Eisenhower, who was in the Villa St Pierre, Marnes-la-Coquette, before going to Berlin. There he was in charge of getting German scientist out of Germany. He had a team of drivers and secretaries and three hotels under his command.
Charles was very good at his job, but his superior officers found him difficult to control. They came up with the plan, that a woman might sort him out, she had to be beautiful. When, they interviewed my mother, they decided that she was the one.
Joann Olive Browne
Born 11th July 1922, Brighton England
Died 14th August 2023 Vancouver, Canada
Daughter of Frederick Ernest Edgar Victor Browne head of Ronuk Polish factory (to appointment of the King) one of first companies to put antiseptic product in polish, saving many lives during the war in hospitals, sold to Harpic.
And Olive Elsie May, a very beautiful woman
Joann Browne, flew to Berlin after having partied until 04.00 a.m. she had a hang over, so was not very talkative. Charles thought she is not bad for a woman, she does not talk too much. Jo thought he was cocky for a driver (Charles had come out of uniform). Charles put Jo in a back office, that lasted two weeks and then she sorted him out. They were married on 6th April 1948 at the British Embassy and their photo was on the front page of English newspapers. The British were very happy, that Charles Malet-Warden a Civil Engineer (Probably a lieutenant Colonel and the youngest in the British Army for his age) had married a British Government Official. Joann was an officer in the Royal Air Force.
Unfortunately, a plane was brought down a week before the marriage and Joann’s mother and brother did not go to the wedding, her sister Audrey did. Charles’ sister Bryda, also attended.
Returning to England after the war, Charles and Joann Malet-Warden immigrated to Canada on a scheme for £10 to try their luck in the New World, as there was no work in the United Kingdom for de mobbed military officers. After mining in the East of Canada, they moved to Vancouver, where their son Ian Malet-Warden was born on the 15th January 1950, a freezing cold winter was gripping the country. Charles worked as an engineer.
Ian Charles Malet-Warden
Born 15th January 1950 V Vancouver, Canada
Died 25th December 2010
Son of Edward Charles Malet-Warden and Joann Olive Malet-Warden
Two children with Ingrid
Margaux Malet-Warden 25th January 1978 partner Andrew
Daughter Charlotte Malet-Warden 18th September 2015
Michael Malet-Warden 26th January 1981 wife Tracy
Daughter Bryda Malet-Warden 29th October 2019
Nicola Malet-Warden
Born 19TH January 1953
Daughter of Edward Charles Malet-Warden and Joann Olive Malet-Warden
Photographer
Married Gilbert Noël Claude Natta (French) 31st January 1976
Bures-sur-Yvette, France
Grand Ecole, Essec business studies, Naval supply officer for French Navy
Bank Manager, Business Man
Son of Maurice Clement Antoine Natta
Born Bougie Algeria, a French Colony,
French General in Army (Ingenieur Général de l’armement)
Legion d’honneur
father Alexandre Natta a French commandant in French Army
Mother Paveletic
Three French children
Camille Joann Natta 19th November 1977 Johannesburg South Africa
French German Lycée Paris
French Baccalaureate/German Arbiter
Studies P.P.E. Oxford, St Peter’s College
Actress film Crimson Rivers
Husband John Claflin American 15th October 1967
Victoria Claflin 14th February 2017
Son Maxim Claflin 16th May 2014
Noel Charles Natta 5th February 1979 Johannesburg South Africa
Passy St. Nicholas Buzenval French Baccalaureate
Studies Electrical Engineering Southampton University, MBA Paris France
Laurent Maurice Alexandre Natta 1981Amsterdam Holland
Studies C.I.V. Sophia Antiopolis France Baccalaureate International English/French
Bath University Business Studies
Edehec Nice France MBA
Wife Caroline Natta ( née LaBorde) French 22nd February
Son Amaury Natta 3rd August 2015
Nicola Malet-Warden was born the 19th January 1953, a year after Joann had had polio, a pandemic that was world wide and where Charles had spent three months in quarantine with Ian, (much better handled than covid pandemic of 2020, where the whole world was confined). The doctors told Charles, Joann would die, then that she would not walk, she walked out of the hospital three months later, and decided to have another baby. Unfortunately all the letters Charles wrote to Jo all had to be burned. But, Charles thought women’s work was never done and that bringing up a young child was really hard. He always helped women after, that with the chores.
Due to the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961 and also the fact that Charles had asthma because of the damp in British Columbia, they sold their house in Caufield, Vancouver, and left for Australia (the original booking was for New Zealand, but it was messed up) and arrived in Sydney.
Jo and Charles had no job awaiting them, but found work Charles, as an engineer and Joann, work with computers at Amp Building,Sydney. A happy time for all, Ian and Nicola surfing on the weekends and discovering Oz during the holidays, Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales and lots of sunshine.
In 1964 the travel bug bit again and they left for South Africa in 1964. There was a lion in the garden, before they arrived with a white Persian cat, much to the relief of the neighbours. trips to game parks, the sea in Natal and up to what was then, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and a horse in the garden at the Silver Goblin made life enjoyable. Private English schools for Nicola and Ian.
It was the time of apartheid. The family moved to the grand house of Mountain View 1970(a folly built by Tracy a diamond magnate) with a staff of 13, gardeners, housekeeper, waiters, cleaners and two supposed ghosts Tracy (who committed suicide three months after the mansion was completed) and a Zulu chief, which when the house was a school was seen by some of the students who came out of their rooms saying a man in full warrior gear was after them (there was a Zulu chief murdered on the hill where Mountain View was built).
Ian left home and started a restaurant after working for the Holiday Inn.
Nicola was sent to London to St.Godrics College London England in winter, dressed like Mary Poppins in Jo’s tweeds, she wondered where on earth she had landed….a God forsaken island, where the sun never shone.
Charles and Jo built a holiday house a huge thatched rondaval and dependance in Pennington, Natal with an Italian architect, the Zulus called it the chief’s house. There were anthuriums, frangipani trees, bananas and snakes and a great view of the sea, where one often saw dolphins and hoped not to see sharks. This became home in the 1990’s.
Nicola married Gilbert her French husband in South Africa, religiously in 1975, with a horse and carriage, a party at Mountain View, family came from England.
A very happy time with lots of parties, working for the Star newspaper, trips to the coast, then
Nicola and Gilbert moved to a French compound in Saudi Arabia in 1979 and would go back to South Africa for holidays, Saudi was not open to visitors and women could not work or drive nor have visitors.
Nicola and Gilbert then moved to Holland in 1981, where Charles and Jo often came sometimes for even 3 months.There they had a large pyramid Dutch farm house on a canal in the quaint town of Edam know for its cheese. Camille went to a local Dutch School and Noel followed. Laurent was born in a private clinic on Prinsengracht Canal, Amsterdam (19/11/1981) the day the ban the bomb demonstration took place, one would have thought the Prince was born. All of Holland was out on their boats with music fireworks it was very festive.
Ice skating on the canal, feeding the ducks, sailing in the boat and entertaining Gilbert’s large family with bike rides, new herrings, Dutch potatoes and visiting the tulip fields.
In 1994 when the bank wanted to send the family to New Zealand, just after the Rainbow Warrior had been sunk, Nicola decided it was time to go back to France. Where they bought an apartment in Chateau de Marnes-la-Coquette, the Hollywood Hills of Paris and where Charles had liaised with Eisenhower, at la Villa St Pierre, before going to Berlin.
Ian married Ingrid, a German and had Margaux and Michael.
On 03/05/1994 Charles died in Scottsburgh South Africa. Jo travelled around for quite a time. Then settled back in Vancouver. Once a year she came to be in France, England, Italy and Turkey to be with Nicola, her grandchildren, family and friends, her last trip she was 96. She reached the great age of a 101, received a letter from the Queen Elizabeth for her 100th birthday, and passed away on 14/08/2023.
The photograph below is of Jo with Ian and Nicola outside Buckingham Palace in London.
The photograph below is of Charles Malet-Warden taken by Hitler’s photographer in Berlin.
