1891 - David Niven

David Niven, the film star, married Primmie Rollo of Huish in 1940.

Primmie met David Niven in late August 1940, by which time she was an assistant section officer in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. In 1971’s ‘The Moon’s A Balloon’, David wrote about their first meeting at the Cafe de Paris in London, and then at a lunch-time concert.  His 1946 version of how they met involved him diving into a slit trench during an attack on an RAF airfield, where he was quickly joined by Primmie and her Pekinese dog: “The dog bit the seat of my pants and the WAAF married me ten days later.”

But she died in a tragic accident in 1946; and David Niven married Hjordis Genberg, and bought Wilcot Manor in 1950. It was a three hour drive from London (in 1950), and not coincidentally located two miles from Primmie’s birthplace and final resting place.  “I took the whole family to England, and moved into a haunted manor house in Wiltshire”.  Primmie’s brother reckoned that David may not have spent more than a few nights at the house.

Still, this picture is said to be of him at a Wilcot event:

And these two are definitely of him at the Manor, with Charles Pearce in his cap on the left:

David Niven wrote: “Hjordis somehow remained calm and outwardly unaffected but my new role as a country squire was hard for her to digest. In the autumn she came rushing to find me – ‘Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The garden is full of dogs and men blowing trumpets!’

Doreen Hawkins recalled: “It wasn’t a very good move to Wilcot. It was gloomy and Hjordis said she saw ghostly nuns rowing a boat on their lake. I went to lunch there, but Hjordis … had only got gin. The kitchen was miles away but finally we went to eat some cold meat and a very curious dessert, and there was this man with white gloves serving us. …Even if there was just the two of you having a snack, there was always a chap with white gloves.”

They sold the Manor in 1951.

Here is David Niven at Ascot that year with Hjordis and Peggy Miller Mundy, whose family had been in Wilcot earlier in the century: