Much love dear Pish – Posh
Nearly 70 years of correspondence
When she was a girl my grandmother Kathleen Cavenagh (Cudmore) Symes (1908-2013) was a close friend of my great aunt Nancy (Champion de Crespigny) Movius (1910-2003). In 1933 they became sisters-in-law when Kathleen married Nancy’s brother Geoff Champion de Crespigny (1907-1966).
In 1936 Nancy married Hallam Leonard Movius (1907-1987), an archaeologist, and moved with him to the United States. Kathleen visited her there several times and Nancy also occasionally returned to Australia.
Kathleen and Nancy wrote to each other every week over the decades, often by aerogramme. In the letters they called each other Pish and Posh.
More about their friendship and the transcription of this letter from 2002 can be found in my post at https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2025/06/07/much-love-dear-pish-posh/
My mother had a best friend in Ireland. They met at the ages of 11 and 12. They were friends for 70 years and wrote each other faithfully on those tissue paper aerogrammes. Her friend was a Catholic who married a Protestant and lived in Belfast. Those letters recounted all the pain of living through the Troubles in the 1970s, as well as more personal hardship. She was an extraordinary woman. When I was growing up my mother would read bits of the letters aloud to us (not her friend's more personal matters, but what would be of interest to us kids--the funny anecdotes about her family, and the more serious stories about what life was like in Belfast).
When my mother passed away, I went looking for the letters to return to her friend as they were hers and their contents meant for my mother only. I knew someday when she was gone her children would treasure them and they would have both deep meaning and historical importance. You can imagine my dismay when I discovered my mother had destroyed them! She must have thought it was the right thing to do. What a loss.
I wonder what the origins of the nicknames Pish and Posh were?