Dora Rothes Grut

Dora Rothes Neville was the youngest child of Mary and Frederick Neville. She was born in Auckland but grew up in various parts of New Zealand, as her father took various jobs. The family was not well off. She grew up in what was then discribed as "gentel poverty" She spent most of her school years in Sumner, near Christchurch and attended Sumner School then Rangi Ruru School. She was about 10 years younger than her brothers.

Her brother Dick told me that one day, very unexpectedly his father took him and his brother to the zoo for the day. When they came back there was a new baby!

She was nicknamed DoDo...or Dodles by her parents. She discribed herself as a shy, awkward, self concious child. ..and also very spoilt and rather winey. I think this was a bit harsh. She discribed her parents as devoted to each other...and her mother as "dreamy" and constantly had her head in a book. I think her childhood was rather lonely. She was discouraged from playing with the other children in Sumner because they were from an "inferior social class". When she left school the family moved to Dunedin where she took various secretarial jobs. At ione stage she moved to Timaru for a year to work as governess for her cousin Tim Rhodes. She says she got very fat that year...but later was very slim.

Just before the war she moved to Australia and became stuck there when war broke put and it became too dangerous to cross the Tasmin Sea back to NZ. There is a wonderful series of letters written to her by her mother Mary during this period. MAry and Frederick had moved to a cousins Arthur Cargill's farm in Timaru to lend a hand during the war.

During her time in Australia she took several interesting jobs. She worked as the personal assistant for Dame Marie Ney, the actress and accompanied her on her tour of the Australian outback. During this time she changed her name to Rothes. ( Miss Ney had a fat cook called Dora!) She also worked for one of the Government Ministers as PA.

She also volunteered with a group that welcomed refugees and helped them find accomodation etc. Through this group she met Annette Grut, evacuated from Malaysia with her 2 small sons. Later her husband Olaf arrived and finally Olaf's brother Rolf Grut.

Rothes Neville married Rolf Grut in Melbourne in 1946 ( i think) and spent the first years of her marriage in Perth, where he fly dakotas in the Aussie airforce. She had a still born son, Gustav, then a daughter , Diana in Sept 1948, in Perth. Then they moved to Malaysia where Rolf resumed his work on the plantations. She lived the next 15-20 years in Malaysia, in great isolation. First on Ulu Bernam estate ( 5 hours up the Bernam River ) and later on Jendarata Estate near Teluk Anson ( now Telok Intan) She had 2 more children. She devoted a lot of her time to charity work...established Women's Institute in Malaysia and worked on the local social welfare committee. She was awarded a PJK by the Malaysian government in recognition for her services to the country.

In the early 1950's she moved to England, on the SS Chusan, stopping in Naples and driving a VW beetle with her 3 children and niece, Phillippa, up to denmark then on to UK. She settled in Sevenoaks and raised her children there, moving to Dulwich when they had completed university. Later she and Rolf moved to Vancouver, Canada, where they lived the rest of their lives.

Rothes was a woman of great character. she was full of energy, right until the day she died. She skied, hiked, swam, gardened played tennis and walked the dogs for hours each day. She was open-minded and tolerant and full of humour. Young people loved her as she was never shocked by their appearances or antics. Her grand children adored her. She loved animals except monkeys and especially dogs...and she loved trees and planted them all her life in every garden. She was constantly interested in new things, reading articles in the newspaper, studying spanish well into her 80's. She loved to travel and she loved to camp and she loved "sea-bathing" especially in the nude.