Captain Peter Behague deserves special mention. We first met in Singapore in 1949. I had written a critical by-lined article for the Straits Times, and the next day received a somewhat peevish call from a senior officer at the naval base asking who the devil was using the name Behague. It was, in fact, Peter Behague who had no idea there were other English-speaking Behagues around, apart from his own small, exclusive lot.
This sparked off a warm relationship, with dinners and visits, and grand musical evenings. He had the same strong features and brusque determined spirit as my father, and we struggled in vain to find the connection between the two families which we knew must exist. He had a theory that, in his branch, most of the Behagues' first sons were named William, and that Ann was the preferred name on the female side. This seems to have been the custom in our branch, too. It all begins to add up.
According to the records, my grandfather, John Seaby Behague, was born on June 26, 1866, the second son of Jeremiah Behague. Jeremiah's first son was William Behague who migrated to Canada and built with his own hands a house outside Montreal, which provided shelter for us from time to time when it was owned by great cousin Dorothy. It is believed that Jeremiah was also a second son and had an elder brother named William. Jeremiah's father was definitely a William and lived at Whittlesea in Cambridgeshire.
When Captain Peter Behague retired we continued to keep in touch. We visited him and his wife Muriel at their home in Alverstoke, and when they departed for Western Australia I inherited a mountain of books.
She died in 1968, and it was a sad loss to him. He died in October, 1982, after a long and distinguished life. He had commanded a destroyer flotilla on an adventurous trip up the Yangtze and taken over Goering's yacht at the end of the war. We still see his daughter, Ann Cuthbert and her husband Al, from time to time, and the desire to find the missing link remains.
The last of Peter's line in England was an elderly and reticent sister named Rosa Behague, who lived in Herne Bay, Kent. We visited her in February, 1985, but gained very little from her about the Behagues. She died in April 1989 aged 94. In Auckland, New Zealand, there is a small group of Behagues &endash; Bill and Dawn Behague and family who live in Pakuranga. They appear to be a lively bunch and go in for sky diving, among other things. Rosa was a great aunt, and they had written to us in December of 1984 suggesting we look her up.
Captain Peter Behague wrote to me regularly. His were splendid letters full of the joys of life in Darlington, Western Australia, and regrettably I failed to keep them. Well, all but one, which is about the Behagues and was in response to a mention I'd made about the two early arrivals in England in the shape of brothers Daniel and William Behague. (There is now doubt about these two, and you will have seen from one of the Annies letters that Daniel could have been William's uncle.) The date of Captain Peter Behague's letter is April 7, 1969. Here it is, slightly abridged:
The origin of the Behagues. It really is time somebody started thinking about it . I expect Ann told you how all our eldest sons are Williams. I have no recollection of any Daniels. My father's father was a William, and came from Cambridgeshire where he was, I believe, a boat builder, so he might well have come from March, which is on the river, where one would expect people to build boats.
My father was William, his eldest son, my brother long dead, was W, and of his descendants in New Zealand, there are three generations of eldest sons, all Williams, which makes me a great, great uncle, as if it mattered, but that is the sort of thing that happens if you are the youngest child of middle-aged parents. If my parents were alive they would be 114. All this William business tends to suggest that "our lot" might have descended from William rather than Daniel, and certainly they came from Cambridgeshire. If ever I take a trip to the UK I'll go to March and have a poke around. I ought to have done it years ago.
To continue the saga started by you with the coat of arms thing. I thought I'd chase that one, and wrote to a firm in York which specialises in hunting skeletons, enclosing a copy of the coat of arms you sent me. Here is what they came up with.
"You may be a little muddled with regard to the description you gave, i.e. it is not possible to have two chiefs shown on the right-hand side of the Arms." (What the hell is a chief, anyway?)
"This description of the Arms is located in the Rietstap Armorial General, and is as follows: BEHAGUE. Parti: au l coupe: a, d'or a trois epis de ble de sinople, poses chacun sur une terrasse isolee de sable. b, de sinople, a trois tetes d'aigle d'argent; au 2 d'azur a la fleur-de-lis d'or at au chef d'argent charge d'une rose de gules. Motto: Bon guet chasse male aventure."
A brief translation of the Arms quoted is as follows: The shield is divided into two. In the left half are shown three ears of wheat issuing from a mount. Beneath these are shown three eagles' heads. The right-hand side shows a fleur-de-lis and in chief a red rose.
So there you have it, for what it is worth. Not much different to the one you had, apart from a little local difference with chiefs!
Here I have many friends, and in this village it is so English that Australians almost have to ask permission to live here, but one can still be lonely without the family. My days seem to be fully occupied although there seems to be nothing constructive in what I do. My cocker, my constant and devoted companion, has to be taken for walkies, good for master too, in fact she goes everywhere with me, insists on it, even into the lav.
I listen to a great deal of music, mostly classical stuff, but I enjoy anything that produces a nice noise. I have tapes which are all Bach, but I have others which are Bert Kampfert and the like, and these take some of the pain out of housework, a sort of anaesthetic. So you see I go for all sorts, but NOT the twanging guitar, I simply can't take that frightful noise, and what is more it has spoilt me for Segovia, whose records I once enjoyed. Remember our musical evenings in Singapore? I never hear the Sabre Dance without remembering your friend who said it reminded him of a steam roller out of control careering downhill.
The wonderful climate in the Perth area makes life easier... There are dull days of course. Yesterday was one of them, overcast and airless, temperature 91 and humidity of nearly 90% but this is exceptional and was due to a cyclone which was passing down the Indian Ocean about 600 miles off shore. Last evening it must have seen the lights of Perth for it suddenly altered course at great speed and made it for the coast, coming to within 100 miles before shoving off in a southerly direction. And did it blow? All night it roared, and as my small patch is surrounded by tall pines you can imagine the sound they produced. But they're all still standing, the wind is moderating rapidly, the sun is reappearing and we're almost back to normal. Yours ever, Peter.
You will find some fascinating extracts from Captain Peter Behague's journals towards the end of this Web site.