Mouse – Elizabeth Mary Hallas-Hill

When thinking to write notes on Mouse’s life, it makes me realise how little I know. For people way back when – who I never met – I might feel happy to weave together some facts, and then draw some conclusions, and write it up as ‘their life story’. But for Mouse, who I knew, who looked after me when I was a child, and who didn’t die until I was about 40, this ‘get a few facts, mix, and bake into a life story’ approach doesn’t seem enough, not nearly enough. But it is a start. So let’s make that start. This going to be my plan:

1. Write down what I know.
2. Add thoughts and impressions.
3. Ask family members to add their thoughts, impressions, information etc too.

But, Dear Family, I’d love your help. If I’ve got anything wrong – let me know. If you have any memories, clues, facts, stories that you’d like to share about Mouse, I’d love to hear them. If you’d like we can include them on this website too – the aim is that it’s a place to share bits of our family history.

One thing I’m learning, though, is that it’s much harder to write about the generations closer to home, the ones we knew and loved, rather than those, the memory of whom, we have pieced together just from documents – when no-one can say whether, or not, we’re telling their life ‘right’.

Anyway, don’t be shy! Share your stories and memories about Mouse if you wish and we can include them here? It can be a work-in-progress collective endeavour (ahem, as the gaps below show!).

Mini fact-file about Mouse

born: 29 May 1921, St Elmo, London Road, Hitchen

married: 15 June 1946, St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge

died: 12 September 2012, cremated at Salisbury Crematorium and her ashes were scattered on the South Downs.

hobbies & interests: golf, bridge, watercolours, making jams and chutneys, knitting

parents: Bobo H (aka Spencer or Pop), George Spencer Hallas, and Puss, Hilda Mary Jones

siblings: one brother, Peter.

children: 4 (It seems a bit daft not naming you all, but I’m not!)

Mouse’s babyhood

Mouse first enters the official records as ‘Infant’. A 3-week old baby on the 1921 Census. She was born on 29 May, and the census was taken on 21 June. It should have taken place in April that year, but had been postponed due to massive industrial unrest and strikes sweeping the country; if it hadn’t been delayed, she wouldn’t have been on it – but as it is we have little snapshot of her first few weeks.

Listed on the census that summer in their home (St Elmo, London Road, Hitchen, Hertfordshire) were: Bobo and Puss (George Spencer and Hilda Mary, Mouse’s 18 month old brother Peter, Mouse herself – the infant, a visitor Constance Thonroe Cayley (a 34-year-old hospital nurse employed by St John’s House, Bloomsbury), and two servants in their 20s – Beatrice Caroline Savage (parlourmaid) and Emma Bird (domestic servant general). Her father is working for the civil service at Henlow Aerodrome, in the Department of Works and Buildings Air Ministry.

Bobo signs the census himself (see bottom right hand corner of the first page), including Capt – presumably the ranks he’d ended WW1 as.

I found the mention of the visiting nurse interesting and think she will likely have been a monthly nurse (staying for the first few weeks or months to help look after Mouse and make things a bit easier for Puss). This is the only time I’ve seen a mention of a nurse employed in this way, in our family. It was something that more comfortably-off families did in the past – but, often our family was;it comfortable, and the chance of a census striking at the right time to snapshot the detail is rare I guess.

Their home, St Elmo, is now a listed building, and has been divided in to flats: https://media.onthemarket.com/properties/9080027/1312932945/document-0.pdf – at the time they lived there they occupied a whopping (to me) 10 rooms, not including the scullery or bathrooms.

Mouse’s childhood

One of the things that struck me, when thinking about Mouse’s childhood, was that I didn’t really have too much to go on. A few photos (quite a lot of pictures really), but not so many facts or records to fill out those first 18 years.

What I did already know a little about was her father’s career. We have those albums of his, full of picture, people and events from several places in the Middle East and later Singapore. And in Didi’s wooden writing slope, there is at least one little letter, written by Mouse, aged very young (6 years old or thereabouts), to ‘My dear Daddy’.

Of the pictures of Mouse we have her larking about in her maternal grandparent’s garden, aged 4, aged 6 too. We have her similarly aged on the beach at Prestatyn – with her brother, mother, sister-in-law and Uncle Allan, and her grandparents. And we have her practicing golf in the garden of Allan and Mickie in the mid-1930s. And her aged 14 or so walking along with her mother. A happy very comfortable childhood – though seemingly one during which her father seems often to have been absent with work. Not the end of the world. But something to note, perhaps – as that was part of her experience of her young years.

The earliest passenger list in which I can find Mouse joining her father on his travels is one from 3rd September 1938, sailing (1st class!) on the Antenor, from Liverpool to the Straits Settlements, Singapore. Her address in England was given as 109 Marlborough Court, Lancaster Gate W2 – her grandparents’ home address (I think they may have been living in a hotel as the time). Mouse used to stay with them in the holidays, but now, aged 17, she had finished school (Huyton, Liverpool) and was travelling out to meet her parents.

1938 Passenger List: showing Mouse, aged 17, sailing from Liverpool to Singapore

Sticking with things to do with Mouse’s childhood, years ago when I started work on Practical Family History and Family Tree, I came across a set of interview sheets – packed with random questions to ask family. So I sent them off to Mouse and she gave all sorts of little nuggets. I just need to find where I put the notes 😶

Funny stories about Mouse

Mouse had a brilliant sense of humour and I can remember her often wiping her eyes from chuckling so much at something or other.

Thinking about funny stories related to Mouse, there’s the story about Mrs Cheese, that Didi told me recently. Apparently when they lived in Binfield, and Mouse was a young(ish?) mother a man called Mr Cheese used to come round and garden for them. One time Mouse was chatting in the sitting room, and blithely said that she’d happily run away with Mr Cheese… only to realise that the window was open, and he was busy at work in the flower bed just below. Of course this made her dissolve into laughter.

As an aside, apparently the person Mouse had been chatting to was a young woman who was staying with them for a bit. Anyway one morning a letter, and a ring, arrived in the post for the young woman – with a proposal from a man in Australia. She said yes, and left for her new life on the other side of the globe. I have the woman’s name, but can’t remember it at the moment. If anyone can remind me – do!

Mouse in the WW2 & the Wrens (WRNS)

Even in the WRNS (Women’s Royal Naval Service) Mouse had funny stories. She told me this one and I wrote it down when I was 14. These are my 14yo words for her story, which she told me to demonstrate how crowded transport was in WW2:

’Because people could not use their cars, trains were very crowded. On one occasion Mouse, a Wren officer at the time, was travelling to an urgent meeting at the naval headquarters in Plymouth. When the train stopped at the station, it was too crowded for Mouse to get from her compartment to the door. When she explained her situation to the people beside her they picked her up and passed her over their heads along the coach to the door.’

Mouse (Elizabeth Mary Hallas) served in the WRNS from 27 October 1943 to 25 June 1946, ‘during which period she has conducted herself entirely to my satisfaction’ – states form S. 450 Admiralty, signed by Vera Laughton Matthew, Director WRNS. A further statement on the form described Mouse as, ‘An energetic and reliable Secretarial Officer and Personal Assistant, who carried out her duties with outstanding ability.’ Her rank was given as 3/O from 5 December 1943 to 15 July 1945 and 2/O from 16 July 1945 25 June 1946.

On her certificate of service (S. 1517), Mouse is described as 5 foot 4 inches tall, with light auburn hair, blue eyes and fair complexion, no marks or scars. The establishment she trained at was HMS Pembroke III, in categories ‘trainee’ (27 Oct 43 to 8 Nov 43) and ‘special entry’ (9 Nov 43 to 4 Dec 43’. She was then ‘Promoted to Acting Third Officer & appointed HMS Forte’.

Her number was 67379.

She was eligible for the British War Medal and the Defence Medal. It wasn’t until the 190s that she applied for them however. I have them, just in case anyone is wondering where they are!

Before becoming a Wren, Mouse was an air raid warden. Again, words written down when I was 14yo (just explaining if they sound clunky):

‘Mouse was an air raid warden before she became a Wren, and she had to patrol one of the floors in an office block by herself. She was given a bucket of water and a bucket of sand, so that if she found any unexploded bombs she could put sand on them, after she had defused them. If fire broke out she would have to fight the fire by herself, with a bucket of water. She says that it was very frightening.’

Another aside, Mouse, when talking about black-out curtains, said that many people (in the 1980s) still had theirs. She was using hers as a dog’s bed for Islay.

In the summer of 2025 Alex shared copies of recordings of Mouse’s time on Sunbeam II. My plan is to transcribe them and to find a way to share the recordings via this website too. They are absolutely brilliant listening. When I find my notes I have other fun anecdotes from Mouse’s time in the Wrens too. And, as ever, pipe up if you want to share yours too.

This page was last updated 18 September 2025.