Edmund Charles Vernon Symonds

Born: 1899 in London.

Died:  20 October 1962 in Hastings.

Edmund Charles Vernon Symonds was born into a working class household in New Cross, south east London in 1899. A fascination with the theater, and performing manifested itself when he was very young and by the age of twelve he was a 'professional juvenile entertainer' singing at many venues including the Royal Victoria Hall and was drinking and socializing in pubs at fourteen. By the time he was fifteen he had left home.

During the First World War he served in the army on India's North-West frontier, also finding time to entertain the troops. After the war he worked in Paris in the foreign book department of the publisher and bookseller Hachette. He eventually returned to his first love: acting, performing and entertaining, also turning his hand to writing plays.

During the early 1930s he decided to retire to the South Coast to make a new career as a writer. It was here that he met Ellen Kathleen Johnson. A teacher at a private school, she was known to her students as 'Johnnie'. They were married on 21 November 1935 and it was around this time that the couple purchased Netherwood with the intention of turning it into a guesthouse and residential hotel.