THE search for information on one of Exeter's more mysterious but well-known characters has been boosted by Echo readers.
It follows a plea from Ghee Bowman, the co-ordinator of Telling our Stories, Finding our Roots: Exeter's Multi-coloured History, for details on Madame Josephine, one of the city's first black residents.
Madame Joesphine, whose real name was Josephine Clinton, ran a herbalist at 25 Clifton Road, on the corner with Chute Street from 1939 to 1942.
She lived on Park Road, Heavitree, until she died in 1970.
Now it has emerged she had a daughter, Vivien Clinton, who was a student at the old Bishop Blackall School in the 40s/50s and went on to play a small part in the 1951 film Cry, the Beloved Country, which starred Sidney Poitier, and portrayed the evils of South ASfrican apartheid.
Beth Holland(nee Squire) who lived in Ladysmith Road, Heavitree, said that Mrs Clinton - "She was very prim and proper a wonderful woman who you always referred to her as Mrs Clinton " – was a foster parent who had two girls, Catherine and Gennette in her care.
Mrs Holland , 76, said: "Catherine was my best friend. We played to gether and went to Ladysmith School and then St Hames; School.
"I often played at their house and Mrsd Clinton was wonderful. She kept her house and herself immaculate. She use to give us something to eat as we left - so as not to drop any crumbs.
"She was also a very fine dress maker and excellent at alterations and such like.
""She wore her hair , which had white streak, high and looked so impressive."
Josephine, who was black, cut quite a figure in Newtown at the start of the war, in a cloak and head-dress.
Mrs Milly Cain (nee Aggett), 84, recalls working a young girl at the small hairdressers, The Elite Salon, which was set in the wall overlooking Heavitree Road, near its junction with Polsloe Road.
In the same site was a tobacconist shop run by Mr Bonner of Church Road, Heavitree.
Milly was just 14 and recalls seeing the rather mysterious figure of Josephine passing by every day.
Said Milly: "I have to say I was a little afraid of her. This was 70 years ago and there were no black people in Exeter at all in those days. She looked quite scary in a long, black cloak as she swept past .
"I remember wondering is she had any arms!"
Milly lived in what is now The Triangle car park where her family ran a dairy that delivered milk to much of Newtown.
"My father had a old Morris 8 with a trailer on the back. He and I would drive out to the farm near Exminster to pick up the milk.
"We sold all sorts of dairy products and I remember going to local farms in an old leaky van with my father. I would be sitting with the umbrella up and he would be singing Red Sails of Sunset. It was wonderful."
"I recall the farmers's wife was a tough old bird. One time a cat was bothering her chickens so she just grabbed the cat and swung in round and bashed its head on a wall. Killed it! I was quite shocked. They were a tough lot in those days.
"We then went back to Exeter and the milk was delivered straight out of the churn into jugs of saucepans.
"The dairy was blitzed out during the war and the area just became the car park it is today."
Milly's father George was among the first volunteers for the city's Auxiliary Fire Service when the Second World War broke out in September 1939.
"It was awful for him during the worst of the bombing of Exeter because he was battling the fires in London Inn Square while just a few hundreds yards away his business was going up in smoke. The Triangle was flattened, but his parents were lucky.
"They managed to get out and take shelter at the old swimming baths."
Mr Aggett stayed with the fire service until after the war and then looked to start up again in business. He was friends with Mr and Mrs Charlie Hill, the bakers of Heavitree Road, who offered him the basement of their premises for use as a dairy shop.
Mr Aggett died in 2001, aged 94.
If you can help further contact Ghee Bowman, at www.tellingourstoriesexeter.org.uk
