Retirement
Although Theo Flynn did not turn sixty-five until 11 October 1948, it was convenient that he should retire at the end of the 1947-48 academic year. His teaching duties had been winding down as he had been on sabbatical leave for the first two terms of that year. The construction of the house in Kilclief suggests that his intention was to retire to the seaside in Ireland, but son Errol had another suggestion.
The Zaca cruise ended in Jamaica. Driven by a hurricane the yacht went aground. Those on board were rescued, but the episode generated a legal argument over salvage. Errol returned to Jamaica in January 1947 and pronounced that ‘Jamaica will be my home for some time. I like the place so much I do not see much reason to leave.’ On 11 February 1947 Errol wrote to his parents about this new ‘dream spot’ he had bought and urged them to join him and ‘live like kings’. A month later the star told Carl Hubbs that his father was well and will retire
‘next year or soon after, and go and settle down in Jamaica where I bought an island. … I personally feel very satisfied that the Old Man is so keen to get out of that lousy Irish climate and go to a place where conditions are so much more agreeable.’ He hoped his father might have ‘some involvement with the University of the West Indies’.
By September Theo and Marelle had decided to at least come and see. However in a letter to Hubbs in November Errol said ‘Dad seems to be still in a quandary as to whether to retire in Jamaica or not. I suppose it is difficult at his time of life to make a decision to leave a familiar environment and friends for a completely new country. However I have a feeling he will be going down there, and it is possible he might join the new University of the West Indies in some advisory capacity. It will be a good thing to keep him busy, don’t you think?’
Perhaps another winter in Belfast convinced Marelle to move. On study leave in February 1948 Theo told HW Parker, the Keeper of Zoology at London’s Natural History Museum, that ‘he was shortly going to live in Jamaica and is anxious to be of assistance to the Museum’. He would have some facilities for marine work including the use of a yacht. Parker asked the heads of section to provide collection notes for Flynn specifying the species and groups they would like, where they might be located and how they should be collected and preserved. Flynn received seven pages of requests and instructions covering almost all animals from worms to cetaceans and birds. He told Parker he was ‘most impressed. I will try if I live long enough, to do all you suggest’. He would see Parker again before he left to arrange collecting gear and funds to purchase alcohol for preserving specimens. ‘I will be on a pension so I will not be able to spend any money’.
Port Antonio was the area Errol chose, buying Navy Island. Later in the year he added Boston Estate, for £33,000. He expanded the estate into a thriving agricultural business and acquired the Titchfield Hotel, hoping to stimulate tourism in Port Antonio.The local community has claimed that Errol enjoyed an ongoing love affair with Port Antonio, becoming a part of the community when he visited between movies. After his death the seaport town named its marina after him as ‘an affirmation of what residents and visitors have known for a long time, that his mystique is still very much a part of the fabric of this part of Jamaica.’ Tourist brochures sometimes call the north-eastern coastline of Jamaica ‘Errol Flynn country’ because the actor created a plantation along its shore. The A4 highway goes by the Errol Flynn Estates at Fair Prospect and Priestmans River. The Estates now start at Boston and include 3,000 acres of coconuts and cattle pasture with a large herd of Jamaica Reds.
Port Antonio Jamaica. Flynn Estates in the background
Jamaica
The SS Jamaica Producer carried Theo with Marelle to Jamaica, in July 1948. Even before disembarking he was interviewed and photographed. He told the reporter of his intent
‘to settle on one of his son’s estates … and undertake scientific work for the London Museum of Natural History’.
‘I have a good deal of experience about your island’.
This comment referred to a number of Jamaicans that he had taught at Queens and of whom he had a high regard. The headline in the Daily Gleaner read - ‘Flynn’s father to do scientific work here.’ Marelle was not forgotten: ‘the beaming personality, Mrs Flynn who is keenly interested in music and social work agrees with her husband that residing in Jamaica will be enjoyable’.
Coincidentally in London the journal Nature was announcing Theo’s departure from Queen’s University and recalling his career, including reference to his Royal Commission into the fisheries of Tasmania.
‘In his retirement in Jamaica he hopes to utilise this latter experience in taking a serious interest in the marine biology and fisheries of the Caribbean area, as well as in meeting the demands of the British Museum for local biological material. His many friends wish him a happy and fruitful retirement’.
When his parents arrived Errol and Nora were on Navy Island ‘making a film’. It is probable that this reference is to the final sequences in The Cruise of the Zaca. Just before Nora flew back to America on 28 July the Gleaner published another photo showing her and Errol and the Flynns. A month later Errol also flew off and Theo and Marelle were left in a very different environment from Belfast.
Theo got down to work managing the estates and found ‘no literature to guide the stranger to these shores as to how to cultivate or rear cattle’. Help was at hand. On 2 December he and Marelle were guests of honour at a luncheon hosted by the Portland Farmers Association at the Tichfield Hotel. Mr FM Jones JP proposed the toast; Marelle and Mrs Jones found a mutual interest in social work. The lunch served as a formal introduction of the Flynns to Port Antonio society including the Custos (administrator of the parish) and three Justices of the Peace. Theo’s scientific research took second place to his new interest in farming and the Natural History Museum received no significant specimens.
Paradise Postponed
Periodically the Flynns travelled to visit Errol or Rosemary, now living in Germany. Most of Marelle’s family suffered with cardiac disease and it might have been on one of these trips during 1949 that she had a heart attack. Life in Jamaica was put on hold and Marelle began her recovery in Los Angeles. Theo’s mother died at her home in North Bondi about the same time: it seems that Theo had not seen her since he left Australia eighteen years earlier. About this time Errol met Patrice Wymore who was said to bear a striking similarity to Marelle.
Life in Errol’s household may have been visually stimulating at times, but Theo needed to do something more. In June 1950 he joined the Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians as Professor of Anatomy. The position provided a degree of independence, and also the big city life that Marelle seemed to need from time to time.
Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, or DOs, apply the philosophy of treating the whole person (a holistic approach) to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness, disease and injury using conventional medical practice such as drugs and surgery, along with manual therapy (Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine or OMM).As with Doctors of Medicine (MDs), DOs educated in the United States are fully licensed physicians and surgeons who practice the full scope of medicine. In other parts of the world, most DOs graduating outside the U.S. are not medically trained practitioners. In the 1960s in California, the American Medical Association (AMA) spent nearly $8 million to end the practice of osteopathy in the state. With considerable financial support from the AMA, the State legislature passed a state-wide referendum (Proposition 22) ending the practice of osteopathic medicine in California. California DOs were granted the MD degree in exchange for paying $65 and attending a short seminar. The College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons became the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine.
Los Angeles College of Osteopathic Physicians
In October 1950 the proud parents were guests of honour when Patrice Wymore twice became the third Mrs Errol Flynn. The first ceremony was in the Monte Carlo’s Town Hall and the second in a nearby French town where a compliant priest overlooked Errol’s two previous divorces. After their marriage Errol and Patrice visited Jamaica before returning to Europe. Theo returned to teach in California, but Marelle stayed in Europe. She would regularly spend time in Europe, particularly while Rosemary and Charles lived in Wiesbaden, Germany: she spent five months with them in 1951. Marelle particularly enjoying driving herself through Europe. In 1953 she had taken Theo to London and then drove them across the Channel to Calais and down to Spain. After the wedding she and a friend planned to again visit Spain. When outside Paris she attempted to read a map and drive at the same time. The car was wrecked and Marelle was lucky to escape with just a few days in hospital. On her release Charles Warner laid on the resources of the Army to fly his mother-in-law to hospital in Wiesbaden.
While Theo taught at the College, he and Marelle lived in Pasadena. They were getting to know their third daughter-in-law and attended a memorable party of Errol’s at which all three of his wives were present. Theo claimed to have intervened on one occasion on the side of Patrice, who Marelle felt was then ‘a sensitive girl … so much younger and less sophisticated than the two ex wives’. Given her own record as wife and her continuous warfare with Errol, her role as mother-in-law probably required a sensitivity beyond her capacity. About the same time Marelle was reconciled with her sister Betty. She had been living a rather lost and lonely life in Washington DC until beginning a relationship with one Charles Palmer. While Marelle was still recovering from the heart attack, Betty and Charles came to stay for a while. Betty later wrote ‘It was nice seeing them and we tried to forget past differences. We were sad to say goodbye.’ After leaving Pasadena Charles had to go to Cambridge Massachusetts to meet Betty’s son Jack Glover, who was then a Professor of Economics at Harvard, and his wife Ruth. After passing that test Charlie helped Betty pack up her flat in Washington before they set off to Florida to make their new home.
In his report to the College Trustees in May 1951 the President of Flynn’s College, W. Ballentine Henley said -
Professor T. Thomson Flynn, Professor of Anatomy, has been with the college the past year, and his presence has added greatly to the scientific prestige of the institution. It is to be regretted that he will not be on campus next year. He is asking for a year's leave of absence in order to tend to the business enterprises of his son. He has not only brought prestige, but also he has left an imprint upon the student body. A voluntary course was offered in which he carried a capacity enrolment. The students were most enthusiastic about him.