Elaine Wynn Owen (1919-1997)
Reginald and Nellie’s third child was Elaine Wynn Owen. She was born on 26 June 1919 at Farraline House, Watford. This was just before her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Elaine was christened at St. Mary’s church. One of her godparents was a fellow churchgoer, "Auntie" Bea (Beatrice Johnson) and the other was Dr. John Owen.
Elaine was only five when her mother died and the family left Watford so she had few memories of Farraline House. She recalled the ivy that covered the walls; the children made camps beneath its lower branches and it had ensnared her ride-on leopard, removing the wheels, when she lowered it out of the upstairs nursery window. There were many pets and Elaine had a bantam called Bertie. Sadly, the only personal recollection she had of her mother was when she had made something with wooden bricks and a Dutch doll and "mummy came into the nursery and liked it".
She remembered her father coming down to Ifield, where the children were staying with their Aunt Mary and, having already told Ruth, he took Eric and Elaine down to the river to tell them their mother had died; she asked if her mother had gone to heaven. The children did not go to the funeral. The family never returned to Farraline House but Elaine loved 'Summerfield', their new home in Epsom. Racehorses were stabled behind it and she would watch the diminutive jockeys passing on their way to exercise them.
Perhaps as a result of the traumas of her early life, Elaine was a nervous child. Throughout her life she suffered occasional panic attacks, sometimes waking at night with an agonising sense of responsibility and general anxiety. She once had psychiatric counselling as a teenager after a particularly bad attack but to no effect. It was something she learned to cope with and later kept it to herself until she was quite elderly.