Easter Daffodil Clifton

This week, spare a thought for Easter, will you? We mean Muriel Easter Daffodil Therese Clifton, of course, the fourth child of John Talbot Clifton and Violet. She was born on Easter Monday 13 April 1914 and named by servants and friends of the family, or so it is said. Her mother Violet really wanted another son – Harry, the eldest, only had sisters Avia and Aurea as siblings.

Easter Daffodil lived mostly in Ireland and at the family’s estate in Scotland at Kildalton Castle. It was there that she first met Gerald Baird, who managed the Scottish estate for her father. She was only eleven, but she knew she was going to marry him. And true to her word, she did. They got married on her 22nd birthday, in Edinburgh.

Unfortunately her family did not approve of the match, and she was disowned. The only family member present at her wedding was her sister Avia.

If you walk around the grounds of Lytham Hall and see all the daffodils, think back to Easter Daffodil, born 100 years ago this week, who followed her dream.

Photo shows Easter on the right and her sister Avia on the left, in front of Lytham Hall.