Phyllis Knight-Jones – A remarkable life (1933–2009)

Phyllis Kathleen Fisher (known as Pip to friends and family) was born in Mitcham, Surrey, on 24 March 1933 to Arthur John and Phyllis Mildred \Fisher. By the age of 5, the family was living in Brixton, south London. Her early schooling was not happy due to her natural shyness and strict ‘Dickensian’ teachers. Some respite came when her school was bombed early in the war with Germany. They moved to Balham and, at the age of 7, she was taught at home by her mother.

By her own admission, Phyllis was a dreamer, often imagining travelling to foreign places. However, their house in Martindale Road was damaged in the same raid (October 1940) that a devastating bomb killed 65 civilians at the nearby Balham Underground Station, bringing reality to the fore. Her father had been deemed unfit for active service and was, at this time, driving ammunition around the country. Fortunately, his superior offered the family the use of his house and they moved to Chelsea. Phyllis returned to school, her despair only tempered by the beauty of the house and the excitement of the air raids.

In 1943, her sister Barbara was born and, shortly after, a motherless cousin aged 2 came to stay. Despite failing her ‘11 plus’ education assessment, Phyllis had passed the entrance exam for Fulham High School and now found learning a joy. Following the death of her father's employer, her mother obtained accommodation and housekeeping work at the Old Physic Garden in Chelsea. This was far from ideal for three children and, in 1945, the family moved out of London to Lawford in Essex. They lived in a flat in the country estate of R.J. Minney, the author and film producer; Phyllis's parents working as housekeeper and handyman. From there the family moved to a similar situation at the vicarage in Great Horkesley.

Phyllis was now attending Colchester County High School and her desire for travel was met by school exchange trips to Holland (age 14) and Paris (age 16). Now nearing the end of her schooling, Phyllis had few ideas about what she wanted to do, although she determined to ‘make her mark somewhere’. Her main interest was a model theatre and the marionettes that she had been making from the age of 8 (Figure 1A).

Figure 1. Phyllis Fisher (A) age 8; (B) with puppets, early 1950s; (C) diving, early 1960s. Photographs from the personal collection of Phyllis Knight-Jones.

Marionettes (1949–1961)

The childhood hobby of making puppets inspired her mother to write to professional puppeteers and, at 16, Phyllis gained an audition with Jan Bussell of Muffin the Mule fame. This was successful and a year's contract was offered for a touring puppet show sponsored by Women's Own magazine. Phyllis left school and that October she, her mother and a driver set off in a van with Woman's Own Puppet Theatre emblazoned on the sides. They put on shows at factory works' canteens, youth clubs, Women's Institutes, hospitals and schools throughout England and Scotland. While they were away the family rented a house in Stanway, to the west of Colchester, and her father opened a fish and chip shop.

On their return, Phyllis busied herself making more puppets and started work in Margate doingsummer and Christmas shows with Christine Glanville (who later operated Rupert the Bear). She then performed on her own (Figure 1B) under the name The Masque Marionettes. Performances included abridged versions of Shaw and Wilde plays, and ‘Variety Acts’, with a striptease puppet an audience favourite. An agent, Al Heath, spotted her in 1952 and for the next four years Phyllis Fisher and her Puppets appeared all over the country, and even on television. Some newspaper notices in the mid 1950s referred to the act as ‘Phyllis Fischer’ — presumably believing the act more exotic with a foreign name!

Interspersed with this were very exciting travel opportunities. In 1953, at 20 years of age, she boarded the T.S.S. Jal-Jawahar and travelled alone to India and Pakistan for 5 months with her puppet act Puppetually Yours. She documented this trip in detail and wrote that ‘maybe it could be made into a book’. The next two years brought about tours with the European Armed Forces Professional Entertainment Branch. The two-month 1954 tour was entitled Here come the Girls and they entertained the troops in Germany. The following year, Something for the Boys took them to Tunis, Tripoli, Tobruk, Fayid, Aqaba, Rabat, Marrakesh, Casablanca and Cairo. She not only performed her puppet act, but also took part in the chorus line when needed.

In 1955, a booking in Jersey brought about another major change in the course of her life; she fell in love with the island. One of her passions was to renovate an old boat that she found in 1958. Although submerged and in need of considerable repair, she set to the task with her customary resolve. Phyllis continued to entertain with her puppets, and was part of the winning St Helier team in BBC television's Top Town Variety Competition in 1959. This brought much travel to and from England as the team worked their way through the competition and finals.

Diving (1961–1970)

A broken relationship brought Phyllis back to England and a new beginning. In 1961, she started a job as a Cardiological Technician in Windsor (Berkshire), and took up SCUBA diving, joining the Slough Sub-Aqua Club as ‘Member 261’ (Figure 1C). She rapidly became very interested in marine life, and set up her own marine aquarium. In addition, she began studying part-time to gain some ‘A-levels’ and complete an education cut short in 1949.

In January 1962 a letter arrived from AP Films and she began working on Gerry Anderson's ‘Supermarionation’ television shows, Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray. It was an exciting time in her marionette career. During this period she bought a Vespa scooter and went diving many weekends, becoming a ‘3rd class diver’ in March 1963. That July, she had a holiday in Italy and travelled to Grosseto, Roma, Napoli, and Pompei; diving at Capo Palinuro and Grotta Azzurra (Capri). When she returned, she had one month's paid work in Plymouth collecting sea urchins. Moreover, she produced her first marine life illustrations and, the following January, wrote ’I might be able to paint something worthwhile someday when I have learnt more’.

This increased interest in marine life caused Phyllis to write to the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) in 1964 regarding the availability of marine biology courses. They responded by suggesting a couple of field centres – including the one at Dale Fort in Milford Haven, southwest Wales. This advice was to prove significant four years later.

Phyllis was tiring of the TV puppet work and, in June 1965, started work as a Technical Assistant in plant pathology in the research department of Glaxo Laboratories Ltd at Stoke Poges, just north of Slough. She was well regarded at her work and, two years later, was promoted to Laboratory Technician. In April 1969 she successfully applied for an available Assistant Librarian post within the company.

All the while her passion for diving was unabated and, in 1966, she took up underwater photography, had a diving holiday in the Costa Brava (Spain), was elected an annual member of the MBA, and gained her Bronze Medallion Life Saving Award. The following year, she volunteered at swimming/sub aqua/life-saving sessions for Slough Boy's Club, and holidayed again in the Costa Brava region; diving, water-skiing and sailing.

Phyllis briefly returned to puppet-related work in 1968 when she filmed a short exhibition showpiece, The Rehearsal, for television. In July that year, she realised her dream and finally participated in a marine biology course at Dale Fort Field Centre. The notes accompanying her dive log include the following:

28.7.68 CASTLE BAY/SHEEP ISLAND – Eastern promontory of Milford Haven. Co-divers Professor Knight-Jones & Reverend Rochford.

Phyllis may not have been expecting to do much diving, as she records having taken only a wetsuit jacket and basic equipment. She borrowed SCUBA gear and they dived to around 11 m but, lacking a hood and bootees, she found it ‘bitterly cold’. Nevertheless, she ‘Brought up [a] few specimens for investigation’.

In September she attended the three-day 8th British Sub-Aqua Club Conference on Underwater Activities in Brighton along with four other Slough club members. She wrote a two-page account of the event in the Slough Sub-Aqua Club's Diving News. In March 1969, Phyllis attended the Underwater Association Symposium of the Zoological Society. This was her second meeting with Elis Wyn Knight-Jones, recently divorced. Their relationship accelerated and, that July, they were married at Devizes Register Office in Wiltshire.

The honeymoon was unusual. They both attended the Summer Schools on Problems of World Order: Hydrospace and its Development for Mankind event in Malta. The organising secretary wrote to them beforehand pointing out that, although only single rooms were available, they would ‘however, make sure your rooms are adjacent’! The honeymooners went diving seven times and Phyllis's logbook recorded Spirorbis on the last two. The Knight-Jones's set up home in Swansea, South Wales.

Polychaetes (1969–2009)

Phyllis soon became involved in Wyn's research and, as an Honorary Research Associate at University College (now Swansea University), started work on the specimens collected in Malta. In 1971, they spent 2 months touring South Africa, collecting spirorbins together and Wyn lecturing. The birth of daughter Gaynor in 1972 did little to slow Phyllis down. She produced three publications that year and a further two papers appeared in each of the following two years. These publications supported Wyn's request to the University in 1975 that she be allowed to enroll for an MSc – despite lacking a degree. This was granted and Phyllis successfully presented her Studies on Spirorbidae thesis in 1977. In addition, she gained Institute of Biology recognition based on her published work. Her candidature for a PhD was duly confirmed and three years later she successfully defended her Studies on Sabellidae thesis — an achievement overshadowed by the death of her father just two weeks prior to her viva. She had helped nurse him through his last months.

Phyllis and Wyn travelled widely throughout the 1970s, collecting polychaetes wherever they went. They had two cruises around the Canary Islands, plus separate trips to Tenerife, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. Studying in her spare time, Phyllis even managed to obtain a certificate in Scientific Russian.

At the beginning of 1981, their long-awaited trip to South America materialised (they had made detailed plans in 1969!) and they visited Rio de Janiero, Buenos Aires, Patagonia and Peru. As usual, Phyllis kept extensive diaries detailing all their experiences. After this trip she wrote ‘took some time to recover and even my capping ceremony did little to alleviate what seemed to be permanent lethargy’ (Figure 2A). Wyn retired in October that year and the following month she made a research visit to the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris.

Figure 2. Phyllis Knight-Jones (A) PhD graduation, 1981; (B) with husband Wyn. Photographs from the personal collection of Phyllis Knight-Jones.

In 1982, they went to Madeira and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel because the rocky shore that they wanted to collect from was only accessible via a few very expensive hotels! Gaynor started boarding school in September and they were thrilled to receive an Anglo-Australian fellowship of £2000 each from the Royal Society. This enabled them to embark on a three-month collecting tour of Australia the following year, taking in the First International Polychaete Conference at the Australian Museum, Sydney.

Phyllis worked part-time as a staff biologist at Biopharm Leeches (UK) in Swansea (now in Hendy, Carmarthenshire) for a year in the mid 1980s. She bred and maintained leeches for medical use. Around this time Phyllis was collecting and drawing sabellids from a flooded coastal slate quarry at Abereiddi, southwest Wales. Abereiddi was a place that combined her later passions for painting and slate with marine biology.

Phyllis was made an Honorary Research Fellow at Swansea University in 1984 – a status she enjoyed for 10 years. Subsequently, she was an Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum Wales. Despite these, Phyllis was increasingly carrying out more of her work at home. This was difficult as she did not possess her own microscope, but a research award of £2500 from the Systematics Association helped remedy this in 1989. She purchased a Wild M3C stereomicroscope, drawing tube, and Schott fibre-optic light system. Later, she bought a Nikon compound microscope. Her travels, collecting and research on sabellid and serpulid polychaetes continued unabated throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Figure 3A, B), only slowing with ill-health as the new millennium approached.

Figure 3. Phyllis Knight-Jones (A) diving in Hawaiian marina, 1993; (B) collecting specimens in Iceland, 1994; (C) with slate quarry painting, 2004. Photographs from the personal collection of Phyllis Knight-Jones.

Phyllis was a regular participant at successive polychaete conferences. In addition to the first, she attended and published in the proceedings of the second (Copenhagen, 1986), third (Long Beach, 1989), fourth (Angers, 1992) and fifth (Qingdao, 1995) conferences. These were always accompanied by fieldwork. However, due to health problems she was unable to attend the sixth conference in Curitiba, Brazil. Nevertheless, an abstract was produced and the first author displayed her poster on ‘A revision of Sabellastarte’. Although she did not attend the seventh conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, a poster was presented (with Adriana Giangrande) on atypical species of Pseudobranchiomma and the paper appeared in the 2003 Proceedings.

Phyllis was always eager to attain new skills and, in April 1992, she attended a cladistic course at the Natural History Museum in London. She did not particularly enjoy using computers but, in 2001 and 2002, she took a part-time IT course at Swansea University.

A Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, Phyllis gave presentations on her work on Branchiomma and Pseudobranchiomma, and ‘Sabellariidae and Sabellidae of the Faroes’ at the Conversazione held, respectively, in June 1992 and 1993. The latter was, by a strange coincidence, held at the Chelsea Physic Garden where she had spent part of her childhood.

In March 1999, Gaynor married Robert Oddy. Much less happily, that October, Phyllis was diagnosed with breast cancer – a disease that her mother (d. August 1997) had suffered also. A mastectomy, then chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed. Contributing to the Walls of Hope 2002 advertising leaflet for Cancer Research UK Cymru, Phyllis wrote ‘It was almost worth it. After some side effects (treatment) life has taken on an extra quality and I cannot find enough time to fit in all of the things I want to do’.

Her positive attitude was exemplified in an e-mail she wrote to Peter Vine in July 2001 ‘Planning a trip on a cruise of Muscat, Salalah, Djibouti, Hodeidah, Jeddah, Safaga and Aqaba to see whether Sabellastarte sanctijosephi occurs outside the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden by snorkelling and whether other Sabellastarte can be studied via marine stations or Aquaria having had permission to collect’. Although this trip did not happen, Phyllis and Wyn did accompany National Museum Wales staff on a successful fieldtrip to collect Pseudopotamilla reniformis at Looe, Cornwall, one weekend in October 2003 (only a few weeks after Wyn had a hip replacement operation).

Art (1961–2009)

Phyllis had produced some high-quality artwork at school and continued to draw and paint in the 1960s as her interest in marine life grew. Following her marriage she started to produce pen and ink drawings of the worms she was studying. These appeared in her publications, and in presentations given and posters displayed at numerous meetings and conferences.

In 1979, she travelled with the Swansea University field course party to Sherkin Island, southwest Ireland, and stayed on to attend the first seminar to be held there: The Need for Marine Research. In the first Sherkin Island newsletter, Matt Murphy wrote ‘Professor and Phyllis Knight-Jones and John Moyse stayed on after the rest of the Swansea party left on 8th September and helped fit out the panelling in the new laboratory, which Phyllis decorated with five magnificent watercolours she painted of Sherkin’. Phyllis later referred to this as her ‘first solo art exhibition’.

Phyllis attended part-time art classes (watercolour, acrylic and mixed media) at Swansea University between 1993 and 1997. Subsequently, she joined Janet Bligh's art class and was a member of South Wales, Swansea and Llanelli Art Societies. She exhibited frequently between 1997 and 2005, both as a solo artist (Pip Knight-Jones) and as part of a group of mainly Gower artists called Fourth Dimension.

In 1999, Phyllis made her first visit to the National Slate Museum at Llanberis in North Wales. This inspired her to embark on a project, painting and documenting slate quarries throughout Wales. She wrote ‘What began as an interesting subject to paint became a crusade to regain the 18th century appreciation of ruins and to publicise the vandalism of our heritage by over-enthusiastic council “landscaping” and bored youngsters.' She contacted many publishers and her perseverance paid off when Gwasg Carreg Gwalch agreed to cover the publishing costs for the book, Aspects of Welsh Slate (2004), which accompanied her solo exhibition (2004–2005) of the same name (Figure 3C). Even then, Phyllis managed to involve polychaetes, including paintings of beautiful fan worms she had observed whilst diving in Abereiddi quarry. Several of her quarry paintings are housed in the National Library of Wales.

Health (2000–2009)

Following the breast cancer of 1999, the next 10 years were marred by illnesses to both Phyllis and Wyn (Figure 2B). Phyllis began to find it harder to cope, but continued her polychaete and art studies.

Phyllis passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of 8 January 2009, having recently been diagnosed with secondary bone cancer. This was completely unexpected and, at that time, she was directing the packaging of her and Wyn's belongings prior to their move to Gaynor and Rob's house near Manchester. Nathalie Yonow from Swansea University was helping with the organisation of her polychaete collections and loans, and contacted the National Museum Wales and other polychaete workers.

The material, together with reprints and taxonomic books, was transferred to the Museum over a period of two days and fluid levels of specimen tubes were topped up. In October, the third author was employed on a six-month maternity cover post to curate and document the collection. Over 4500 lots of specimens from over 60 countries were processed and, where possible, material was matched with field notes and drawings. Teresa Darbyshire, the marine section collections' manager, returned loan material to many museums worldwide. Nathalie Yonow separately returned much sabellid material to Maria Anna Tovar-Hernández in Mexico.

Phyllis was an author of more than 40 scientific papers encompassing taxonomy, phylogeny, morphology, functional morphology, reproduction, behaviour, ecology, zoogeography and non-native species. She described over 70 new taxa and produced a number of very important taxonomic revisions.

Reminiscences

Phyllis loved to travel and often visited other polychaete researcher friends while collecting material. Likewise, Phyllis and Wyn welcomed visiting researchers (young and old) and friends to Bryngwyn, their home in Llanrhidian on Gower, South Wales. Phyllis was generous with her time and advice, and would always be happy to discuss her work with others.

Many letters and emails were received following Phyllis's death. These cannot all be included here; however, the few that are provide an insight into the respect and affection she received from her fellow polychaetologists.

Nechama Ben-Eliahu: ‘Phyllis and I had become good friends – she visited me (and brought her mother who baby-sat with the cat when Phyllis and I went down to Elat to sample)! I visited Phyllis and Wyn at Bryngwyn some years back before that.’

Mary Petersen: ‘I have many very pleasant memories of both of them and especially remember a most enjoyable visit with them in their wonderful home, and at least one or two field trips to good collecting spots in the area, … It was a very good visit!’

Helmut Zibrowius: ‘I met them last in the Faroes (BIOFAR Symposium) in 1992. Wyn then was still agile in the tidal zone between boulders looking for spirorbids. They were a kind help when young I touched to spirorbids (now I am retired, too).’

Kristian Fauchald, on the fieldtrip following the First International Polychaete Conference: ‘I will never forget the arrival at Lizard Island in 1983 after the Sydney conference. Most of us sat on the beach relaxing and gossiping etc. Wyn and Phyllis IMMEDIATELY started work: we were sitting there more or less openmouthed while the two of them came striding down the beach, dressed for water, squabbling about some fine point of spirorbid systematics, basically overlooking the rest of the troop.’

David George had similar memories of that time: ‘I remember out on a trimeran when diving with them in Cook's Passage through the Great Barrier Reef they started an argument just before a dive and continued exactly where they left off on surfacing from the dive, much to the amusement of everybody present.’

Despite the health problems of herself and Wyn, Phyllis was always thinking about polychaetes. In correspondence with Mary Petersen, she wrote ‘I am very sad to have missed the [9th] Polychaete Conference. Your coast [Maine, USA] is the only one that I regret not visiting. Apart from the beauty of the coastline, we once wanted to compare the local spirorbids with those from our coasts. Perhaps Tara [Macdonald] will have a go. Give her my fond regards and to others that remember us.’

Asher, her eldest granddaughter (April 2010), on thanking the first author for helping write this ‘book’, wrote ‘Nanan: She was a very kind woman, who had a heart of gold. I loved her very much … I wish she was still alive.’

Phyllis was indeed a much-loved lady, missed by all who knew her, and her life quite remarkable. She is survived by her husband Wyn, 17 years her senior, daughter Gaynor and son-in-law Rob, and granddaughters Asher, Eloise and Emma.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the many who shared their thoughts and memories of Phyllis with us. In particular, we would like to thank Nathalie Yonow, Nechama Ben-Eliahu, Kristian Fauchald, Maria Cristina Gambi, Adriana Giangrande, David George, Harry ten Hove, Pat Hutchings, Ernest and Gillian Naylor, Mary Peterson, Ioanna Psalti, Peter Vine and Helmut Zibrowius.