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An unexpected meeting; a new use for the old pram; the new Rector; the Adamson bookplate; the most fabulous order; hints of happiness, but no hope for the New Year; a pleasant surprise; Barry knocked off his bike; Jane kicked by a horse, and great hopes for Speyside next Summer.

I am surprised to discover that Gran even entertained the idea of using a weed-killer in the garden of The Ridge, but on October 23rd 1958, we read:

I squeezed in a little gardening this morning, raking up leaves from the front grass and then putting down a second dose of Fison’s weed-killer and grass fertilizer, which has already much improved the front lawn. Early this afternoon I cycled along to the end of Hiltingbury Road to get some beech leaves to preserve for Winter.  I found that the coloured ones were already very prone to fall, but there were still plenty of green ones, and all go golden brown when preserved in glycerine. Linnets were flying about where the old Polish Camp is being demolished.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 94)

A new racquet; promise of a green belt; a personal triumph; Jill has a baby; a tree from Canada; Mr Burdett retires; “These Americans!”; irritating evangelists; a hedgehog is saved, a visit to Scotland – perhaps, and ravaging beauty, nearly, if not quite, divine.

“This afternoon, I was just finishing painting the Lesser Dodder”, writes Gran on September 2nd 1958, “when Jane arrived home from Scotland.  She had had a wonderful holiday and had a great deal to tell”. Not only had she brought her mother some flower samples from the north, but:

She also brought me a superb new tennis racquet, the best on the market, which I could hardly wait to try.  I did, however, wait till after tea and then Jane and I went up for a game.  The racquet was wonderful and we had some splendid games.  Although I actually won the first set we were very closely matched in spite of the score of 6 – 0, but in the second one the first game took twenty minutes with an uncountable number of deuces, and we were forty minutes playing three games. Jane eventually won the set at 8 – 6 and we had been playing an hour and a half.

Gran cannot wait to use her new racquet again and she bemoans the fact that she has a “full week ahead and I go to Kingston next Monday!”

A couple of days later:

We had good news this evening!  The two remaining yew trees opposite here, my favourites, are to stay and a green belt to be right opposite this house, with shops further up and behind the yews but hidden from our view.  It could have been so much worse, and, whilst I shall never cease to regret our lovely “opposite wood”, I am consoled by the preservation of, at least, two of our much-loved yews.

Well, in hindsight, it seems that Gran’s feelings of consolation were premature:  just a single yew remains and there are shops opposite The Ridge, unscreened and in full view.  No doubt we shall read her views on this in a future journal!

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 93)

Hudnut’s factory; a trip to Oxford; a famous French artist; Britain wins the Wightman Cup; a strange Bee Orchid; a setback for the Ospreys; Fairsky –  a ship with a past life; at Wimbledon’s No 1 Court; new flowers to paint; a Wild Gladiolus hunt, and a letter from Mr Summerhayes.

On May 10th 1958 Gran writes:

This afternoon I went with Jean Hockridge to the Open Day at Hudnut’s Factory, where Ken is Production Manager.  Though I do not use cosmetics myself, I found it very interesting, and other drugs and liniments and such are also made there.  It was fascinating to see the various machines turning out tablets, mixing powders and creams, mixing toothpaste and putting it into tubes, filling, corking and labelling bottles of shampoo, and liniments and many other things. A very nice tea was provided and all guests were given various samples of the productions.

She plays tennis that evening and ends her entry for the day: “Tomorrow I go to Oxford with the Fowler family to see Diana and, hopefully, to look for Fritillaries!”  It is not clear what Diana, Tommy and Bob’s younger daughter, is now doing in Oxford.  Is she at the University?  Gran describes the next day at some length, including the journey to Oxford, and includes this:

…through Newtown, Newbury, Beedon and East Ilsley to Harwell, the New Town built round the Atomic Research Station, which, to my mind, should never have existed at all, and the sight of it was the one disquieting feature in an otherwise lovely day.

The day is spent in and around Oxford with the Fowler family, and Gran finds her Fritillaries – in a Thames-side meadow, close to where students are rehearsing Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale.   She says, “…gentlemen in doublet and hose, and ladies in farthingales strolled everywhere”.

Book 72

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 91)

No need for a tirade; a couple of grebes; Woodlark hangs on locally; still cycling distances in search of flowers; promotion for Barry; the Boat Race; a Society Wedding at Otterbourne; old-fashioned toys for the Hockridge girls and a book comes to an appreciative recipient.

We have a revealing insight into Gran’s preferred brand of Christianity in early March 1958.  The Hockridges, the family next-door, active in their faith, are evangelical in their views and have on a number of occasions encouraged Gran to attend meetings at their church and elsewhere. On this occasion, Gran puts into words her thoughts thus:

I went to a film shown by the Chandler’s Ford Evangelical Mission at the local School, entitled “Dust or Destiny”. It was wonderful, showing many of the wonders of nature, all previously known and appreciated by me, who, as a naturalist and, I hope, a Christian, have never doubted the Creation nor the power of the Creator, and I truly did not feel in need of the rather loudly proclaimed tirade afterwards.  But I like quiet things and I like my teaching about God to be quietly proclaimed for I cannot imagine our Lord shouting, and I find it neither more coherent nor more convincing than the well-modulated speech of my own Rector at Compton.  It holds no particular message for me.  I hope I am not wrong about this but I find my own Church’s teaching far more satisfying and much less embarrassing.

The promised flower stamps from Mr Cashmore, arrive on the 11th:

…the beautiful flower stamps of San Marino and Jugo-Slavia, which made me wonder why our Post Office is not more enterprising.  Why should we not depict on our stamps some of our lovely native flowers – surely there are many that would make excellent subjects?

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 90)