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A strange plant; voices recorded for posterity; Ricky “will get every encouragement”; farewell to good neighbours; bad behaviour at Bournemouth; a Glossy Starling; Lady’s Slippers to paint, and monkeys and soldiers.

It is Easter-time, 1968, and the Brenan family spends some of the holiday at The Ridge, arriving on April 8th. Gran escorts the increasingly bird-keen Stuart around the Pinewood and the Lake on 9th. She discovers a strange plant:

In the mud at the end of the Lake I saw a surprising sight.  Scattered about were about half a dozen Arum Lilies – they must have been garden escapes, but how they got there I cannot imagine.  They were inaccessible, streams all round and the mud deep, but I ran home for my Wellington boots and managed to reach the smallest one.  They are a clear yellow, faintly touched with green and some very large though the whole plant was quite short.  I can find no definite mention of them in any book, except that there are species of African Arums and they may be one of these.  But what are they doing here, open in a rather cold April?

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 127)

A quiet Christmas; a Fox runs by; an old friend dies; spirits lifted by a butterfly; a Presidency for Barry; “21 years of our journal”; the Brenans move house; foot and mouth disease restrictions, and searching for Daphne.

December 7th 1967: “I wakened cold this morning”, writes Gran:

…and it was truly a very bitter day.  This afternoon I dashed to Southampton to do some Christmas shopping and spent an enjoyable little while at Fowlers’ shop, paying my account and giving my Christmas orders.  There have been staff changes in the past year, but it was nice to see one or two familiar faces.

News of Katherine is encouraging later that day, and Andrew is as mischievous as ever:

Katherine is still improving and is quite happy settled in hospital.  Grandma Brenan has arrived and is coping well and Andrew is quite back to form!  Today he took the handle off the larder door and Grandma could not get things out for dinner.  She had to get a neighbour to open the door with a screwdriver!

Six inches of snow fall on the following day, Gran saying the blizzard drives snow into the doorways and packs it against the windows.  “Of course, it looked beautiful”, she adds.  A knock on the door late that day surprises her but it is: “Barry himself, with Julian and Ricky.  He had come by road and found little difficulty until he reached Hocombe Road, where the car skidded on the corner”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 126)

Sherborne House – recalled; a fence triggers a memory; Fair Isle knitting; tennis at Bournemouth, Wimbledon and “Mr Chalk’s lovely garden”; vertigo in Cheddar Gorge; anxiety over a “beastly complaint”; Margaret – a new friend; Ricky does well; plenty of visitors, and some tears.

On April 16th 1967, Gran writes of a kind gesture, telling us that:

…Mrs Dowson, who taught Barry and Jane at Sherborne House School, came to take Mother and me for a drive, mainly so that Mother could see Primroses at their best.  We went through Hursley and Farley Mount… and on towards Sparsholt…

Dad adds a little bit of background:

“Sherborne House School in Lakewood Road, was opened in 1933, shortly before I started there. The Headmistress was Mrs [Eva] Wise. Her two daughters, known as “Miss Dorothy” and “Miss Wise” [Nancy] made up the rest of the staff. “Miss Wise” married soon after I left, and became Mrs Dowson”.

And:

In 2003 the school celebrated its 70th anniversary. Seventy-three-year-old Barry was invited to the gathering at the school and there he found “Miss Dorothy”, over one hundred years of age but still remembering “Barry Goater, the boy who was late for school one morning because he had found a Pine Hawk-moth”.

Gran, Greaty and Mrs Dowson drive on, to Leckford and Stockbridge, and then, Gran continues, “We turned off the main road and came to a wide grassy verge along a lane, which was carpeted with Primroses, a glorious sight.  Mrs Dowson picked a posy for Mother”.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 125)

No Church on Christmas Day; fears for 1967; a wretched rabbit; a new washing machine; unaccustomed boredom; thank goodness for Mrs Hillier; an adorable bundle; a party in Bushey; a new bicycle; a driving test passed; a long session of tiddlywinks, and an anniversary.

It is Christmas Eve, 1966.  The Brenan family arrives at The Ridge for the festivities and, Julian and I, the two older grandchildren, Gran writes, “…came, bringing their little half-sister, Fiona, and Julian took them, Katherine and Fiona, to the Lake before lunch”.

Christmas Day at The Ridge passes as usual, with presents passed out round the tree after breakfast, preparation and enjoyment of the dinner (no doubt with the traditional Woodpecker cider), and enjoyment of the grandchildren’s antics.  Tradition, though, is broken uncomfortably for the first time since Gran began her journal, twenty years earlier, Gran writing of the day: “…I was sorry not to be able to start it by going to Church.  With an invalid and the family to look after I just could not get away”.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 124)

Snow in April; families in tears; Scotland – postponed; a Garganey; a pilgrimage; sorting out Em; Husky Norris; two christenings; another wild place lost; a wet garden party; the gallant Manuel Santana; the “World Football Cup” and a boot and a half.

Book 112

April 9th 1966:

This afternoon, in sunshine, Brother and I went out together, going by quiet ways to the New Forest… We passed the Sounding Arch, across which Florence Nightingale used to pass from her home, Embley Park, to the Church at East Wellow (in which churchyard she is buried) but which was recently struck by a lorry which was too high for it, and it has now had its top removed, so there is no longer a passage from Embley to the Church.

They drive on the Millersford Bottom, where they leave the car and walk:

…joined by a very friendly Golden Retriever, which stayed with us until we returned to the car, sitting down and patiently waiting every time we stopped to watch birds or investigate anything.

April 14th:

A horrible shock on awakening to a white world this morning!  Yes, indeed, snow had fallen in the early hours and lay to a depth of about two inches.  It was 1950 that I last recorded snow in April and I remember a heavy fall in 1908 when I was living in Bassett.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 122)