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A visit to Salisbury; Jane’s twenty-first; Vaughan Williams’ Bridal Day; preparation for a visit by Mr Summerhayes; “eight hateful shops”; a return to tennis; an invasive plant, and the New Forest – still good for Red-backed Shrikes.

In the second week of May 1955, Gran visits Salisbury with her friend Joan Sheppard, to see an exhibition of floral art at the Guildhall there.  She fully describes, in particular, those exhibits that she finds most attractive, noting that there is only one male contributor – Gordon Clarke from Dorchester – and whose work was “truly sensational”.

Afterwards, they visit the town and its Cathedral – not seen by Gran since she was a child, and, in her opinion, “not wholly as beautiful as Winchester Cathedral”.  But the stained glass window above the altar, “whilst lacking the brilliant colour of many I have seen, is, nevertheless, quite the most strikingly beautiful of all”.  And in her journal that night, she describes it in detail.

May 13th:

Jane’s twenty-first birthday, and I have been miserably depressed all day.  Partly, no doubt, because I hate to admit that my adorable baby is now a grown woman, and partly because she is away and I have been unable to share this great day with her.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 70)

Several field trips; a couple of new birds; “Adventure lit their star”; a Nightingale competes with Southampton’s traffic; with Brother and Fin in The Forest; the Habs at Beaulieu; country buses and painting flowers to capture memories.

On March 30th 1955, Gran, with Adrian on her mind, writes:

During the evening I listened to a beautiful but poignantly sad play, “Autumn Crocus” by Dodie Smith, and have come to bed dear, with my soul wrung by it and living again its own anguish.  But, as with Fanny, the beauty remains and nothing can take that from me even though I grow old.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 69)

A longed for book; a medical worry results in an unquiet week; Gran gets her Smew; a bike is mislaid; flower paintings for friends; Tussock Corner; did Kew get it wrong? Oppressed by the London Underground; Roman Snails and a kind gesture.

On February 10th 1955 Gran is in Southampton.  She has an appointment there for a chest X-Ray but does not enlarge upon this, preferring to record that:

I had drawn an unexpected fifteen shillings overtime for Christmas week, and, having also a book token to spend, I went to Smith’s bookshop and gave myself a book for which I had longed for many months.  It was “Wild Orchids of Britain”, by Summerhayes, of Kew, and I also bought the latest edition of “Hampshire Review”, in which an article of Barry’s on birds of the coast appears.  It is a good article and reveals depths in Barry’s character, which may not be apparent to those who only know him superficially.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 68)