Forty Years in Chandler's Ford - a Journal (Part 65)

Empty nest syndrome; fun collecting crab apples; flowers for a Queen; a dockers’ strike; a farm wedding; “Goodbye Mary”; and another wedding.

September 21^st1954:

Jane left early this morning to return to college at Eastbourne and Jill Fowler, who joins her there tomorrow, arrived just before she left, with some things which Jane had promised to take for her. Our farewells were brief, for even when we feel our best, we dislike these partings but today with the shadow of Robin’s tragic accident hanging over us, neither of us was fit for prolonged speech.

“Poor little Jane”, Gran continues, “it is the first time tragedy has so nearly reached her and she is being very brave”. Later that day, she cycles to the top of Otterbourne Hill “to get some blackthorn upon which to feed a Fox moth caterpillar which I am looking after for a youngster while he is on holiday”.

Fox moth caterpillar. Image by Chris Parker via Flickr.

The night brings depression. Jane has gone, the house is empty and Gran’s subconscious keeps:

…expecting to hear Barry’s running footsteps at any moment, coming to switch on the moth lamp. But he will not be here tonight either and I wonder how he has got on today. He will be with Brother tonight for he is sharing his digs until he finds a home of his own.

The 23^rdsees Gran at Parkstone, in Dorset, visiting her friend Gladys Richards, but, responding to Bob Fowler’s pleas, she spends a couple of early hours packing flowers for the Queen Elizabeth, United States and Carnarvon Castle in Southampton. After lunch, she and Gladys take the bus to The Haven at Sandbanks, from where they find themselves the only passengers on a motor launch crossing the choppy waters of Poole Bay to Shell Island. They find a number of interesting plants and Gran notes quantities of:

…small yellow-brown dragonflies and one or two of the large blue and black-bodied ones flying about in the vicinity of small pools, some of which seemed to have been formed by bomb craters since there was a great deal of shrapnel lying about nearby.

A bit more developed since Gran was there, but the shrapnel has probably been cleared. Image by Alwyn Ladell via Flickr.

There is much else lying about besides, and though Gran writes that they see very few people:

…many had left evidence of their presence in the shape of dirty paper, broken bottles, ice-cream cartons and cigarette packets – careless, inconsiderate folk who profess to admire these lovely places and yet spoil them for others by leaving litter everywhere they go. How it angers me!

Dad is home for the weekend, though Gran gives us no news of how his first days at Haberdashers’ turned out. Instead:

This afternoon Barry and I went over into the wood to get some crab apples for jelly – some for my neighbour and some for ourselves and great fun we had! They were growing on a little, old tree whose roots were well down in a bog, below the bank from which we picked a great many of the apples. Later we moved round and I stood on an old enamel bowl, which had been thrown into the bog, but still could not reach the best fruit. I tried standing on Barry’s shoulders, but could not keep my balance when he stood up so he eventually hoisted me up into the tree. There I picked successfully for a long time, but suddenly my arm gave out and I slithered through the tree into the bog before Barry could stop me. I only suffered a few scrapes and scratches and filled one shoe with mud.

They picked twelve pounds of apples in the end.

Worth falling into a bog for! Image by Eskling via Flickr.

A lovely day in early October triggers a crisis of Faith in Gran, who wishes she could share the beauty with someone. She writes that, “On such a day it seems awful to think of young people like my beloved, and, even younger, like Robin, having passed beyond, and so difficult to believe that they see beauty even greater than this…”.

She continues in the same melancholy vein on the 3rd:

I was delighted to find my Autumn Crocus in bloom in the garden almost exactly on the same day on which I first recorded it in 1947, that tragic year when the appearance of this little flower, unheralded and unexpected, seemed to have been purposely meant to cheer my grief-stricken soul. It has bloomed every year since.

Work in the Fowlers’ shop is frequent during October. On the 20^th, Gran describes with delight several of the boxes, but:

My greatest pleasure was, however, packing a box of Roselandia, deep cream, Roses for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who is sailing on her namesake early tomorrow. I surreptitiously kissed one of the dainty blossoms and wished the Queen Mother “God-speed” as I placed it in the box, thinking that not everyone is accorded the privilege of packing flowers for a Queen! Incidentally, the “Queen Elizabeth” was brought into dock stern first on Monday, to enable her to get herself out without the aid of tugs if the expected dock strike materialized. Alas it has, and I can only pray that the wind will be kind tomorrow…

Concerning the strike next day, Gran writes:

On account of the strike in Southampton Docks, the “United States” did not come to England at all, but remained at Le Havre, from whence the passengers to Britain were transported by the cross-channel steamer, “Isle of Sark”, and, since outward-bound passengers and their baggage, including our flowers, were to be taken to join the ship at Le Havre by the same means, it necessitated the wiring into the boxes of all flowers intended for the “United States”… all because of the nonsensical and childish behaviour of grown men who had no grouch of their own!

Delivering flowers to the Capetown Castle that afternoon, Gran:

…was appalled at the cargo left in the sheds because the stevedores would not load it, and the lorries, end to end, all along the dock roads, unable to unload because the sheds were already full. So the “Capetown Castle” sailed without her cargo and the poor stewards had carried the passengers’ luggage from boat-train to quayside as well as lumping it up the gangways and along to the individual cabins. And the dockers just loitered about in the way of those who had their own work to do! But at least twenty volunteers carried the Queen Mother’s baggage aboard the “Queen Elizabeth” early this morning or last night, and the tug men refused to join the strike and helped the liners out of dock as usual.

The wedding of one of Jane’s oldest friends, Mary Milnes takes place on October 23^rd, and Gran attends in place of Jane who cannot get away from College in time. “It was a pretty wedding”, Gran recounts, and after describing the dresses and flowers, turns to the reception and speeches, held in a marquee in the garden of the bride’s home:

Mary has been a farm worker since leaving school, and her “boss” proposed the toast in a charming little speech in which he said what a beautiful bride she was, adding, “And the beauty of it is she looks just the same early in the morning. I ought to know, because I have often had breakfast with her”. This I know to be true, for, in spite of muddy Wellington boots, soiled dungarees and duffle coat, Mary’s bright, glowing face with its lovely complexion and cheery smile, was always a joy to behold. Mr Cross also remarked that Mary was a very efficient worker and could even handle the Bull, so he was sure she would have no difficulty in handling a husband.

Bulls and husbands – if you can manage one you can manage the other, apparently! Image by Andy Roberts via Flickr.

The happy couple drove away for their honeymoon in an open car amid showers of confetti.

Two days later, Gran is again in Southampton, partly on an unsuccessful mission to consult her doctor about what to do about her frequent headaches, “after nearly eight years of it”, she writes, but also to bid farewell to her friend Mary Robinson, sailing for Singapore on the Indrapoera. Gran has flowers for her, which she delivers on board but has little time to spend with Mary:

…since her Father had come with her from Bradford and her Mother-in-law was also there. I left them to their last farewells alone, but I was glad to have been able to wish her Bon Voyage.

The vessel DMS *Indrapoera*. Image courtesy of San Deigo Museum of Man.

The dock strike continues to cause problems on the 27^th, Gran and the rest of the team at Fowlers’ having to switch their attention from packing flowers for the Queen Mary to those for the Golfito, which would sail within the hour, “her sailing on Tuesday having been cancelled because her cargo of bananas was still unloaded”, Gran says. She packed flowers destined for Constance Collier, “that fine actress whom I saw many years ago in The Maid of the Mountains, she writes. And, “Vivienne Leigh, another well-known actress”, she continues, “was among those who sent flowers to Miss Collier.”

Book 47

Gran has been dreading the finding of rabbits affected by myxomatosis this year, hating any idea of the animals’ suffering, and has so far avoided close contact with the disease. However, on the afternoon of November 6^th, with Jock up Farley Mount on a quest for Juniper berries, she writes:

We were very disturbed to note that the dread disease myxomatosis has attacked the rabbit population up here and the dead and dying were a pitiful sight. Unhappily I lack the courage to do any violence to any wild creature and could not bring myself to put the living victims out of their misery. I longed for our chloroform; for I could have used this on them without the revulsion that violence gives me.

This is how Gran liked her rabbits but myxomatosis reduced the population to such an extent that much of the short-cropped and flower-rich downland habitat that Gran so loved, was soon lost. Image by Peter O’Connor via Flickr.

Remembrance Sunday follows this day, and Gran is, as ever, deeply moved by the presence in Compton Church of many be-medalled veterans, mostly of the 1914 – 18 conflict, but also younger men from the 2^ndWorld War. Significant flowers and favourite hymns – “Oh. God our help in ages past”; “For those in peril on the sea”, and “Onward, Christian soldiers” – bring the tears, and Gran is further touched:

It was all very moving, and even if I could sing, I should have found no voice this afternoon. But I was glad I went. My friend, Mrs Durst, was not in church, but had sent our missionary box back to me, and, in an envelope I found a card bearing some lovely words of comfort. I suspect that Mrs Durst understands a great deal about me!

Gran has kept the little card within the pages of her journal. On the back it is signed, “With my love M.B.D. Nov. 7. 54”.

In Southampton on the 11^th, she has difficulty, but is successful in the end, in buying some embroidery cottons that she needs, and she adds:

I also made enquiries about reaching Ramsgate by train and coach, since I may attend the wedding of my young cousin, Brian, Deidre’s brother, next week. I found that the only coach leaves Southampton at ten in the morning and does not reach Ramsgate until almost half past eight in the evening, but, by catching the train…and changing at Waterloo, I can be there before noon!

We have learned from earlier journal entries that Gran hates aircraft, with their associations of wartime conflict, the noise they make, and the fact that “humans were not made to fly”, but on the lovely sunlit evening of the 12^th, having visited the Marsh Helleborines along the Baddesley Road, she has this to say:

Coming home I saw aeroplanes looking beautiful for the first time in my eyes. The sun was low in the heavens, but the planes high enough to catch its rays, and they were shining silver as they sped across the clear sky, leaving long trails of vapour streaming behind them. These trails, too, were silver until they changed to gold as the sun set.

“…they changed to gold as the sun set”. Image by spaceportseven via Flickr.

Cousin Brian’s wedding day is Saturday November 20^th, and Gran waits for the early bus to take her to Eastleigh for the Waterloo train. She waits a long time because that bus does not run on Saturdays, as she learns “from a passing workman”. “However”, she writes:

I knocked up my grocer, who uses his car as a taxi on occasions, and he hurriedly dressed and ran me to the station in comfortable time for the train.

She catches the connection to Ramsgate at Waterloo, and, within the detailed observations recorded during her somewhat foggy journey, she includes the following:

…I thought, as I passed through this built up area, how desolate-looking were the crowded, small houses backing onto the railway, whose untidy, smoke-blackened back gardens carried lines of washing hung hopefully out to dry amid the smuts flung out by the passing trains. A depressing picture on a dreary November day, and I thought gratefully of my own home in the dear, clean countryside, with so much beauty on my very doorstep. How lucky I am to live in the country!

Gran arrives in Ramsgate three quarters of an hour late and with only forty minutes to the time for the wedding, but she does not know how to get to the rendezvous, last time, for Deidre’s wedding, being driven in the dark by Robin in his car Augustus. “Poor Robin… I thought of him now”, she writes. She catches a bus for the harbour, to look for the same boat in which Deidre’s wedding party gathered, and wonders, “Where, in all that wide curve of harbour, among so many ships, was the Terminist? Eventually she is led to the boat by a friendly man working on one of the ships, who carries her luggage aboard and shouts below for anyone on board.

She is just in time. Everybody, including the bridegroom, leaves for the church after Gran is given a brief cup of tea, and Gran writes that it was “a lovely wedding – Nuptial Mass – though I am still unconverted and prefer my own church”. Gran describes the wedding, including:

…four bridesmaids, two adults and two children. Deidre, whose marriage to Tim we attended in February, was Matron-of-honour… Paddy Kennedy – a schooldays friend of Brian’s, made an attractive and efficient Best Man, dark, very handsome and a good speaker. The reception was held at the San Clu Hotel, as was Deidre’s, and again I thought sadly of Robin…moving among the guests at Deidre’s wedding.

Several of us went to see the Bride and Bridegroom off on their honeymoon by train, and the dining-car attendant was tipped to present them with an old boot as soon as the train was under way.

I’ve heard of being kissed by a sweep for good luck, but never this! Image by Michael Button via Flickr.

Article series

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Tags: Chandler's Ford, Chandler's Ford Today, family, Hiltingbury, Hiltingbury Road, history, Joan Adamson, Joan Adelaide Goater, local interest, memory, nature, writing

Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 65)

Subscribe to Blog via Email

About Rick Goater

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Share this:

Related posts:

About Rick Goater

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply