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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 71)

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Studying orchids with The Expert; a dream comes true – in the shape of a budgie; Jane does well; a visit to Mill Hill; Compton Church is 800 years old; television –  for the first time; painting flowers at a great rate and a family link with the troopship Dilwara.

Book 51

News from Mr Roseweir on June 4th 1955, is that V.S. Summerhayes, the Orchid specialist from Kew, plans to visit the area the following day.  Gran, with Brother and Fin make their way to Steven’s Castle Down, in the east of the County, in order to check on the condition of the orchids he plans to investigate there.  Stopping on their way, to check the Farley Mount area also, she notes:

We turned left at the Farley – Sparsholt fork, past what used to be the vast rookery, but today I hardly recognised it, for all the fine old beech trees have been felled and there is now a wide-open space.  If it was cleared in the hope of destroying the rookery, the result must be disappointing, for the Rooks are now occupying a line of Pine trees beside the road, only a few yards away!

A Rook on its nest. What fine birds they are!  Image by MICOLO J Thanx via Flickr.

The following day, Gran describes as “truly wonderful, beautiful, exciting and interesting in the extreme”.  She adds, “It was bright and sunny throughout.  We had decided to go in the direction of the meeting place where Mr Summerhayes was to come this afternoon”.

On their way, the party meets a man who is clearly also looking for orchids. He is Mr Carr, of Southampton Newspapers, who had recently reviewed Summerhayes’ book on British Orchids, and he is interested that the great man himself will be on site that afternoon.  Perhaps Mr Carr is also a birdwatcher, because according to Gran, he:

…asked Brother if he would give him his opinion on a pair of binoculars, which he had recently acquired.  These proved to be quite amazing, being German ones, developed during the war, self-focusing and costing two hundred pounds to produce. The only way to get them was from someone who had them from a German battleship, on which they were used.

Joan Adelaide Goater - her journal about Chandler's Ford.

Gran’s account of her meeting with Summerhayes, a little later in the day, follows:

I saw two obvious naturalists closely searching, one of them carrying a large vasculum.  I felt sure that these were our expected visitors, and when one of them knelt down and carefully cut a specimen of Green-winged Orchis (Orchis morio), I followed them to their car and asked the taller of the two if he were Mr Summerhayes.  He said no, he was his colleague at Kew, Mr Sandwith, but then Mr Summerhayes emerged from the car and I introduced myself.

They spend a happy hour with the two gentlemen and Mr Roseweir, who arrives later, studying Man and other Orchids, during which Mr Summerhayes signs Gran’s copy of his book.  They then “set out for Warnford, near where Mr Roseweir had previously discovered a wood in which the rare Sword-leaved Helleborine (Cephalanthera longifolia) was growing in profusion”.  This is a plant that Gran had, as she says:

…long wanted to see, and soon discovered that the wood was literally full of these rare orchids – thousands of them and very many in flower, most beautiful, being pure white except for the orange ridges on the upper part of the lip.

Sword- leaved Helleborine – with a well-camouflaged Green Silver-lines moth.  Image by naturalhistoryman via Flickr.

The wood provides a veritable orchid-fest, with White Helleborines, Common Twayblades, Fly Orchids and Bird’s-nest Orchids also present in high numbers.  We are given several pages of great detail of the day and its findings, including that:

Great excitement was caused by the discovery of five truly magnificent specimens of Large White Helleborines, quite eighteen inches high and bearing really huge flowers, and Mr Summerhayes sat down beside them so abruptly that he seemed to collapse in one movement, and rapidly took a single flower for closer scrutiny.  He wondered if they could possibly be a hybrid between the two species but since the Sword-leaved is cross-pollinated and the Large White self-pollinated, he could not see how it could possibly be so, and decided that they were Great White.

I think I shall always remember the sight of him sitting there, with the little parts of each flower laid out on his knee for comparison.  His decision reached, he jumped up with remarkable agility, and we wandered on again.

Mr Summerhayes took one [Sword-leaved Helleborine] specimen for the Kew records, Mr Sandwith one for his private collection, and I, one for painting, Mr Summerhayes remarking that he did not think that by so doing we should risk exterminating so large a colony.

They all visit Cheeseford Head later on, enjoying more orchids there, and finally parting and going their separate ways, thus ending what is probably one of the most special days of Gran’s life.

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The following day, she writes:

Since I had enjoyed two days of pleasure, I felt constrained to be dutiful this morning, so I did a large wash, which, incidentally, dried splendidly, and had little time for nature observation.  I did, however, look in the Blackbird’s nest and saw that it now had two eggs.

She receives a welcome letter from Barry on Jock’s birthday, June 7th, in which he describes a visit to Dungeness, birdwatching and collecting moths, and he tells her that  “owing to the Railway strike he had to cycle the seventy-five miles home again!”.

June 9th:

Light rain was falling early this morning when I had a quite extraordinary experience!  I was dreaming that I had found an escaped Budgerigar and had put it in a cage from which it tried to keep getting away.  I put my hand over a hole in the cage and could feel the little soft head of the bird against the palm of my hand.  I was wakened by the loud singing and chatter of the Chaffinches outside my window, and, on opening my eyes to look out at the weather, beheld a blue Budgerigar trying to get in, whilst the native birds made a tremendous fuss!

I opened the window but the Budgie flew into the Pyrus tree and, though I left the window wide open and called softly, I could not entice the little waif within.  It was about the garden for about an hour…

In Britain, budgies are safer in a cage.  Escapes are often predated by Sparrowhawks.  Image by Steve p2008 via Flickr.

Gran gives a long description of a wedding – the flowers, the music, the dresses and the Service itself – that she attends in Compton Church on the 11th. It is that of Mavis and Brian, the bride being “a young friend of Barry’s, Jock’s and Jane’s, whom I have seen grow up from babyhood”.

“Good news from Jane this week!” writes Gran around this time, “She has been elected Deputy Senior Student for her next and final year at Chelsea College, a great honour, as she said, and one which she certainly did not expect to attain at such a College as Chelsea”.

She takes the Royal Blue London Coach to Kingston on June 13th, to stay with Adrian’s mother, passing Guildford on the way.  The Cathedral there does not impress her:

…and high on the hill, Guildford Cathedral, which, in my opinion, could have been made a great deal more beautiful, since it is in such a prominent position, but perhaps I am prejudiced against modern brick-built Churches after being so used to our ancient village ones, and the magnificence of the grey stone Winchester Cathedral.  The red brick looks so blatantly conspicuous against the soft greens of the English countryside…

Guildford Cathedral – quite impressive in this view, but Gran didn’t like it. Image by Don Brubacher via Flickr.

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After Kingston, Gran visits Barry and the family at Mill Hill for the day, being taken there by Brother, in his car.  They collect Fin and Margaret, a South African friend of hers, at Great Ormond Street Hospital where they are physiotherapists, on the way.  Gran is delighted to see her Grandchildren again. The much-missed Julian is a “charming little boy” and “Ricky, at five and a half months old, is a plump, contented baby, full of smiles and fat, baby chatter”. There is much news to catch up with, including Dad telling Gran that to date, he has had seventy species in his mercury vapour moth-trap, “including a large proportion of the black varieties”:

This, he explained is due to industrial melanism, an example of  the adaptability of nature, since the usual light-coloured insects would become easy prey to birds and other predators in the darker surroundings of the cities.

Peppered Moth – made famous in experiments on Industrial Melanism.  Imagine how easy this would be to see against a soot-darkened background.  Image by Andy Phillips via Flickr.

She adds:

Barry spoke with great approval of my flower paintings, which I took to show him, and this gave me much satisfaction and encouragement, since he is a very stern critic, especially of things pertaining to Nature.

On June 18th, she thinks sadly of the late Robin de Crespigny Eastwood, Jane’s friend, “ a dear lad on this, his birthday”, and in the afternoon she attends and describes the Church Fete and Pageant in the Rectory garden at Compton to mark the eight hundredth anniversary of the building of the Church.  The Rector, Mr Burdett, narrates a series of scenes performed by local players in appropriate dress: the giving of the land in 1066 by King William; the paying of rents by the tenants of Compton to the Benedictine monks; the scourge of the Black Death in 1348; the tilling of the land subsequently; the little Church remaining after dissolution of the Priory of St Swithun’s; King Edward’s new Prayer Book; land sold for the Royalist Cause; the presence of Oliver Cromwell; the building by Charles Scott of the “handsome and capacious Rectory”; the last coachman in Compton; the coming of the railway; Compton’s place in the two World Wars, and finally, the old Church still standing proudly amidst the the noise of nearby traffic and children on their way to the County High School.

At the end, Gran says, “all the players assembled together on the lawn, and the people then dispersed, proud and touched, I am sure, by the wonderful story of our Church and amazed by the talent hidden in this little English village”.

Two days later, Gran is back in Compton, collecting flowers to paint, but she notes that though she can hear Wood Warblers and Chiffchaffs singing in Cranbury Park, “I could not go through as all the entrances have been blocked since the House has been opened to the Public on certain days”.

She is painting wild flowers at an incredible rate at this time – three in one day on June 21st – and is more and more pleased with the results, saying “I can only be humbly grateful for the ability that has come to me and to marvel at its appearance”.  But this is also the time of year for Wimbledon, and she is playing some tennis herself as well.  She writes the following on the 25th:

Whilst waiting to play I saw my first Television programme – part of a Ladies’ Singles match at Wimbledon, but I did not like it.  It must make the eyes very tired if one watches much.  I would rather just have a radio commentary if I cannot really be at Wimbledon.

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Nevertheless, she writes this two days later:

…I was invited next door to see the Wimbledon Men’s Singles semi-finals on Television.  I did not much want to go after seeing Television for the first time last Saturday, but today reception was much better and I quite enjoyed it, though it seemed an awful waste of time when rain interrupted play for three quarters of an hour and an American film was then shown instead!  One cannot walk out of other people’s houses when this happens, and I was itching to come home and paint my Spotted Orchid with the heavily marked leaves, before sending it to Mr Summerhayes tomorrow.

However, play was resumed later and I saw part of the exciting match between Kurt Nielsen, the Dane, and Ken Rosewall, the Australian… Nielsen eventually won – a surprise, since he was unseeded, whilst Rosewall was seeded number two.

She has painted eleven orchid species in quick succession, and on June 28th she cycles to Winchester to buy a “new drawing block and a couple of cakes of paint that I needed.  I had a successful morning”.  She enthuses:

…not only did I get my drawing block, but I unexpectedly managed to obtain an album, interleaved with tissue-paper, in which to mount my flower paintings.  I returned home feeling nearer to real happiness than I have been for many years, for now I can make the lovely flowers I find my own always, by being able to picture my records… and I have a worthwhile and pleasant task for the rest of my days.  I finished a pleasant morning by mounting my pictures in the album, which proved to be exactly what I needed.

Three of Joan Adelaide’s albums. Courtesy of Hazel Goater.

Work for the Fowlers in their shop and home garden continues for Gran throughout the summer.  She lists all the liners and other ships for which she prepares boxes and bouquets of flowers, including, on the last day of June, the United States, Athlone Castle and Dilwara. And she continues:

Early this afternoon I went down to the docks to deliver on the Dilwara, a troopship sailing for the East – and Lascar stewards were awaiting the arrival of passengers.  One of them directed me to the cabins I needed, solemnly directing me to each one.

I was particularly interested to hear of this ship, since I have just read the book None the Wiser, an account, largely, of the National Service experiences of Paul Adamson, (son of Ivan Adamson, one of Gran’s “North Wales cousins”) who, with many others, returned to the UK from Singapore on this vessel in 1952.  He describes evocatively his month-long homeward journey, including that queuing for embarkation in full kit, in the almost unbearably sticky heat of the far east “was”, he says, “I  think one of the most unpleasant experiences of my time with the RAF”.

None the Wiser – a really good read by Paul Adamson.

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