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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 73)

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We meet some of Bill Goater’s family; gracious passengers on board ship; Gran receives a florin; painting autumn berries; soloist Cyril Smith leaves her breathless; spiders in London; Dartford Warbler at last; a gown cunningly cut, and the Queen’s “wonderful composure”.

On August 20th 1955, Gran plays tennis in the heat in Eastleigh and enjoys an evening at home listening to a Promenade Concert with much music by Gilbert and Sullivan, which she loves.  She records that:

At the end of the concert, after Suppé’s “Poet and Peasant Overture”, which was encored, Sir Malcolm was presented with a Peter Scott bird picture in recognition of his sixtieth birthday in April and his work for the Promenade Concerts, by a representative of all Promenaders, both at the concert in person, and listening in at home.  Unfortunately we did not hear Sir Malcolm’s response.

Four days later:

I came home on the one o’clock bus, and this afternoon finished painting my Goldenrod.  I also listened to a charming little radio play, called “The Little Flautist” – rather old-fashioned perhaps, but gentle and entirely lacking in the present-day banalities and over-loud humour.  I enjoyed it.

A moth, which I caught in a pill-box in order to identify it, proved to be one of my favourites – a Burnished Brass.  I released it out of one of my windows – whereupon it promptly came in the other one again.  Now it has gone to rest somewhere behind the bookcase near my bed!

The Burnished Brass – yet another wonderfully named British moth.  Image by Tony Morris via Flickr.

Book 53

September 3rd:

Jane and I went by car to Southbourne today, to see some relatives, and, in spite of steady, and at times heavy, rain, we enjoyed the run through the New Forest.

On the way they excitedly watch a male Montagu’s Harrier quartering the heath near Burley, and there is much description of Autumn’s “Midas touch” in the Forest’s woodland areas, but Gran devotes very little ink to recording details of the family members they visit.  Nevertheless, she writes that:

We spent a pleasant time with our relatives, and I was interested to learn that John, who is studying Biology, had found Quillwort Isoetes echinospora at Hatchet, thus confirming Barry’s discovery of it last year.

Dad reminds me that Gran has got this record wrong, not for the first time, and I expect she corrects it at some point in the future as her botanical knowledge improves.  What she meant to say was that John and Barry had both discovered Pillwort Pilularia globulifera at Hatchet.  Quillwort has never been recorded in Hampshire.

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

This reference to John, who is the son of Gladys and Harold Goater confirms that the family they visit is that of Grampa’s elder brother (he had two other brothers, Reginald and Norman) and it seems likely that Grampa (William Cecil) drove the car there, although of course, and sadly, he does not warrant a mention in Gran’s journal.  But it gives me an excuse to include a photograph.  Harold was a Captain in the Merchant Navy, and he and Gladys had three children – Nanette, June and John.

Three of the four Goater brothers of that generation – Harold in the centre, Grampa (Bill), who worked all his life at Pirelli’s, on the right, and Reg on the left, who was an Estate Agent.

Jill Fowler’s twenty-first birthday is looming.  Gran scours the Brambridge countryside for berries to paint for a card for her and finds Guelder Rose, Spindle, Dogwood, Elderberry, Hops, Woody Nightshade, Hawthorn and White Bryony.  And she is delighted to see a Clouded Yellow while she is out searching for these.

It’s busy at the Fowlers’ on September 8th, orders needing to be put together for the Queen Elizabeth, United States and Edinburgh Castle.  Jane helps with deliveries to the first two ships, Gran remarking that this was “after spending over two hours taking the thorns off the roses – a job that has to be done always before packing”.

Delivering more flowers a week later, on “the Southern Cross, a lovely ship and the Shaw Savill Line’s newest”, Gran is embarrassed to earn a tip for attempting to hunt down the ship’s librarian for a young man with books for the library at the foot of the gangway, but who has not been given permission to board the vessel.  It would be typical of her to find it a little vulgar to accept money for a job kindly asked of her, much preferring to undertake such work “for love”, as she would say.  She writes:

…a florin was pressed into my hand and no amount of refusal would avail so I said I would put it in the Grandchildren’s box, which seemed to satisfy the young man!

She continues, with a little more on manners:

Later, mounting some stairs between decks, I met an elderly lady who was descending with some difficulty, holding the balustrade. She let go to pass me – there was a crowd going both ways – and, as I put out my hand just in case she slipped, she laid a dainty, black-gloved hand in mine, steadied herself and then turned and gave me a little bow as she rested on the balustrade beyond me again. It was such a gentle, courteous gesture, I could almost imagine her in a crinoline and I was warmed by the pleasure it gave me.  Such manners are rare these days!

What a lovely ship the Southern Cross was! – with its single funnel set well back, and subtly different lines from the Cunarders and the Union Castle Line ships that Gran was more used to.

Gran relates another small on-board experience a little later in the month. She is delivering flowers on the Capetown Castle and has “a box addressed simply to Sister Eusebia, with no cabin number”, so she hopes to find a nun on board who will help her track down the Sister:

Actually I did meet one on my first trip aboard and she took me along to Sister Eusebia’s cabin, where I met quite the sweetest faced nun I have ever seen…. She was writing at the desk when I entered the cabin and said I had been looking for her, since we had some flowers for her. She smiled at me and said, “My dear, I am usually unseen and unknown”, and I could not help feeing that such was a pity, for the World, too, has need of such people.

Flower-painting continues apace through September; Diana Fowler joins Gran for an evening and dawn chorus down by the Lake, and there is music on the wireless. Diana experiences, with Gran (to whom she always refers as “Aunty Bunny”) the Last Night of the Proms for the first time, and stands up with her and Jane for the National Anthem at the end of the broadcast.  Just before Jane is due to return for her next term at Chelsea College, she joins Gran at the Southampton Guildhall for a concert given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by George Hurst, with Cyril Smith as the solo pianist.

There is some Wagner and Tchaikovsky, and Handel’s Water Music, and Gran writes later that evening, “Cyril Smith’s solo rendering of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini was new to me [and] left me breathless with admiration and I was fascinated by the remarkable ease and fluency of his playing and the wonderful movement of his beautiful hands”.

Spending the last few days of September in Kingston with Adrian’s mother, who is in “an uncertain state of health”, Gran visits all her usual haunts in this part of Surrey – Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace and Adrian’s “Garden of Sleep” – and is also taken by Brother, on the 27th, “up to London”, as she explains:

…where we met Barry and attended a lecture on Spiders, given by his colleague at Haberdashers’, Theodore Savory, to the London Natural History Society in one of the lecture rooms of the Institute of Medical and Scientific Research.   I was introduced to Mr Savory, who immediately told me that he and Barry had got on splendidly for a year, and had been very happy working together.  That naturally delighted me, especially as I had earlier resolved that I must refrain from asking such questions and must not behave like a broody hen with her chick!

Gran describes the talk and its easy and humorous delivery, adding that she noted one or two outstanding observations:

…the most amazing of which was, perhaps, the fact that there are in Britain, an average of two million spiders to the acre…I also heard why male spiders are so seldom seen, and that there is little truth in the supposition, that, after mating, the females kill them.  The fact is, that from birth the males are so feeble that most of them survive only long enough to perform the act of matehood before perishing and it has actually been known for one to die during copulation, so feeble was he that this effort was too much for him.

She concludes, “I was interested to hear that Baron de Worms, of whom Barry has often spoken, was in the Chair at this meeting”.  After the lecture, Brother drives Barry and Gran to Mill Hill, dropping Mr Savory off at Golders Green, where he lives, on the way.  Gran happily sees and kisses her sleeping Grandchildren and leaves for Kingston at eleven o’clock that night.

She returns to Chandler’s Ford on the last day of September, and Brother brings Fin to The Ridge the following afternoon, when no time is wasted before all three of them drive to Farley Mount to enjoy the massed abundance of Spindle and Wild Privet berries, sprays of which they gather, as Gran says, “for our various friends and relations, without feeling we were robbing the countryside!”

One of Gran’s earliest paintings – Wild Privet berries, collected at Farley Mount and painted in 1955.

The clocks go back that night, but Gran writes excitedly (for this turns out to be one of her “red letter days”) that “We did not, however, waste that extra hour this morning by lying in bed, but were up at six o’clock preparing for what proved to be a most exciting, beautiful and profitable day”.  They pack all the meals of the day, including breakfast, and leave early for the New Forest and the coast, in time though, “to reach St Edmund’s Roman Catholic Church at Southampton for Fin to attend Mass before we continued on our way”.

They travel along the west shore of Southampton Water, bird-watching as they go, and Gran recording all in great detail.  They reach Ashlett Creek, which Gran describes as:

…a little like Bucklers Hard but not so beautiful, and marred by the sickening smell from the oil refinery at Fawley…a Royal Air Force Rescue ship had been converted into permanent homes… A few cottages and a large building of unknown origin, completed the little township but there were uneasy signs that the Oil Refinery may be going to engulf it.

The day’s highlight is, at last, Gran’s first views of Dartford Warblers.  They are on the heath near Beaulieu, and she describes the moment of their finding:

Looking at a Stonechat and another small bird close together, Fin said, “What’s that?” Brother, all excitement, said, “Yes!  It is! A Dartford Warbler!”  It was!  A new bird for Fin and me.

They have exceptionally good views of these famously skulking little non-migratory warblers; also hearing them call their “characteristic scolding notes”.  Gran, judging by her copious notes, is clearly absolutely delighted, having tried and failed for so long to see these birds that were almost made extinct in the UK by the harsh winter of 1947.

At last! And I think this is the kind of view Gran had. What a fabulous little bird! Image by Kentish Plumber via Flickr.

At Pennington, apart from adding another new bird to her list – Rock Pipit – they pick blackberries, “so fine that we felt we ought to gather some, so we emptied out the remains of our lunch and filled the tins, picking about five pounds before moving on again”.  Norris and Fin leave for London that evening.

October 3rd:

I am pleased to record that the blackberries that we picked at Pennington yesterday were bottled this morning and appear to be satisfactory, thus promising us “summer’s harvest” in winter.  I have been given a large basket of cross-bred apples with which to make jelly, so I resolved to make elderberry and apple.

So, rather than painting, as she had intended, Gran cycles to Farley mount, a little irritated at first, to collect ripe elderberries, which she prepares for the jelly that evening before going to bed.

She spends part of October 6th in Southampton, “unsuccessfully searching for a suitable gown for a formal function next month” so, on the 7th:

After yesterday’s fruitless search for a gown I…went instead to see the dress-maker who made Jock’s wedding gown and both of Jane’s Bridesmaid dresses, to see if she would make me one. The result is that I shall now have what I have always wanted but never expected to possess – a deep red velvet evening gown – of my own choice in colour and design, a simple affair with long sleeves, stand-up collar and V-neck, cunningly cut with buttons the only trimming – aslant all down one side of the long, full skirt. I bought the material in town also this morning.  A Jay flew across the top of Southampton common as I went.

On the 10th, Gran, as ever addressing Adrian, says:

I was unable to write dear, for earlier I had been stricken with a curious corruption of vision, in which a semi-circle of irregular light prevented my seeing anything clearly.  I tried knitting, writing and reading after the attack, which came suddenly, but I could see nothing clearly and even with closed eyes the phenomenon continued.

This sounds like a “visual migraine” – a term I had not heard before today, when, by coincidence, and for the first time, I suffered the same thing myself! Gran’s episode does not last long and she is soon painting more autumn berries for several lucky recipients as well as for herself.  On October 14th:

Being alone today, I hurried through the necessary chores and shopping, and settled down to painting, completing the Rose hips by lunchtime.  Needless to say, I wasted little time over lunch – a poached egg and lots of fruit. With a glass of orangeade, and I was well satisfied.  This afternoon I made a start on spindle berries…

Rose hips – “completed by lunchtime”.

October 21st:

Our neighbours came in later to know if we would like to go in and see the Queen, on television, unveil the memorial statue of her Father, King George VI.  It was an impressive and moving ceremony, and I admired our young Queen’s wonderful composure on an occasion that must have affected her deeply.  Her Mother, the Queen Mother, was obviously very moved and the television cameras mercifully turned away again almost at once. Unfortunately it was pouring with rain in London throughout the ceremony and when the sea of umbrellas were lowered and hats removed, the poor folk underneath must have been drenched.

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  1. Pilularia globulifera (Pillwort) NOT Isoetes echinospora (Spring Quillwort). The latter has never been recorded in Hampshire, and I corrected my Mother’s misidentification in the draft sent me by Rick

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