The woods “pitiably thinned”; nine years of this “labour of love”; Gran disappears into a trench; Hugh Boyd – goose guru; “pink makes the boys wink”; a proud moment; a traditional Christmas and Julian smokes during the National Anthem!
On November 21st 1955, Gran is surprisingly sanguine about the unwelcome developments on her doorstep:
This afternoon I finished the Poppy calendar and decided this is the one for Mary. Somehow it looks like hers. The sun was still shining, burnishing the tips of the trees opposite here, whereon a few last golden leaves are clinging, and giving a beautiful sheen to the velvet-dark Yew trees, which, thank God, are still standing. But the opposite wood is pitiably thinned and a little township is springing up where once I gathered blackberries and vetch, and listened to the warblers, watched the Siskins and saw the first Brimstones in Spring. Soon I shall have to roam far afield for the glories that have been on my doorstep for over twenty-seven years. But I am very grateful for the years in which I have known them.
Next day she writes, “I made a start on Christmas Cards, completing two before the light failed. Christmas is in the air today, for I prepared the puddings this morning!” Over the next few weeks she paints many more cards and also calendars for friends and relatives, taking a huge amount of time and care over these presents she gives, simple and inexpensive though they may be. She also makes “small arrangements” for Christmas gifts, using dried plant materials gathered in the nearby countryside; “Teasels, Gladdon seeds, Statice, Honesty, prepared Beech leaves, Chinese Lanterns and such”. And they are very much appreciated by the recipients; the Harding family and others, including Mary Harding’s mother, known to Gran as “Granny Pickford”.
Attending a performance of Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman with Bob and Diana Fowler (Tommy not going because of a bad back) given by Southampton Philharmonic Society in the Guildhall on November 24th, Gran notices an acquaintance in the strings section:
I was surprised to see Mr Alma, a Polish member of Chandler’s Ford Tennis Club when it existed a year or two ago, playing in the Orchestra, though I had previously known that he did play the violin.
And at tea with the Harding family, including “Granny Pickford”, on the 29th, a lunar eclipse adds to the interest of this weekly event:
Anthony suddenly remembered [the eclipse] whilst we were having tea, so we rushed out to look. Trees rather obstructed the view so Timothy, Jill, Anthony and I ran along Merdon Avenue until we could see the shadow, low down on the right side.
On the last day of the month we are reminded of Gran’s reason, and its importance to her, for so devotedly keeping her journal over the years:
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the last month of 1955, at the end of which I shall have completed nine years of nature records according to my promise to you, dear, and, though you have not been able to read them, it has been a labour of love and a fitting memorial to one who opened up the wonder and beauty of nature even more to me and gave me a hobby that has proved my salvation.
I, of course, am delighted that many of Gran’s journal entries are not merely “nature records”, often somewhat mundane, but are comments on other aspects of her life, which provide added interest for the reader, including, for instance, on December 3rd at Farley Mount with Norris and Fin:
We parked the car just below the monument and walked down the Ashley Road as far as the beechwood on the hillside, and climbed up through a thick carpet of golden leaves. Indeed, so thick were these that they completely hid a slit trench, left by the army during wartime training, and I walked straight into it, almost disappearing from view amid the leaves! All the other two did was to laugh helplessly!
A letter from Barry on December 10th gives Gran news of the female spider found with her eggs amongst bananas, and sent to him for identification:
…he says that she was Heteropoda regia – a species which comes over fairly regularly in bananas but never establishes herself in this country. Our specimen died a week before he wrote, probably through exhaustion after laying her eggs. She is now in a bottle, preserved for posterity, I expect, in the labs of Haberdashers’ School.
Gran, addressing Christmas cards that day, says, “Already I have received three – all from Australia, one from New South Wales, one from Tasmania and one from Victoria!” What a pity she is so reticent about naming people! I expect the New South Wales one was from life-long friend Gilbert Whitley, whose work based him in the museum in Sydney, and the one from Victoria may be from Mary Robinson, recently emigrated, but the other is a mystery. This entry reminds me that Gran had an impressive stamp collection but to date, at any rate, she has made no mention of it in her writing.
Her entry for December 12th, while spending some time with Adrian’s mother at Kingston, bears some relevance to my own life, a large part of which has been involved with the conservation of wild geese:
I met Brother early this evening and he took me to the Institute of Medical and Tropical Research at Kensington to hear a lecture by the biologist of Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust, Mr Boyd on the Social Behaviour of Geese. Fin and Jock met us there, Barry relieving Jock at home with the children. It was an interesting but necessarily inconclusive talk, since research is still going on, and anyway, I think one never finds out all that can be known about the behaviour of birds!
Mr Boyd – he looked no older than Barry – was modest in his claims of knowledge and assured us that, though he had spent many hours watching Geese, usually in very cold and unpleasant conditions, he still knows very little about them, but at all events, his talk and the accompanying film and still photographs, taken by Peter Scott, enlightened, I am sure, many of the audience considerably.
He was full of quiet humour, too, and when about to illustrate demonstrations of threat and aggression by Geese, he remarked that, as an artist, he in no way compared himself with Peter Scott, except that he, also, is left-handed and proceeded to draw on a blackboard an oval for a goose’s body, straight lines for the legs, and the same, at different angles, for the positions of neck, head and bill during display. Ground level, another line, was given to show more clearly these positions, and once, when proportions were a little awry, Mr Boyd remarked after putting in ground level, “this goose must have had long legs!” I enjoyed myself immensely.
Hugh Boyd spent his working life in Canada, following his spell with the Wildfowl Trust. What an inspirational figure he was! Forty-one years later, during my own career in wildlife conservation, I found myself in the audience when he, recognised by all as the “Father of modern goose field research”, was presented with the first Peter Scott Medal for his exceptional contributions to wildfowl and wetland conservation on two continents.
Book 55
They drive to Barry and Jock’s house in Grant’s Close, Mill Hill after the talk, but she spends the night at what she calls her “second home” in Kingston, Norris returning her there close to midnight. Of her brief visit to Grant’s Close, delighting to see Julian again, she also writes of Barry’s artistic skills with great admiration:
When I had removed my coat, and revealed my pink cardigan, Julian said, “Pink makes the boys wink!” and I asked him if he could wink. Whereupon he did so, with most of his face! Barry showed me some Christmas cards he has done and, frankly, I was amazed. Birds, including a Dartford Warbler for Fin, were excellent but I wondered most at the one he had done for his boys at school – the flowers, or some of them, that they had found at Beaulieu – most beautifully painted and arranged and done entirely from memory.
Adrian’s brother, Victor, appears to have a new gramophone almost every time Gran visits Kingston, and this time is no exception. On the 13th, in spite of staying in to avoid awful weather, she did however:
…enjoy an evening of music on Vic’s newest record-player, which he constructed himself from separate units and which, I must admit, gives the finest results yet. Heddle Nash singing the Serenade from “The Fair Maid of Perth” was quite the most beautiful I have ever heard.
On the 14th she describes a visit to the town and to the famous department store, Bentalls:
I went down to the town to get some fish for Peta, Mum’s cat, and there was little inducement to linger, but I did stop for a few moments to admire the colour in Bentall’s windows and to watch with interest the children’s story, cleverly modelled and moved by electricity through each window. It depicted a voyage to Treasure Island, from the finding of a map in an old attic to the landing on the island, the story written above each model.
She leaves Kingston for home early the following afternoon because, she says, “I had promised Barry that I would come via London and attend Haberdashers’ School Carol Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields Church in Trafalgar Square”. She arrives soon after two o’clock and has a wonderful time:
People were already going into St Martin’s so I waited only to enjoy the sight of the Pigeons, world-famous, around Nelson’s Column before following them. Having an invitation ticket, I was given a seat near the central aisle and I had plenty of time to look about me before the Service began… The chief beauty of St Martin’s lies in the lovely white and gold ceiling, supported by enormous white pillars with golden ornamentation near the top.
The boys of Haberdashers, several hundred of them, filed into their places and filled all but about six rows of pews on either side of the central aisle, and the remaining pews were occupied by the invited guests. Prefects ushered us into our seats, the School Captain, showing me to my place. [How she would have loved the idea, that came to pass, that her beloved Julian would one day hold the position of School Captain himself!]. As one of the Masters played a voluntary on the organ, the congregation stood, and the Choir, Prefects, Masters, Clergy and the Bishop of Willesden entered in Procession. It was a proud moment for me as Barry passed me, walking among the Masters of this famous school, wearing his gown (Science Faculty), the hood lined with saffron yellow. I felt tears in my eyes…
She goes on to describe the proceedings, in which boys of each part of the school, and Masters and Clergy took part, she commenting, “Little had I dreamed that I should ever have witnessed such a thrilling sight. The Service was beautiful…” At the end, Gran sees that Jock is also present at the Service, and she continues, “we, the invited guests, went to have tea with the Masters in the Crypt, a totally unexpected and unforgettable pleasure”.
I wonder who was looking after Julian and me! She reaches home in Chandler’s Ford late, under a starlit sky and is met there by Jane, home for the holidays.
As I edit this section of Gran’s journal, it is two weeks before Christmas and there are Christmas trees up and decorated in towns and houses everywhere. How different it was in the 1950s! At The Ridge, the tree was only for children and was not put in place or decorated until Christmas Eve. On the 16th, Gran writes of a visit to Southampton with Jane to do some shopping, and, having written of a special gift of some expensive lamb’s-wool-lined boots, from Jane, who had received a small legacy, she continues:
We also bought other Christmas presents and several small things for a tree, which we are having this year for Julian and Ricky. Truth to tell, we are glad of an excuse to have one again!
Work for the Fowlers continues, and it is especially busy at this time. Gran is often on her feet from eight o’clock in the morning, and not leaving the shop until seven o’clock in the evening. She is often tired, and sometimes the bad headaches plague her. When she returned home on the 23rd though:
…two pleasant surprises awaited me, for Brother had called in and left me a book token from Fin – “towards the collection for that very special Flower Book” – this being Geoffrey Grigson’s “The Englishman’s Flora“, and three delightful blue and white striped mugs for our picnics.
The family arrives for Christmas on the 22nd, staying with the MacNoes at 99 Kingsway but spending most of its time at The Ridge. Gran describes Christmas Day, my first, and although I am too young to remember this one, it is just how I remember all my early Christmases, which were spent in Chandler’s Ford. Jane, Barry and Gran attend Early Service at Compton church. Jock attends a later one. Gran continues:
Jock’s parents came to share the pleasure of seeing Julian with his first Christmas Tree, with which he was enchanted. We had saved most of the family presents until now, so that Julian might share the joy of giving, and he passed each of us our presents as Jane took them from the tree. There were long pauses whilst he opened his own and helped to open Ricky’s, but in the end we all received ours and it was a merry party. How the little folk soften heartache and sorrow and warm one’s soul with their endearing ways.
The rest of my morning, amid the cooking of a traditional Christmas dinner, was spent in expressing wonder and surprise every time a red fire-engine appeared in the kitchen, pushed to and fro continuously by Julian crawling along with it. No wonder his red corduroy dungarees need leather patches on their knees! Dinner was a happy, homely meal; its spirit aptly described by Julian, who remarked, “Aren’t we a big circle. Isn’t it nice to be all together?”
We listened to the Queen’s Speech, after which Julian stood with us for the National Anthem solemnly puffing a chocolate cigarette, which slightly disturbed the usual dignity of the occasion, and then Barry, Jock and the children went to the other Grand-parents for tea.
There is a little about me on Boxing Day:
I took Ricky out for a walk in the pram that had been lent to us for the holiday. He is a bright little fellow, his round, brown eyes, alert as a Robin’s, took in everything. We saw two Swans and three Moorhens on the Lake and met Jill Harding, out with her little dog, in Lakewood Road. Ricky was intrigued with Nibs.
That evening, once the children are bedded down at 99 Kingsway, Barry returns to The Ridge, and Gran writes:
…we played Lexicon, a favourite spelling game of ours, and Barry, always given to exuberant excitement over it, made me marvel that he was really sufficiently grown-up to be the parent of two children and school-master to eighteen-year old boys! It was fun and good to be together again with him and Jane, as when they were both at home.
A day later Gran bids a sad farewell to the family as they board the train for Waterloo, but in the customary end-of-year round-up of her doings for Adrian, she begins:
It has been a wonderful year, dear, and I have come as near to happiness as I shall ever know again, without your presence here in this world with me.
This, I suppose, is the Gran I knew.
Article series
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 1)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 2)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 3)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 4)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 5)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 6)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 7)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 8)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 9)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 10)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 11)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 12)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 13)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 14)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 15)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 16)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 17)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 18)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 19)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 20)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 21)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 22)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 23)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 24)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 25)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 26)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 27)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 28)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 29)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 30)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 31)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 32)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 33)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 34)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 35)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 36)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 37)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 38)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 39)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 40)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 41)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 42)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 43)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 44)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 45)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 46)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 47)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 48)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 49)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 50)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 51)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 52)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 53)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 54)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 55)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 56)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 57)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 58)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 59)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 60)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 61)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 62)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 63)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 64)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 65)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 66)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 67)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 68)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 69)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 70)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 71)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 72)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 73)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 74)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 75)
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