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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 96)

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First Day Covers; a cheeky mouse; Mottisfont marvels; fascinating creatures; Dame Sybil Thorndike – still beautiful at 80; Early Spiders – unbelievable but true!; the beauty of a village community; whist drive prizes, and a Kentish cottage described.

Book 78

Home again from Kingston on April 13th 1959, Gran receives a letter from Australia, which:

…brought me, posted on the day of issue, the first of the new series of stamps depicting native flowers.  This one was the attractive Flannel Flower.  Gilbert Whitley, of the Australian Museum, sent it, of course, and told me that his recently published book on Sea-horses is on its way to me. What a pal he has been, and it is forty years since he went to Australia.  I have seen him only once since – when Jane was three years old – twenty-one years ago.

Image courtesy of Andy Brenan.

April 17th:

At one o’clock this morning I was wakened by a mouse chewing somewhere in my room and scuffling about.  I moved the furniture about but was unable to catch it.  Once, hearing it close beside me, I put on the light and there it was – sitting on my handbag!  At length, at about four o’clock, it was running about in the curtains and, even as I watched it, it suddenly fell off one of the curtains, straight into the wastepaper basket.  I leapt out of bed and hurriedly emptied the contents out of the window, sincerely hoping the little creature would not get hurt in the fall.  Later, scattered paper but no dead mouse beneath my window made me hope that all is well with it.  It was only a Field Mouse.

“Only a Field Mouse”.  Image by Brian Fuller via Flickr.

That afternoon, Gilbert Whitley’s book arrives, Gran, delighted, writing: “The Sea-horse and its relatives, illustrated by Joyce Allan, and its value enhanced for me by Gilbert’s signature and good wishes inside it.” A month later, another letter from Gilbert:

…contained the wonderful news that the Queen had graciously accepted a copy of his book on Sea-horses… I am indeed in good company, and I am delighted that such an honour has come to my old friend.

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

April 26th, Gran notes as “a wonderful day”.  Over fourteen pages of her journal she describes a B.E.N.A. visit, by coach, to Mottisfont Abbey.  Much in the way of wildlife is seen, including “an enormous Plane Tree, which is four hundred years old, and a huge Oak, whose great spreading limbs are shored up and banded, and covered with sheets of metal to protect them”, but Gran is equally taken with the history of the Abbey, its grounds and the present house, built over the remains of the original Abbey, the destruction of which was ordered by Henry VIII.  “Within the house”, she writes:

One room is particularly remarkable.  The whole interior was painted by Rex Whistler and was, in fact, his last major work before he was killed during the War, being commissioned by the Owner, Mrs Russell. It is painted to represent pillars and, though perfectly flat, so amazing is it that one feels obliged to touch it to make sure it is not rounded. Marble urns, one holding a smoking torch, are incredibly real, and a lute and several books resting against it are really wonderfully portrayed.  The pelmet and folds of curtains at the sides, painted on wood, are quite indistinguishable from the real green velvet curtains, lined with a white material with black spots reminiscent of ermine tails which hang beneath them.

A wonderful illusion at Mottisfont.  Image by Neil Alexander McKee via Flickr.
The Mottisfont Oak. Image by countrygirlatheart via Flickr.

We discover on April 27th that Gran’s great confidant and friend, Mrs Durst, is no longer in Compton, as Gran enthuses about “three wonderful Gentians Gentiana ornata in bloom in the garden today on plants given to me by my dear old friend Mrs Durst before she left Compton”.  There is no mention of Mrs Durst’s new location. She follows this with news of more stamps:

Another first-day cover came from Australia today – the stamps commemorating the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first Australian Postal Service.  In the enclosed letter Gilbert Whitley acknowledged a letter of mine posted only ten days ago – Australia and back in ten days! What a day and age in which to live!

Image courtesy of Andy Brenan.

Fairlie’s picture is completed next day.  Gran lists the twelve species painted and says, ”The result is quite pleasing and I hope Fairlie will think so”.  She has it framed in Winchester, ready for her to take it to Fairlie’s home in Kent on a planned visit in late May.  Gran is much encouraged by the admiration of the picture by the shop staff.

With her tendency to be embarrassed by great shows of kindness towards her, Gran is nevertheless delighted by what she describes as “a heart-warming experience” on the Andes, when she is invited on board to meet the Rowsells, to whom she gave assistance on an earlier, abandoned attempt to cruise, when Mrs Rowsell was taken ill:

Before I left they gave me a parcel (a small gift, they said) but when I reached home I found it was a beautiful hand-embroidered Irish linen table-cloth and napkins to match.  How good it is to meet with such appreciation for a quite spontaneous effort to help a fellow human being in trouble!

Plans on the last day of April to try again to see Badgers with Peg Eagle are thwarted, Gran relates, by the apparently alarming presence of gypsies, encamped near the sett.  The two ladies have an interesting evening walk anyway and at its end, Gran, says, “The gypsies passed us on the path and we had to admit that the children, grubby-faced though they were, were fascinating little creatures”.  It’s as though she lists them with the other wildlife she has encountered!

Cats are another alarming presence in her life, she, frequently relating her battles with them in the garden. On Mayday:

A cat, insufferable creature, has recently made a habit of sitting in the middle of my favourite pink Iris, which is just putting up its buds, so this morning I sprinkled Cayenne pepper around it and made a protection of wire netting and fine copper wire.  How I hate these creatures!

A couple of days later, we learn what Diana Fowler has been doing in Oxford:

I have spent a most enjoyable day, but not entirely connected with the world of nature. I went to Oxford with Tommy and Bob, with three other friends, to see Sir Lewis Casson and Dame Sybil Thorndike, who gave a Recital in aid of a new building for the Dorset House School of Occupational Therapy, where Diana is studying at present.  Dorset House School was founded in 1930 by Sir Lewis’ sister, Dr Elizabeth Casson, and Sir Hugh Casson, nephew of the founder is Chairman of the Governors.

Sybil Thorndike wore a lovely long blue taffeta gown, with a soft green stole, and even at close on eighty, she is still beautiful, with glorious blue eyes, alive with animation and full of dramatic power.  Her voice and diction are wonderful and the little personal asides and humorous quips made the whole recital warm and informal.  Lewis Casson wore a dark grey lounge suit and, even if he did lose memory twice (the first time Dame Sybil smiled and said, “Start again!” which he did and went right through without hesitation) he, too is a remarkable and fine actor still, though, one must admit, not so great as his wife.

Gran describes much of the event in detail, including the format of the Recital, “which gave us wonderful examples of the range and dramatic ability of these two fine people”, concluding with, “All were splendid but if one must choose, then I think Sybil Thorndike was supreme in the final scene from The Trojan Women and Lewis Casson, both puckish and pathetic in the French ballad Carcassonne“.

She records with great enthusiasm on May 11th, “Today has seen the realization of one of my life’s ambitions – I have, at last, seen Early Spider Orchids growing in profusion!”  She meets her new friend Wynefred Way in Bournemouth and they drive from there to the Corfe area, making their way to Winspit Headland. “Many summer flowers were in bloom on the chalky downland”, she writes, listing them, and continues: ”Then – I saw my first Spider Orchid Ophrys sphegodes – wonderful, wonderful flower!! – and there were literally hundreds scattered over a wide area.  Unbelievable but true!”

Early Spider Orchids – “scattered over a wide area”. Image by Bjorn S… via Flickr.

Other new plants for Gran are also seen – Small-flowered Buttercup and Sea Spleenwort – but neither produces the ecstatic outburst from Gran that the orchids do. Writing a long account of her day that night, to Adrian as always, she says:

Sunset was clear and glowing and it had been a really wonderful day.  A Cockchafer crashed against my window as I was writing – such silly, clumsy creatures they are!  I wrote for a long time, dear, but did not complete the records of this long-anticipated day.  How much I should have liked you to be with me, but…

She paints a specimen of the Early Spider Orchid that she had collected, the next day, but in the album, where this painting should be, is the note “Stolen”.

Jane’s birthday follows, and so does a funeral, on the 13th.  Gran gives details:

I made an arrangement of Arum lilies and Liles-of-the-Valley, on a base of Laurel… for the funeral of my grocer’s wife today. The beauty of a village community, which we are now in danger of losing, is the friendliness that exists between, not only neighbours, but between shopkeepers and their customers, and we have all held Mr and Mrs Smith in great esteem for years and, with deepest admiration during the last four years, whilst Mrs Smith has put up a gallant but losing battle against cancer, that scourge of mankind, in order that the baby, Margaret, might be a little older when the end came.

Margaret is now five, the youngest of four, and their mother died at the end of last week.  Many floral tributes were sent, and we hope that the knowledge of this great admiration and respect will comfort Mr Smith and the children now.  The funeral was in a little village churchyard in Wiltshire.

Another shopkeeper’s name is also mentioned this day: “The newsagent’s little daughter, Sarah Pendrick, found a Bird’s-nest Orchid in the Pinewood today – the first for this year”.  Others are recorded over the next few days – in the Pinewood, and “about half a dozen more in a garden in Lakewood Road”.

Bird’s-nest Orchid – Gran showed me my first, in the Pinewood. Image by Bjorn S… via Flickr.

On the following day, we are told of the wonderful prizes available at the whist drives that Gran attends!  She says:

I went to a whist drive at Southampton Boys’ Grammar School and was lucky enough to win first prize – a bottle of orange squash and one of lemon barley, very welcome in this lovely weather.

There is more excitement for her on May 19th, when:

A long letter from Barry this morning contained the exciting news that he has booked the sleepers on the night train to Scotland for Fairlie and me, for Aviemore on June 23rd.  It makes our holiday seem very near!

Jane has been at home at The Ridge at this time, and on leaving for Nottingham at the end of the holiday, Gran gratefully records:  “Before she left she gave me five pounds to spend on my Scottish holiday. Bless her!”

Gran’s next passage shows how lucky she feels in the good relationships she has with her two children, but I sense that it may not have been so easy for Tommy and Bob:

I went to Bassett to see Tommy Fowler, and spent a pleasant time, chiefly talking about our respective children and the responsibilities of parents.  I find such talks exhausting, for the privilege of parenthood brings its anxieties as well as its joys, though I, personally, have nothing about which to complain and my two possess my deepest love and admiration, but things do not run as smoothly for all parents as they have, so far, thank God, for me.

Book 79

May 26th, it is noted, is “Mother’s” eighty-second birthday.  Gran leaves her to enjoy her mail and presents, to undertake a journey to cousin Fairlie’s in Kent. She travels by train from Southampton to Waterloo, and thence, on the “Man of Kent” to Folkestone, where she is met by her cousin Norah. Gran has not seen her for over twenty years but she says the family likeness was so obvious that it was easy to find her on the platform.  They take a bus to Elham, where Norah and Fairlie live together in a cottage called “White Walls”.  Gran is enchanted with Fairlie’s abode and its location, telling us:

…it was designed, with the help of a qualified architect, by her late Companion and friend, Christian Carter, the artist, who left it to her on her death some thirteen years ago. The outside walls are, as the name suggests, of white roughcast, with trellis-work on which grow Cotoneaster, Caeonothus, Japonica and the like, in a glorious medley. It is built on rising ground, so that, from the downstairs windows, the road is hidden and, beyond the beech hedge, one looks across meadows, which in the distance, rise from the valley to a moderate hill. The fields are divided by hedges, English style, largely of Hawthorn still in bloom.  Only one house is visible there, that belonging to the poultry farm.

Fairlie Adamson, probably at White Walls. Image courtesy of Gray Elkington.

Within, the walls are brick, and, with the exception of the bathroom, which is green, are all distempered white. The fireplaces within sitting-room and bedrooms are brick, and painted in delicate random rainbow shades in watercolour by Christian herself, as was much of the furniture, though in this case, oil paint was used. All the doors are of Canadian Drytone wood, which is unpainted and unpolished, but oiled and extremely solid and well-grained.  They, the doors, open with latches.

The floors are covered with lino tiles and rugs, and there is a great deal of beautiful china and glass. Some of the furniture is very old and some here now, came from Wales with Fairlie, who joined her sister here from Bettws-y-Coed on the death of her mother a few years ago. There are two wonderful Grandfather clocks, one from Wales, and the old family cuckoo clock, which I remember in my Grandfather’s house at least fifty years ago.

The Welsh dresser is in the sitting-room. Here, in the dining-room, is Christian’s painted one in red, green and black, a lovely contrast to the white walls and gleaming copper- and brass-ware on the high mantlepiece. The windows are latticed and the ledges wide and tiled, and in every room are growing plants or arrangements of flowers. Here are scarlet Geraniums. A large-leaved Ivy trails along the landing window-ledge, and in my bedroom, which has curtains and lampshade, and bedspread and eiderdown of blue, there were blue and mauve Aquilegias to greet me.

Many of the paintings are Christian’s own, chiefly of flowers and landscapes, and some are by my eldest cousin Dorothy, an Associate of the Royal Academy also, as was Christian, and who was originally her Companion, though not in this house, until she died so tragically at the early age of thirty-nine.

Dorothy Adamson – Self Portrait. Image courtesy of Gray Elkington.

In the front garden there is an old stone well and sunk stone trough in which the birds bathe. The back garden rises in a steep slope to the henhouses, past the fruit trees and vegetable garden. Although a real country-type cottage, White Walls has emerged from the era of oil lamps and oilstove cooking, to electricity, which came to the village a few years ago, and it now lacks no modern conveniences but yet retains all its old charm and beauty.

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