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Image My Mother’s Diaries by Andy Vining 2026

Andy Vining shares his mother’s diaries in his new podcast. Listen to these beautiful stories on Spotify.

Andy Vining’s parents were John and Peggy (later known as Be Be).

May 1948

May began with the yard still lively from the puppies. All had been sold, though we kept Jesse, Ruffles and Mr Leggs for another week or two before they too would leave. There is always a bustle when pups are about — feeding bowls, straw, sharp little claws on stone — and though one is glad when good homes are found, the yard seems strangely empty once they go.

Margaret Haskell stayed the first night of the month, and there were callers — Marge and Doug, Norah and her family. Bet and Fred had secured their job at last, which was heartening news.

John turned his attention to the front lawn, turfing a worn patch that had suffered through the winter. He went over to Norman Cooper’s in Hursley while I wrote letters indoors and telephoned the Sinclairs, inviting them for Whitsun. There is always something to plan ahead for.

On the Monday we went into Winchester. A calf was taken to market — never an easy sight, watching it loaded and driven away, though such comings and goings are the rhythm of farming life. The heifers were turned into the Sanitorium field, where the grass was coming on steadily. They took to it well enough, heads down almost at once, testing the new pasture. The land was improving with the season. Rain fell in the night, which would freshen the grazing and help the vegetable rows along.

[Read more…] about Andy Vining’s Podcast: My Mother’s Diaries 1948 -1976: Episode 4 — May 1948

Image My Mother’s Diaries by Andy Vining 2026

Andy Vining shares his mother’s diaries in his new podcast. Listen to these beautiful stories on Spotify.

Andy Vining’s parents were John and Peggy (later known as Be Be).

Episode 3 — March and April 1948

March opened with sunlight.

On Monday the first, the weather was beautiful and all the washing dried by lunchtime — a small triumph after the long damp of winter. And it was such a lovely day that I went for a walk with Heather in her pram over to Flexford. It was a long walk a long walk down the Farm drive then up Hursley Road and left at The Baddesley Crossroads. I posted a letter there on the corner and walked along past the cricket field on the left and down the hill, over Monks Brook bridge and past The Hatley Sawmills on the right pp the hill and over the Railway bridge past Richardsons, Bridge House on the left and the farm cottages on the right where our cowman, Bill Wren, lives and then right, just before Mr and Mrs Trenfields house into the Flexford Yard where we had picked all the Snowdrops last month but now there are beautiful daffodils in abundance.  [Read more…] about Andy Vining’s Podcast: My Mother’s Diaries 1948 -1976: Episode 3 — March and April 1948

Andy Vining shares his mother’s diaries in his new podcast. Listen to these beautiful stories on Spotify.

Andy Vining’s parents were John and Peggy (later known as Be Be).

In this episode, the name of Be Be’s father was Herbert Miller, originally Muller as he was German and became a naturalised Englishman before the First World War.

January 1948

My Father (Dad) has been quite poorly that week, and the worry of it sat quietly with me as I went about the ordinary business of the days. Still, life had to be kept moving. I went into Winchester with Betty my sister. Grateful for the small distraction of the trip.

While there we had Heather’s Polyphotos taken — she looked such a picture, bright-eyed and beautifully turned out. I bought new shoes for the children too, which cost £3 and 4d, (£160.00 Today), a sum that made me catch my breath, though it couldn’t be helped. Later, Eric and Phillip came by and we let them have the goose. It felt like one of those days full of little errands and bigger concerns, all jumbled together.

The next morning brought a small measure of relief: Dad seemed a little brighter. The white bougainvilla in the kitchen had opened fully and filled the house with a sweet, unexpected fragrance, lifting my spirits despite the dreadful weather. Rain fell endlessly, outside drumming on the windows as if it had no intention of stopping. [Read more…] about Andy Vining’s Podcast: My Mother’s Diaries 1948 -1976: Episode 2 – January to February 1948

Andy Vining shares his mother’s diaries in his new podcast.
Listen to these beautiful stories on Spotify.

Podcast Title: My Mother’s Diaries 1948 -1976

Episode 1 — Introduction

Hello… and welcome to this podcast.
My name is Andy Vining.

I’m eighty-two years old and as I record this, I I’m sitting quietly at home in Chandler’s Ford in Hampshire thinking about the past, and about the voices, people and places that shaped my life.

This podcast is not about me. It’s about our family. Memories, places, and the quiet, everyday moments that would normally be lost to time.

Most of all, it’s about my mother. And the diaries she wrote about her everyday life being a farmer’s wife and mother of five children while we were all growing up in on Hiltonbury Farm in Chandler’s Ford.

My mother was Peggy “Peg” Vining Nee Miller. Then when my brother Simon was born in 1958 she became BeBe because that’s what Simon called her.

But before I begin to read those diaries, I think it’s only right that I tell you a little about where this story truly starts… and how I come to be here, speaking to you today. [Read more…] about Andy Vining’s Podcast: My Mother’s Diaries 1948 – 1976: Episode 1 — Introduction