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Editor’s note: Huge congratulations to Rick on completing 100 articles in this beautiful series – what a massive achievement! You’ve taken all your readers on this exciting adventure with you and your Gran since January 2017. This series has formed such an important record in the history of Chandler’s Ford. We love these stories. Thank you for your contribution, your perseverance, and your hard work – you’ve brought us so much joy every Sunday morning with Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal by Joan Adelaide Goater. Thank You.

New binoculars; a fine pullover; to the Ballet; a Foundation Stone is laid; sub-standard blood; slamming doors; smudged ink; the curse of crude oil; a louse-hunt; peace at The Lake; a tame Stoat and relaxing with Ovaltine.

1960

“Yesterday was Ricky’s fifth birthday”, Gran writes on the third day of January:

…and he starts school next week. He does not want to and is very reluctant but I hope he will soon settle down happily. I should hate him to be unhappy – he is such a merry little soul.

Yes, I remember – I locked myself in the bathroom when the fateful morning arrived!

Peg Eagle, Hazel Bidmead and Gran had watched birds together at Dibden Bay – a place that has become very popular with them as a birding destination – on the 2nd. It is often the case on these outings that Gran fails to see a particular bird well enough to clinch its identification, and this happens when a “probable” Grey Phalarope flies up at their feet. On the 5th though, she has news that will at last give her a significant advantage:

…today has brought me the fulfilment of the one material desire I have possessed for a long time! Barry wrote to say that he had secured for me, at a sale, “a handsome pair of binoculars”, worth from thirty-five to forty pounds, for ten guineas, and will bring them down this week. I sent the cash by return post and hope, by the weekend, to really possess my own really good binoculars. I can scarcely believe it!

Barry and the binoculars arrive next day, and the first thing Gran observes through them is the Moon, marvelling at the clarity of its craters.  And a few weeks later, after watching a Grey Heron through them, she says, “These glasses have made bird-watching a real joy to me instead of the rather frustrating occupation it used to be at times”.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 100)

Editor’s note: Rick, next week you’ll reach the milestone of ‘part 100’ in this totally breathtaking series. We can’t wait! Thank you.

Flowers for an hour’s work; the Salmon put on a show; The Grand under threat; rotting bananas; tears at Compton; two excellent lectures; Lord Montagu’s Eel; a new Church for Hiltingbury; postage stamps for Southampton; Gran’s “Marsh Warblers” discussed, and a complete list of Christmas presents.

We discover the name of another local shopkeeper on October 7th 1959, when Gran explains that the butcher in the village (who also runs a market garden) says to her, “You have some experience of flowers don’t you?” and asks her to show him and his wife how to pack an order of over thirty dozen Chrysanthemums for the Queen Elizabeth in Southampton Docks. Payment for her services is pressed upon Gran by Mrs Olsen but having been given ”a dozen most beautiful bronze Chrysanthemums”, Gran tells her that this is ample payment for an hour of enjoyable work, so she is given another half dozen deep pink ones, Mrs Olsen saying she would hate Gran to think her mean.

On the following day, Gran writes:

Later this afternoon I went to record my vote in the General Election and then sat in with Ruth and Anne whilst the Hockridges went, taking Mother in their car with them.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 99)

Upsetting paintings; a lovely birthday – and a cake; Butterbur hats; downland farewell; Ospreys; yellow trunks and a new flower on the Isle of Wight; a regretable change of neighbours; pigeon-toed tennis; ungrateful Sparrows and loyal friend Gilbert’s success.

Gran is home from her holiday in Scotland on July 10th 1959, and the afternoon is spent unpacking and recounting her adventures to “Mother and sundry friends”.  She gives herself little time to recoup though:

In the evening I went to a short farewell party at Bassett – the old friends with whom I have played tennis, attended their little fortnightly whist drives and such, have had to sell their home and, owing to ill-health, join their daughter in Ireland, and I found this a little overwhelming after leaving Scotland and travelling all night, but I was glad I went.

On the 11th, she goes with the Fowlers to the Open Day at Diana’s School of Occupational Therapy in Oxford.  There is an exhibition, opened by Sir Hugh Casson, of work done by students during their training, which Gran finds deeply touching, since it is produced by mentally and physically handicapped patients in various hospitals, but:

The paintings I found depressing, for they were mostly done by those with mental disabilities; chiefly anxieties, phobias and schizophrenia, and these showed in their work, which, I found, were much as most modern art and one wonders just how much these painters of so-called contemporary pictures are deranged in some way.  Some of the pictures were frankly horrifying in their tragic implications.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 98)

With cousin Fairlie in Kent; alley cricket in Mill Hill; amazing character studies at the W.I.; kissed by Joey; the Old Curiosity Shop and the wonders of Scotland.

Gran, at Fairlie’s house in Kent on May 27th 1959, walks the local countryside collecting flower specimens after “ Fairlie left for Chelsea Flower Show and while Norah had gone to her usual work in the Church”.  Gran witnesses for the first time, a bird “anting”:

…a practise said to be undertaken for cleaning purposes.  A Great Tit was moving rapidly round the rim of the well and assiduously picking up ants which he put beneath his wings, shook himself vigorously and then sprawled with spread wings, sunning himself.

The gathered flowers are needed for a talk on her usual subject, which Gran has been asked to give locally that evening.  “The flower talk seemed to be found interesting”, she says, “and I was asked to judge the arrangements of wild flowers. Not an impressive array, I must confess, and the containers not really suitable”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 97)