Community

Enough of football; a tame squirrel; the Wye Valley again; Ross’s Gull at Stanpit and rare terns at Dibden; conversion to natural gas; great tennis at Wimbledon; extraordinarily fit at 70; Ruth Hockridge gets married; sadness as the Kingstons depart, and Greaty is taken to hospital.

It’s May 4th 1974 and sixty-nine year old Gran is still playing tennis. With a friend, Lesley, that evening, she enjoys “a good knockup and two sets”, which, she says, “I won 6-1 6-3.  Shots were working well”.  She does not enjoy all sport though.  She writes later that night:

I stayed up late to see “The Pallisers” on Television which had, unfortunately, been postponed to the late hour because of the eternal time given to the Football Cup Final.  Thank goodness we shall now be spared football for a spell – we get such an overdose of it during the Winter.

She is at tennis again, at the private court in Merdon Avenue, three evenings later and she recounts the following, saying:

During play some boys brought in a baby squirrel and asked if the garden went right down to the wood because the squirrel would follow them and they could not get rid of it.  When they put it down it got through the netting onto the tennis court and I picked it up and carried it to the furthest corner of the garden.  The boys went down the road but re-appeared with it later.  It had evidently jumped over the fence and through the next garden to reach them again.  The baker told me this morning that a baby squirrel had been following people about the car park and a lady took it to the pinewood where it refused to leave her, and some workmen relieved her of it.  It is extraordinarily tame and, of course, is a pest but who, with any soul, could kill the little creature?  Certainly none of those so far in contact with it.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford- a Journal (Part 143)

A betrothal; a comet on Julian’s 21st; gales bring down trees; a cabinet for medals; a ferocious audition; a negligent godfather; Greaty does what she ought not to; “I could have wept”; Gran owes Tommy five pence; Andy – the peak-bagger, and Katie receives a necessary boost.

Gran enjoys Christmas Day, 1973; Barry and family join her and, to her great satisfaction, the day starts with Church at Compton:

Barry and I took the little boys and were joined by Julian at the Church gate just before we went in at eight o’clock.  It was overcast and rather murky outside but the Church looked beautiful and the Service was taken by the Bishop of Southampton.  The boys were very good and, as Mr Ovenden was seeing people away afterwards I introduced him to Barry, Julian, Geoffrey and Robin and felt very proud of them.  I returned to the business and excitement of the Day with renewed heart and spirit.

Presents are opened, distant family members telephoned and, Gran writes, “… as we celebrated afterwards, Barry announced that Ricky and Beverly are soon to become engaged and everyone was delighted for them.  The dinner was a great success”.

Among the events mentioned in Gran’s journal, summing-up her year on its last day – “… a trying one for our dear Country”, she says, referring to strikes and, oil shortages, she writes that:

The Grandchildren continue to be a great joy to me, and Julian has become a full International Athlete and an Oxford Blue.  Now at the close of the year, Ricky is engaged to Beverly, whom we all like very much.  I have only seen one new bird this year, the Pectoral Sandpiper, but Brother and I have had some very pleasurable outings together.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 142)

The routines of life; Gran’s first American bird; a friend – not seen since schooldays; a tree planted for Adrian; the Rector makes her day; a royal wedding; an operation for Norris; a fuel shortage and a rush on bicycles; Ricky bucks his ideas up, and Julian – “in a class of his own”.

Book 150

The Summer of 1973 passes for Gran, sixty-nine years old on July 22nd, with little change from a routine that includes an outing with Norris every Wednesday; tennis, at least weekly, which sometime does and sometimes does not exacerbate pains in her various joints – especially one hip; gardening; knitting; letter-writing; delighting in the receipt of stamps and first day covers from overseas; monthly visits from the new Rector of Compton, Mr Ovenden, to administer Communion; preserve-making, including gooseberry, and blackberry and apple jam, and enjoying hearing about the activities of her family.  Ricky, she says, leaves school, is awaiting A level results, hopes for a career flying helicopters and will spend some time birdwatching on Fair Isle in September.  Julian, amongst many other athletics exploits, qualifies for the final of the 5000 metres in the World Student Games, held this year in Moscow.  He finishes fourth and the winner sets a new Student Games World Record.

Jane and Stuart, the Brenans, visit The Ridge and they spend much time with their children, Katie and Andy, down at the Lake. Barry, Jane Elizabeth and their boys, Geoff and Rob, are in Orkney for the summer holidays, from where, Gran writes, “they sent me an Orkney silver brooch – a deer – made by Ola M Gorie, a real piece of native craft which is really delightful”, and they enthuse about finding quantities of Scottish Primrose “which I have never seen”, she adds ruefully.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 141)

Crowds at Dibden; good news and bad by post; Hoopoe envy; the Black Prince; a “Goater Gallop”; “Mrs Hilly’s” last day; Rick grows a beard; worry over “dear old Tommy”; wonderful neighbours; sporting behaviour at Wimbledon, and the “Swedish boy Borg”.

On April 13th 1973 Gran needs an eye test and takes the bus into Southampton.  She says, with relief:

The eye-test was very satisfactory, with no deterioration in my sight since 1970, and I called in hopefully to Martin’s to see if my binoculars were back yet, and they were!  So I am fully equipped again now.  My knee was extremely painful and I was glad to get into the ‘bus.

And on the following day:

I took my swollen knee to the Doctor this morning and he said it was synovitis which was causing trouble.  I am to bandage it firmly and rest it as much as possible, but, as usual, I can do my household chores except for kneeling!  Well, I am going out with Brother for the day tomorrow…

The outing is to Dibden Bay, where she and Norris meet up with a British Naturalists’ Association (although Gran continues to call it the British Empire Naturalists’ Association) group in the afternoon.  The first Swallow of the year is noted in Baddesley Road, followed by a singing Blackcap, Crossbills and a drumming Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the Forest.  Car parking at Dibden proves difficult, “People with binoculars were everywhere”, Gran complains:

… but they were not birdwatching.  The Queen Elizabeth II was sailing from Southampton for a cruise to Israel, and such is the present political situation between Jew and Arab that aeroplanes and helicopters were flying round and watching for anything unusual.  But our eyes were for birds, and the disturbance around left us few to see.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 140)

Stamps  from New Zealand; good birds in Suffolk; Ruddigore at Sadlers’ Wells; excitement on The Ribble Marshes; childish stamps from Australia; “a perfect specimen of human babyhood”, and a Camellia causes some anxiety.

On February 19th 1973, Gran receives some mail:

Second post brought me New Zealand stamps from Brother-in-law Norman – two strips of the newest issue with the margin numbers and printers’ name, with the names of the artists which, according to a newspaper cutting sent with them, had been attributed to the wrong artist in these particular values.  Norman thought they would be interesting and, perhaps, valuable.