Community

A longing for Scotland; unobservant shoppers; Heddle Nash – sadly departed; Ivan and Jill; enchanting Cranbury; portly peers; an unbelievable letter; wild places – a necessary balm to the soul; the Crimson Speckled, and a grandson is entertained.

Book 94

Since her visit to Speyside, two years ago, Gran has written many times of an almost unbearable and romantic desire to return to Scotland.  This is reawakened on August 4th 1961, when the mail arrives:

A card from John Gunningham, who is at Inchnadamph, in Sutherland, today told me that Dark-red Helleborine, Mountain Avens and Yellow Saxifrage are growing behind the hotel in which he is staying, and the whole area is “simply devastating”.  Certainly the picture of Loch Assynt, on the card, is very beautiful and increases my longing to visit Scotland again.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 108)

An elusive Hoopoe; exhausted on Chesil Beach; a Glow-worm in Grove Road; an all-British Women’s Final; meeting a hero; Barry runs a mile; a small extravagance; questions from Julian, and little figures strike the hour.

Gran makes her way into Southampton en route to a field trip in Dorset on June 4th 1961, and a roadside sight, relatively unusual in those days, upsets her: “A sad sight at Bassett was a beautiful Badger lying dead beside the road, evidently killed by a passing car during the night”.  She continues:

…. I dashed into Aunt Em’s to tell Mother I would be late back tonight and found Brother there.  He imparted the startling news that there was a Hoopoe at West Wellow and he saw it last weekend with Doreen Peters, who I am to phone tomorrow in the hope that she can show it to me one day this week!

This is another birdy event, much like Gran’s putative Melodious Warblers, that has gone down in family history, Norris, on this occasion, apparently nearly ending up in a ditch in his excitement when he first glimpsed this rare visitor while driving through West Wellow.  Why he did not alert Gran to its presence at once, we never heard.  Doreen Peters picks up Gran in her car on June 7th.  Gran says of the bird, “it was on a grassy patch close to the road by a heath on the Brockenhurst Road out of West Wellow.  We were, however, unlucky and did not see it…” It will be many years until Dad shows her her first Hoopoe, at Portland, and I look forward to reading of Gran’s excitement on that occasion!

A Spring day out; a mystery bird; mint stamps from New Zealand; Julian needs stitches; Ladybird books; the maiden voyage of the SS Canberra, and Jimmy Edwards – unintentionally funny.

The absence of Book 91 in the sequence of Gran’s journals brings us to Book 92 and mid-April 1961. It is some time since I included a representative section of the more mundane of her daily writing so I have elected now to include in full, her description of a typical Spring day out – an example of much of the work that I usually heavily edit in order to avoid repetition.

Book 92

April 16th:

Today dawned fine and bright and a Goldfinch was singing in the garden when I went to read the thermometer.  Goldfinches were also singing as I went up Hiltingbury Road to catch the bus for the B.E.N.A. outing at Alresford, and, whilst waiting for it, I was thickly showered with the white petals from the Wild Cherry trees on the opposite side of the road as they fluttered down and were borne across the road by the wind.  They were a lovely sight in the sunshine.  Wayfaring Tree was flowering in the wayside hedge at St Cross and I saw more during our walk at Alresford.  Three Grey Wagtails were chasing over the stream by the Willow Tree Inn at Winchester and I saw many more of these lovely birds also around Alresford. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 106)

Eric Ashby films; Capetown Castle damaged; a conductor laughs; John Crook visits; looking for Sikas; laddered stockings and lost beads; influencing the young; a Turnstone is shot and Mandarins delight.

One of the great names of the time in natural history writing and film-making, Eric Ashby, gives a talk to the Southampton Natural History Society on December 6th 1960.  Gran writes that the meeting was most enjoyable:

…and Mr Ashby showed four of his excellent films of mammals of the New Forest.  He had taken them himself, tortured by midges and mosquitos, without the aid of hides… They were respectively of Badgers, Foxes, Deer, Dartford Warblers and Red-backed Shrikes.

Of the foxes, she says:

…and if all hunters could see the pictures of the vixen and her devotion to her litter of adorable cubs, I should think they would squirm with the burden of guilt every time they set out to kill them.

And there is an interesting sequence showing the Red-backed Shrike’s nest: [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 105)

The Ridge acquires a television; 1000 button-holes; local floods; choosy shopping; a new bird at Beaulieu Road; New Forest management issues, and new employment for Jane.

It is apparent that a television has been installed at The Ridge around this time, September 1960, for Gran has watched much tennis, several plays and live orchestral music on it in recent days.  She spends a whole wet afternoon in front of it on October 1st, describing the programmes in some detail: Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in Bringing up Baby, then The Vow – a story of the village of Oberammergau, its people and the preparations for the Passion Play; Tales of the Riverbank, which, she says, “was the last of the series and, though primarily for children, I enjoyed it too”.  Then comes a Look programme with Peter Scott, dealing with Badgers and Foxes, and finally a Harvest Thanksgiving Service from Sherborne Abbey in Dorset.

At Southampton Docks, delivering flowers on the United States three days later, Gran, with permission from a nearby Policeman:

…went to look at the “Shangri-La”, the American Aircraft Carrier which was lying in the next berth.  The ship was guarded by an American Marine in a pillbox at the foot of the gangway.  The “Shangri-La”, of 33,000 tons, carries a crew of 4000 and is commanded by Rear Admiral T.H. Moorer…

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – A Journal (Part 104)

Spoiled for three days; quite a bit of television; news from Germany; Jane safe home; a new coat; the Rome Olympics; a small boy’s delights; friends of Jane’s wed and emigrate, and a letter from a famous author.

Book 88

Gran takes the train to London on her way to Chipstead, in Surrey, to visit the Rowsells on August 12th 1960.  “The train was very full’, she writes:

… and in my compartment was a family of four delightful children, one of whom, Margaret, became very friendly almost at once and I was soon involved in a game of “snap” which lasted until we reached Waterloo.

The Rowsells apparently intend to “spoil” their guest, for Gran is met at Waterloo by Mrs Rowsell and whisked off, by taxi, to Fortnum and Mason, for refreshment, before another taxi takes them to Charing Cross and their train to Chipstead.  There, Gran finds “Hollymead Cottage” awaiting her, with “spacious gardens and trim lawns”.  And, surprisingly, she pens this:

[The sun-room] was occupied by Tou-tou, quite the prettiest cat I have ever seen, soft grey her paws; underparts and face so pale as to be almost white, and the rest of her body “tabbied” with darker grey.  A gentle animal…

So much for Gran’s furiously written wish of just a few months past, to throttle every cat she sees!

A great longing satisfied; Princess Margaret weds, and so does Mike Harper; flowers for the Pendennis Castle; neighbourly comfort; kindly nursing at St Paul’s; Diana is twenty-one; a fox in the fridge; Jane goes to Italy; Firecrests in Southampton and a kind invitation.

Book 86

“A most important event this morning.  The first of Barry’s leautieri caterpillars hatched and was soon feeding on the macrocarpa I provided for it.  Let us hope it thrives!”  Thus writes Gran on April 21st 1960, and she is also given another moth-related task by her son – the gathering of fallen sallow blossom:

…presumably for lurking larvae, so this morning, I went up the road to where I had noted a lot on the ground two days ago.  I was gathering it up into a polythene bag when a lady approached and was most interested in what I was doing.  So I told her.  Whereupon she explained that she and her husband were interested in wild flowers, and photographed them in colour, and I said I was also, and painted them.  At this, she said, “Are you Mrs Goater by any chance?”  She had been told that she should meet me, so we exchanged addresses and she ran for her bus.  She is Mrs Edwards, and lives in Malibres Road.

Bicentenary celebrations; caterpillar-rearing; to Dorset for Spring Crocus, Peter Katin’s “sensitive, wonderful hands”; the fate of “Fig Cottage”; pressed flowers and a first day cover in the post; cycling with Jock; news from Scotland, and still no Nightingale.

On February 21st 1960 Gran writes:

This evening I went to a lecture and Reception at Taunton’s School, in Southampton, the first of a series of events to mark the School’s bicentenary.  The Lecture, “Content of Education”, was given by Lord James of Rusholme, an old boy of Taunton’s, former Assistant Master at Winchester College and now High Master of Manchester Grammar School.  It was an extremely interesting and thought-provoking talk, told with a quiet humour and great clarity of speech…

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 101)