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Empty nest syndrome; fun collecting crab apples; flowers for a Queen; a dockers’ strike; a farm wedding; “Goodbye Mary”; and another wedding.

September 21^st 1954:

Jane left early this morning to return to college at Eastbourne and Jill Fowler, who joins her there tomorrow, arrived just before she left, with some things which Jane had promised to take for her.  Our farewells were brief, for even when we feel our best, we dislike these partings but today with the shadow of Robin’s tragic accident hanging over us, neither of us was fit for prolonged speech.

“Poor little Jane”, Gran continues, “it is the first time tragedy has so nearly reached her and she is being very brave”.  Later that day, she cycles to the top of Otterbourne Hill “to get some blackthorn upon which to feed a Fox moth caterpillar which I am looking after for a youngster while he is on holiday”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 65)

One that got away; enjoying Barry’s and Julian’s company before they leave the district; quiet reflections in Compton Church; goodbye Mary Robinson; news of a tragedy; another wedding, and a hedgehog knocks over a milk bottle.

Jane encourages Gran, dogged this day and regularly at fortnightly intervals, by her debilitating headaches, to accompany her on a walk along the Itchen, downstream from Brambridge, on the evening of August 16^th 1954.  Few people are about, apart from a lone fisherman and a single dog-walker. A Kingfisher flashes past, and a family of Mute Swans is on the water.  Gran and Jane observe the fisherman, whom they saw: [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 64)

A visit to the Cotswolds; a manipulation; Gran is 50; a tryst on Compton Downs; a Drinker is saved; two years of National Service – done; a couple of enthusiastic Irishmen; and four get a soaking on Farley Mount.

Gran, we learn on July 18^th 1954, is Godmother to John, one of Tommy and Bob Fowler’s children.  On that day, she, with Jill and Diana (the other two Fowler offspring), and Tommy, drive to Cheltenham, where John is at what Gran describes as “the famous school”. The journey is, typically, described in some detail, Gran enjoying the Cotswold villages with, to her, unusual names: Warborough, Stratton St Margaret, Blunsdon and Cricklade.  She is impressed by the verges near the last named, “massed with Meadow Cranesbill”, some of which she collects for planting in her garden at The Ridge. And she recounts an amusing incident:

… a boy emerging from a side road was so startled by the sight of an approaching car that he promptly fell off his bicycle and disappeared into a ditch, though we were nowhere near him!

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 63)

A memory of Italy; delight in caring for a baby again; the Queen comes home; some serious athletics; a lot of orchids; more trees felled in Chandler’s Ford; Chelsea Flower Show again and a mouse causes some amusement.

Book 44

Gran records with pleasure an experience enjoyed by Jane, with Robin Eastwood, early in May 1954 when on a wet and windy day, which made travel in the open-topped Talbot uncomfortable, the couple end the day with dinner at the Grand Hotel. A good orchestra was playing, she tells us, and after Robin had asked the name of a piece just played, the leader asked if there was anything Jane would like to hear.  She chose a selection from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and this scenario reminded Gran of her very similar and wonderful experience as a seventeen-year old, when, she writes, “the leader of the Orchestra in the Carlo Felici Restoranti in Genoa used to ask me, with a low bow, “and what would the signorina like us to play now?”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 61)