Image Credit: Many thanks to Lionel Elliott and the Chameleons for supplying the images.
It was good to be back at the Richie Memorial Hall to watch the Chameleons’ latest production on Thursday, 26th April. They staged three plays in one show. All were set in different times and backgrounds. [Read more…] about April Trio of Plays – The Chameleons – Review by Allison Symes
Come Thursday we are all invited to vote in the Borough Council elections; all of us on the electoral register that is. If you are not on the register, get on it. Too late for this election but ready for the next which could occur at any time as we are in a state of political instability. Who to vote for? Party or person? The political parties have sent round leaflets, so you probably know the names of the candidates. Parties want you to vote for their candidate but, are their candidates any good? [Read more…] about Democracy
On January 17th 1953 Gran leads a group of British Empire Naturalists’ Association members on a walk between Compton and Winchester along the Itchen Valley. They see a range of common wildlife but the most important thing, from Gran’s point of view, is that it boosts her confidence, and she writes:
It had been an enjoyable afternoon and the members thanked me for conducting them, as they said, so ably along a very beautiful and interesting stretch of English countryside. I need not have felt so nervous about undertaking the venture and I now contemplate the trip to Avington Park next month with less trepidation. I am too used to being a lone wolf to relish taking a party on my excursions but today’s number was not overwhelming and they were all very nice and friendly people.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 50)
Yesterday, 1st April, was the 100th anniversary of the Royal Air Force. Some of you may have seen More4’s screening last night of ‘Last Flight of the Vulcan Bomber’ when the daredevil mechanic Guy Martin worked at the ‘Vulcan to the Sky Trust with the team of engineers maintaining XH558 The Spirit of Great Britain, the last remaining Vulcan flying.
He learned about the rigorous servicing, he flew alongside the Vulcan in a fly-past and later experienced the incredible thrust of this brilliant aeroplane from the cockpit, accelerating up to the point of take-off (WOW!) [Read more…] about The 100th Anniversary of the Royal Air Force: Remembering the Vulcan
On December 10th 1952, Gran is brought a male Bullfinch that has been “knocked down”, she thinks, on the road. She has little hope of its recovery as it seems to be in a bad way but she gives it a drop of brandy, holds it in her warm hand, and then places it in a basket by the kitchen window, and it begins to recover. After more than an hour it flies off, and Gran says, “He was a beautiful bird and I was so pleased that he recovered”.
The use of brandy in such a situation is new to me, and I expect is not to be recommended! I remember another member of the family many years later giving apple pieces soaked in brandy to a budgerigar, and it became so relaxed that it fell off its perch!
December 13th:
I had little time for outside observations today since Barry was coming on leave early this evening and bringing with him his new friend, John Sandy Cunningham, known to all as Sandy, and his fiancée Jill, whose second name I never discovered and which Sandy told me was relatively unimportant as she would be changing it on January 7th, when they are getting married.
Sandy and Jill spend the night at The Ridge, Gran noting that they were:
…already quite at home and the easiest young people with whom to get on that I have ever known, in spite of the fact that Sandy is extremely clever and an Oxford B.A. Also, he is one of the handsomest young men I know and his manners are punctilious. His voice is well modulated and he is most gentle and courteous towards Jill.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 49)
I thought I would take this opportunity to respond to Chandler’s Ford Today’s informal invitation to provide some input that might catch the eye of a few older folk.
Being an environmentally aware person and property man who cut his teeth in a very beautiful part of England I was at an early age drawn to the Potters Heron for a variety of reasons. It is magnificently located for its purpose on a stretch of highway that sweeps majestically in a gentle curve on its way to my favouritecity. Strangely enough, and it may seem totally irrelevant but I had the same feeling when I last swept along the Big Sur stretch of the coastal highway in CA. [Read more…] about Those were the Days: the Potters Heron Hotel in the 50s and 60s
I remember the Potters Heron before the 1966 fire, and another event prior to that date, probably in the late 1950s…
The original line of the main road there was much closer to the Potters Heron than now, due to a particularly nasty accident that took place then.
A group of actors or celebrities of the day were travelling on what was then the A31, in a couple of fast (for then) cars. [Read more…] about Another Potters Heron Story Before the 1966 Fire
The Potters Heron has been known affectionately over the years by some as the Potted Herring. I’ve known it for nearly 60 years.
It was indeed a very popular restaurant and bar. It had a thatched roof and was rather more attractive and intimate than the building that replaced it after the fire in 1966, although the hotel that rose from the ashes retained something of the character of the original building. [Read more…] about Another Turn of the Potter’s Wheel
On October 12th 1952, Gran is pleased to see her old friend and confidant, Mr Utterton, briefly returned to Compton Church:
I was delighted to reach the Church gate at the same time as Mr Utterton, who was taking today’s services, and I was able to speak to him for a few moments. Except that he appeared a little older, he was his own kind self and it was good to see him again.
Later, she writes, “This afternoon Jane and I went up to Farley Mount. I wanted her to see it before all its Autumn beauty had faded”, but she is disturbed by what they encounter there:
We returned to Hursley past the Mount itself but all pleasure was spoilt by a motor-cycle rally which was in progress opposite the Monument. I grieve for Farley Mount these days, for the peace and serenity which I used to find there, and, if such as motor rallies are to become frequent, I am afraid much of its wild life will be lost as well. A Lark was singing but much of its melody was lost in the constant roar of passing motor-cycles.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 48)
Further to last week where I discussed the frustrations of publishing, it is my pleasure to share my interview with another writer taking the independent press route. Please “meet” fellow Chapeltown Books author, Gail Aldwin. Also many thanks to her for supplying the images for this interview. [Read more…] about Travelling by Bus around the World and Inspirational Flash Fiction – Introducing Gail Aldwin
Gran is in pensive mood. She writes:
I heard religion described today by a clergyman as “what we do with our loneliness”, and I thought back over the last five years and wondered if he would think I had used mine to advantage. Quite apart from my writing, which may or may not benefit somebody someday, I think it has deepened my capacity for compassion and sympathetic understanding and I have tried to give myself wholeheartedly to those who need me, and I know that my friendship has helped several people at least. But it has also humbled me, for I have felt so desperately bewildered and ignorant of so much that I want to understand and believe implicitly…
[Read more…] about Fort Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 47)
I was interested in a previous article by Rick Goater in which he mentioned his grandmother visiting Mrs Doncaster’s garden in 1952. For some years, I lived three doors away in our (then) new house overlooking the green in Merdon Avenue.
I have in my possession, a Royal Horticultural Society journal, published in 1982, which contains a fascinating article about the garden by Roy Lancaster. Mrs Doncaster, at that time, had collected and grown uncommon and ornamental plants for fifty years. [Read more…] about Mrs Doncaster
Gran is again boxing-up flowers at the Fowler’s shop in Southampton on July 30th 1952, for delivery to ocean liners shortly to leave port – this time, the SS United States again and also the RMS Queen Elizabeth. She ends a detailed description of the contents of one box thus:
…Asparagus fern completed the gift box which I think should have delighted the heart of any woman lucky enough to receive it. I did not visit either of the ships today as I had to leave by mid-day in order to cycle back here in time for lunch and to Pinewood Gardens by two o’clock.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 46)
What a difference a few years makes. Back in 1947 we had a real winter. Snow and freezing temperatures lasted for ages. Those were real austerity times, food rationing, power cuts every day to conserve coal, clothing was still rationed, nobody had central heating and most had outside lavatories, even the BBC was cut off during the afternoons to save energy. It was enormous fun. I could not wait to get out with my sledge and the chance of a snowball fight.
On June 28th 1952, Gran makes the three-bus trip, via the Hythe Ferry to her beloved New Forest. On the way, seeing the bombed sites of Southampton, Redbridge and Millbrook, she notes:
Buddleia, now recognised as a naturalised native plant, had taken firm hold and its beautiful purple heads of bloom flowered above the golden masses of Senecio squalidus (Oxford Ragwort).
She has a botanically fabulous day, described in great detail, recording many plants, eight of which are new species for her Hampshire list, and she writes:
The afternoon was perfect and I joined the Southampton Natural History Society in a ramble round Hatchet Pond in the New Forest, a district full of interest and with a tremendous number of small but beautiful, and, in some cases, rare wild flowers…the rarest and most exciting being the tiny gentian Cicendia filiformis (Sender Cicendia), which, according to Bentham and Hooker, occurs only in the south-western counties of England. Two bedstraws, Galium debile [now G. constrictum] a rare plant closely allied to Galium palustre (Marsh Bedstraw) and which has only recently been identified as a separate species, and the Stellaria uliginosa (Bog Stitchwort) were the next new discoveries… [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 45)
On May 20th 1952, Gran:
…took a friend from the Natural History Society for a walk round about this district. We went through the woodland past the lake, which is surrounded by Rhododendron bushes which today were in full bloom, reflected in the water of the still lake, the rosy-mauve in various shades making a picture of unsurpassed beauty. Unfortunately, the lake itself is overgrown with pondweed over a large extent and this detracts from its beauty because it spoils the clarity of the water.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 44)
It’s April 8th 1952. The rain of the last few days clears and Gran writes of Barry and her new daughter-in-law, honeymooning on the Isle of Wight:
I hope Barry and Jock have also enjoyed the same glorious day, but I would like to be the first to hear the Willow Warbler, though I know they will have much to report on their return home. I do not expect many young couples would largely spend their honeymoon watching bird-migration…
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 43)
Here is a story to freshen the fins and gild the gills even if you are not piscatorially predisposed. I heard the tale from the young Zoologist and Doctor who made the discovery.
Sri Lanka has a fish called Kami or Kami’s Barb or to give it its Linnean name Puntius kamalika. It is an unremarkable, small, silver-grey, fresh-water fish first recorded by Georg Dunker, a German ichthyologist, in 1912. He thought it was the same as a fish found in India, Puntius amphibius, first identified in the early 19th century near Bombay or Mumbai by a German naturalist. [Read more…] about A Fish Called Kami
Gran enthuses near dawn on February 24th 1952:
I heard Barry calling urgently to me to “come quickly and see the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming in the oak tree”. I ran to call Jock and we had splendid views from a front window, watching the bird for a long time. It was drumming on a dead branch at first, moving all round it and between drumming it was pecking at the bough.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 42)
‘Did you see the film?’
‘Yes, but it was not as good as the book.’
Is the book as good as the film or vice versa? At the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, a discussion took place between a film director Lord (David) Puttnam and four authors who have had their books made into films or TV series.
Participants
Lord Puttnam: Best known for his film ‘Chariots of Fire’ and many others.
Shrabani Basu whose book and TV documentary ‘Victoria and Abdul’ have been widely admired.
Maylis de Kerangel, a French author of ‘Mend the Living’ about the two sides of a heart transplant, donor and recipient.
Sebastian Faulks, author of Charlotte Grey and Birdsong and other books that have been made into film.
Alexander McCall Smith whose series ‘The No I Ladies Detective Agency’ has a strong following both in text and on TV.
