Nature

Battling brambles; hungry children; Lou Meadon; skating on Cranbury Lake; hypnosis in the stoat world and get your hair cut during the waxing moon.

This afternoon [February 15th 1948] saw me away to the daffodil wood at Chilworth but unfortunately several others had reached the spot also. I really only went to see how they were progressing but the place is getting so well-known that I realised if I wanted any I must pick them today in bud. They open very successfully in water but I wanted to see them open in the woods. By that time I’m afraid there will be none left so I picked a few for myself and some to send to Kingston.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 12)

A love of England; a hatred of cats; Snowdrops; a bonfire; Compton Church on the wireless; Charlotte Yonge; Gilbert Whitley; and a hedgehog in the bed!

Gran writes on January 7th 1948 that a Fox had been busy in the neighbourhood:

…and last night a local smallholder was robbed of nine laying ducks. Proof of the identity of the thief lay in the discovery of three bodies with their heads bitten off.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 11)

A rare bird in the Forest and a new one on the coast; prowlers in the garden; no more Red Squirrels, chestnut gatherers and Ampfield lovlier than ever.

On October 7th 1947 Gran copies four pages of Ruskin’s positive views on the human character of the love of nature. She follows this with: [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 9)

Another visit to Kingston upon Thames; approval for  the Winchester by-pass; war-time house-sharing; a rare plant appears in the garden and harvest festival celebrated at Compton Church.

On the 21st, there is a description of the autumnal bird movements and also of the colourful shrubs around Hursley at that time of year. Spindle is Gran’s favourite shrub, the fruits “just becoming that lovely shade of rose”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 8)

She never met William Rufus, but remembered House Sparrows in numbers, a doodlebug lifting her roof and could hear the ocean liners as they left the docks.

Gran spends August 4th 1947, at Romsey Horse Show.  There is no mention of how she got there nor of her company, but they found Broadlands, where the show was held, delightful when they walked around it during the interval.  And they made a visit to Pepperbox Hill that day too, returning “towards dusk as the sparrows were chattering in the hedges and the crickets chirping”.
[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 7)

Orchids in Beattie’s Field; High Brown Fritillaries; flowers of Southampton’s bombed sites and a squawking Nightjar chick!

Gran has made a few visits to the Punchbowl area on the Petersfield Road lately, looking for orchids and other wild flowers. When describing her finds, she always uses the plants’ scientific names – but many of them are well out of date today. For instance, she finds Habenaria conopsea, which must be Fragrant orchid – a plant now recognised as three separate species, and with a different Generic name. When at the Punchbowl, she:

…resented the arrival of noisy, chattering people on motorbikes who were apparently quite unaware of the beauty of sight and sound all round them, which they had so rudely disturbed.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 6)

It’s the summer of 1947 – nesting birds, butterflies on the wing and flowering plants – and there are recollections of the Hiltingbury youth.

On May 22 1947, Gran notes Lithospermum purpureo-caeruleum (creeping gromwell) in the garden but, she says, “as this is a rarity I am waiting to verify my identification”.

Presently, the front garden of The Ridge has a large patch of this lovely blue-flowered plant, which was introduced  from a small piece collected at Cheddar in 1967, so Gran’s earlier record of it is something of a mystery – though it was surely a garden escape from somewhere nearby. Dad tells me, “It is now a confounded nuisance, its long tough, slender rhizomes getting under paving slabs and amongst other plants, and producing flowering shoots in unwelcome places”. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 5)

Gran records several bird species now lost as breeders in Chandler’s Ford – Hawfinch, Wryneck, Red-backed Shrike and Nightjar.

The last day of April and the first of May 1947 give the first hint that I have found of Gran’s constant bitter sadness, which apparently underlies all her writing: [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 4)

Signs of spring excite Gran but she is worried by news of pending development of her beloved woods.

Gran notes Salix caprea (goat willow) catkins open on March 15th, and a male Early Moth coming to light at a bedroom window the day before this. On the 16th:

The speckled Wood butterfly which I brought home from the greenhouse on March 5th was today spreading its wings to the sun in the dining room.

[Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 3)

It’s the freezing winter of 1946/47, but Gran is still out and about in the countryside

Book 1

It’s dated January 1st 1947 and is headed “A Country Diary”. The inside of the front cover has five or six paragraphs, the first of which goes:

Flowers bring a spirit of comfort and happiness which money cannot buy, and being a spirit, is neither measured nor defined, but only perceived.

This is followed by:

“The tragic beauty of life is revealed nowhere so movingly and so clearly to the spirit as in a wild flower, which blossoms into life and fades into death.”

June 17^th 1945 – January 12^th 1947

In memory of my friend, “Adrian”, (Kenneth R. A. C. Turvey) who gave me an even deeper appreciation of the beauty and wonder of nature. He died January 12^th 1947 aged 34. His brave, wholesome spirit was an inspiration and an example. Semper Fidelis.

I suspect that the words in quotation marks were from Adrian himself, though the journal is peppered with similar rather trite and flowery quotes from all sorts of sources that are not Adrian. And the dates are the period of Gran’s brief friendship with him. [Read more…] about Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 2)