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.
In recent days Gran has had several “run-ins” with cats in her garden and she notes again on April 22nd that young birds and their anxious parents are in the garden, “…and I spend much time chasing cats, with which the neighbourhood is now infested”.
She writes on April 23rd, “I went up to London today, en route for Tring tomorrow, when I hope to fulfil a long-cherished ambition”. We are held in suspense regarding this ambition, but I assume she is going to visit the famous collection of stuffed birds, held by the British Museum there. She spends the night at Mill Hill, there renewing acquaintance with Mike Harper, “…the medical student friend of Barry’s (with whom I climbed the Monadhliaths at Dalwhinnie)”, she says, who is visiting Barry.
The following day she calls a “red-letter day”, and it has nothing to do with stuffed birds after all! Rather, she describes a little bit of minor botanical naughtiness! She takes a train to Tring, meeting other members of B.E.N.A. for a field trip on the chalk downs of the Chilterns, and describing a short walk from the station, continues:
Then, on a bank, the object of our search – the lovely Pasque-flower Anemone pulsatilla, which I have longed to see for many years. It is a very local plant and does not, as far as I know, occur in Hampshire. Today there were several scattered over a wide area and Mr Kimmins and John Gunningham both stopped to take colour photographs. I moved off alone, hoping to secure one to paint but, as I knew this would not be popular with the leaders of the expedition (though the locals gather them every year) I had to be very careful. I did eventually manage to secrete one – I could not possibly miss the chance of recording it in watercolour – and was well pleased.
A little later, she writes of Mr and Mrs Kimmins and John Gunningham, “frantically beckoning” to her. “I went”, she says:
…and discovered that they had agreed to bring me the Pasque-flower they had photographed but wanted to hide it from the main party! So I did not tell them or anybody else that I already had one!”
Home on the 25th she records:
This afternoon I painted my Pasque-flower, and so satisfied a great longing. Later, a Mrs Soulsby came to see me… She is from Vancouver, British Colombia, and longed to see some of our birds. I found her very charming and was interested to hear that she is a neice of the late Philip Cunningham, who was Rector of Compton before Mr Utterton came there. We went around the Lake and Pinewood to see what we could in the short time at our disposal.
Every bird they see is new for Gran’s guest, and she ends by telling us that they spend a long time lying on their backs in the Pinewood and peering into the trees because they thought they saw Crossbills, but they turned out only to be Greenfinches.
Jane arrives at The Ridge during teatime, fresh from Norway, “brown as a berry and looking wonderfully fit”. She brings Norwegian stamps for her Mother.
May 4th:
I went to the doctor with a painful left arm, which has been troubling me for about two months. After he had stretched my neck and jerked my shoulders this way and that, he instructed me to reach upwards as far as possible, whilst standing at right angles close against the door. Painful but seemingly effective, and I am to see him again in a fortnight’s time.
Two days later, it is Princess Margaret’s Wedding Day:
… and I have done little else besides watching, on Television next door, the royal processions to and from Westminster Abbey and the Ceremony within… I must say that the B.B.C. Television Service did a wonderful job, showing us all round London, sections of the huge crowds everywhere, the pomp and circumstance, the solemn majesty of the Marriage Service…and the appearance of the Royal Party on the balcony.
The Bride looked radiant in a simple gown of white silk organza, her veil held in place by a diamond diadem, and her small, dainty bouquet of white orchids.
Gran relates much more detail – the eight bridesmaids, their dresses, the flowers, distinguished guests, and Commonwealth representatives, “making together a galaxy of colour”. And she watches it all again on television that evening.
May 19th:
…I went twice to the docks to deliver on the “Pendennis Castle”, the newest of the Union Castle Line, which, until today, I had not visited. She is a beautiful though simple ship and an easy one on which to find one’s way about. We had an order for a Hydrangea for the Master, and it was quite a privilege to take it to his cabin and see the Captain himself. A nice, friendly man!
And later, visiting Tommy Fowler,” I had tea with her before I came home. She is troubled over several things just now and I found myself at a loss to help much”.
At this time, Gran’s friend and Hiltingbury neighbour, Mrs Freestone, is much involved with a terminally ill sister, referred to by Gran as Mrs Moore. Gran writes:
I divided my time between Mrs Freestone’s house and this one and eventually went with her in the ambulance which took her sister to hospital in Winchester. I should like to record here the extreme kindliness and courtesy of the ambulance men and the gentleness and consideration shown by the sweet-faced matron of St Paul’s Hospital, the Ward Sister and the little dark-skinned nurse who so very gentle tried to persuade the semi-conscious patient to drink some warm milk. She is in good hands.
Gran and her neighbour visit several times until Mrs Moore dies on June 5th.
June 9th:
Firstly this morning I went to support Mrs Freestone at the funeral of her sister, and, I must confess, that being a cremation, for which I have the utmost distaste, I dreaded the ordeal, but the service was simple and very beautiful…
And visiting the Harding family on the 10th, Gran discovers more disquiet within another family dear to her:
Tim is unfortunately in a sanatorium at present, so the family was not complete, but, in these enlightened days, he soon should be well again and able to rejoin his family. My two favourite families are not being very fortunate just now, and I hope that Life will soon smile upon them again.
Happy news arrives from the Fowler family on June 12th: “Jill and Dennis have a second son, Simon Nicholas, born on Saturday and all is well”, Gran writes, and there is more similarly positive news next day, Gran noting that Diana will be twenty-one on June 17th:
This afternoon I went to Winchester to buy a twenty-first birthday present for Diana and, from my favourite art shop, chose two delightful little china figures, a chimney-sweep and a little girl with a watering can. I feel sure they will please Diana, who loves beautiful things.
Later, that evening she:
…with Ken Hockridge’s help, collected a large cupboard which Mrs Freestone has given me, and which is admirably suited to contain my stamp and flower albums, with room at the bottom for shoes. A tremendous asset.
Gran helps with preparations for Diana’s birthday party on the 18th, and attends it in the evening. It was a great success, she says:
…and the sun was shining as the guests arrived. John proposed Diana’s health and, in her response, she asked her guests, with much emotion, to drink with her, to “Mummy and Daddy, who have made this evening possible”. What a very sweet person she is!
July 7th:
New British stamps were issued today, commemorating the tercentenary of postage; two values, sixpence and one shilling and three-pence. I secured ten of each early from our local post office and sent first day covers to Australia, Pakistan, Malaya, and to Jane and myself.
Barry is to be Best Man at Mike Harper’s wedding on July 9th, and Gran travels to Mill Hill the day before to look after the boys while their parents attend the ceremony. The day of the wedding sounds typically hectic for the Goater family. Gran describes it:
Barry and Jock set off in sunshine at half-past eight to go to Mike’s flat, where Barry was to change into traditional Wedding dress, morning coat and grey top hat and escort the bridegroom to church. Jock looked very smart in a white silk dress and coatee, figured with Anemones and leaves in scarlet and grey. Julian, Ricky and I did stamps, as promised, and then went shopping, when I bought them one each of the new tercentenary stamps.
This afternoon, after sticking in the new stamps, Julian and Ricky were writing letters to “Greaty”, as they call their Great Grandmother, when Barry’s friend Jeremy, the Astronomer arrived, bringing more stamps for Julian! They receive letters at the Observatory from all over the World and Jeremy is most thoughtful in saving all he can for Julian. Today I was lucky also as several were duplicated.
It was pouring with rain when Barry and Jock returned from the wedding, bringing with them one of the ushers, John Higgins, who was going to Scratch Wood tonight with Barry to look for Heart Moths. As Jeremy was still here, it was an interesting party for most of the evening. Jeremy went home at eight o’clock, and then there was much fun and amusement getting John into ancient clothes of Barry’s for the bugging expedition (to save John’s highly respectable ones!) and Barry getting into his brief running gear! As there was only one bicycle available, Barry’s being punctured, John was to ride, carrying the haversack on his back, and Barry to run to Scratch Wood, all in steady rain, and there put on more clothes for mothing. They were a hilarious sight as they set out!
Jock and I retired to bed together, leaving John and Barry to sort themselves out on the camp bed, which I had occupied last night, and the floor of the sitting room when they returned at midnight.
The wedding had gone very well, and the happy couple leave for South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides, for an entomological honeymoon tomorrow!
Gran is witness to more family eccentricity the following morning:
Barry went to the station with John, and when he returned he told us that a Fox cub was lying dead beside the main road, apparently having been struck by a car during the night. Jock immediately went to fetch it, wanting, she said, the pelt to line some slippers. Apart from a broken hind leg, there seemed little external damage and it was a pretty little animal. Jock was indignant because Barry would not let her put it in the refrigerator until she could take it to be cleaned tomorrow! She said if he could keep his bugs in it, she could keep her Fox!! However, in the end, she wrapped it up in many newspapers and put it in the shed.
On July 17th Gran says she:
…went to the Dedication of the new Hall-Church, St Martin in the Wood, by the Bishop of Winchester. It was an impressive Service and, though modern, the Church is quite pleasing and very simple. A small stained-glass window in the shape of a cross is on the East wall behind the Altar, set in a deep white frame in the midnight blue surrounding it. The ceiling is blush pink, the walls sky blue, with the doors and window-frames turquoise, and the simple furnishings are of stained and unpolished oak, the hassocks deep blue. For today’s ceremony flowers were everywhere. The Service ended at about four o’clock.
Jane is home from Nottingham during the last week of July, arriving by train on Gran’s birthday. They spend much time in each other’s company, visiting the New Forest and gardening, including felling a Birch tree in the garden, sawing it into sections and “attacking” the stump. Gran paints numbers of flowers, including Great Plantain, White Horehound and Marsh Ragwort, and she continues to receive treatment, now from a physiotherapist, Miss Dunnett, for her painful left arm. Following “physio” on the 28th:
…I went up to Bassett to see my cousin Ivan, who was staying with Aunt Em [Greaty’s sister], prior to meeting his wife tomorrow on her return from a cruise on the “Stratheden”. I had not seen him for about seven years, and it was good to meet again. He brought me home afterwards, when slight rain was falling.
And Gran returns to Bassett on the next day, with Jane, where they meet Ivan’s wife, Jill, before, Gran says, the couple returns to Uxbridge.
Much of the next day is spent preparing and packing for Jane’s departure for a holiday in Italy, for which she needs to rise and leave by half-past one on the morning of the 31st. Gran feeds her and sees her off, in a taxi, and, “feeling very tired and a little desolate”, she writes, “I was soon into bed”. She awakes at 8.30, thinking immediately of Jane, “…with a prayer in my heart as she took off on her first flight – to Paris!” And we learn a little more of Jane’s plans, as her Mother thinks of her “little Jane speeding safely across France into Italy in the special train taking her and other members of the Club Méditeranée to Palinuro, where, I hope, she will have a wonderful holiday”.
August 4th brings a note of particular interest to me, as Gran claims, probably the rarest bird to date, on her Hampshire list, though frustratingly, the record is very short of detail:
This afternoon I went to Southampton again for treatment and was delighted to see Firecrests, which were new to me. I was walking past Lime and Holly trees when small bird voices attracted my attention, not quite familiar, though similar to but lower pitched than those of Goldcrests. I saw the birds flitting about in a Lime tree and occasionally hovering momentarily before perching. They were very restless and two flew quite low… A great excitement!
This species would have bred in tiny numbers in the New Forest in those days but they were a very rare bird elsewhere. Gran would be amazed to learn that they are now recorded in the woods near The Ridge, and even in her garden!
Her cousins, the sisters Marjorie Rae and Fairlie Adamson, stay a few days with Aunt Em at this time and Gran visits them, though giving little news except that it is about three years since she last saw Marjorie.
A postcard from Jane at her Italian destination puts Gran’s mind at rest. That part of Southern Italy is glorious, Gran learns; the holiday village clean and well-arranged; admirable, if unconventional living quarters; good food and plenty of it, eaten out of doors; beautiful gardens; lots of sunshine… “It sounds quite wonderful, for Jane is a fastidious little person”, Gran notes.
August 10th, she says, is deplorably wet, “…but there is always something to do. Today – knitting Julian’s first Prep School pullover, the grey of Haberdashers’”. And a card from the Rowsells invites her to visit them in Chipstead in a few days’ time, a phone call from Mrs Rowsell later fixing train times and a meeting place. Gran writes happily, “A real friendship appears to have been forged since I helped her on the quayside at Southampton two years ago”.
Article series
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 1)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 2)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 3)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 4)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 5)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 6)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 7)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 8)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 9)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 10)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 11)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 12)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 13)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 14)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 15)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 16)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 17)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 18)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 19)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 20)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 21)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 22)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 23)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 24)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 25)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 26)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 27)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 28)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 29)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 30)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 31)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 32)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 33)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 34)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 35)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 36)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 37)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 38)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 39)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 40)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 41)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 42)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 43)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 44)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 45)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 46)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 47)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 48)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 49)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 50)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 51)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 52)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 53)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 54)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 55)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 56)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 57)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 58)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 59)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 60)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 61)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 62)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 63)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 64)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 65)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 66)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 67)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 68)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 69)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 70)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 71)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 72)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 73)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 74)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 75)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 76)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 77)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 78)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 79)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 80)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 81)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 82)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 83)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 84)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 85)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 86)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 87)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 88)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 89)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 90)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 91)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 92)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 93)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 94)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 95)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 96)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 97)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 98)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 99)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 100)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 101)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 102)
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