Chandler's Ford Today

You are here: Home / Community / Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 108)

Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 108)

By 2 Comments

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.

Loch Assynt – a postcard from Inchnadamph.

“An extra excitement today”, she writes on the following day, concerning her work at Fowlers’ florists, “was the fact that we had an order for Baccarat Roses for the Queen, who was coming to Southampton this afternoon to join the Royal Yacht, Britannia, and sail to Ireland”.  She adds:

I came home on the 3.15 bus this afternoon.  The sun was just breaking through and I saw a newly-emerged Garden Tiger moth close to a wall in St Mary’s Road as I walked up to the bus stop.  It seemed incredible to me that among the throng of Saturday shoppers, not one other person saw the moth whilst I was in the vicinity.

Garden Tiger – quite hard to miss when on a wall. Image by Alastair Rae via Flickr.

When I reached home I found a letter from Pauline Muirhead enclosing an article [by Ceres Esplan who writes under the name of Alison Ross] from the “Sussex Gazette”, entitled, “Swanbourne Lake re-visited”, and it describes our visit there when I stayed in Arundel.

Although not mentioning Gran by name, Sussex’s visiting botanist from Hampshire, and her intention to paint all the flowers she finds, is mentioned, and Gran has the newspaper cutting between the pages of her journal.

Joan Adelaide Goater - her journal about Chandler's Ford.

Barry has been on a course at R.A.F. Kinloss during the month, sending his Mother mouth-watering news of moths and plants he has found.  Gran, amazed, recounts the following from John Gunningham, dining with her soon after his return from the north:

At Aviemore, on Friday night as he was getting a hurried cup of tea on the platform before re-boarding the train from Inverness, he noticed some Royal Air Force cadets with one or two officers in charge, and was amazed to see that one of the officers was Barry!  They had a chat before returning to their respective compartments.

The next day is Barry’s thirty-first birthday, and Gran records it with pride, but her closing note that day is one of unhappiness:

I was saddened to hear on the news tonight that Heddle Nash, the operatic tenor, died of pneumonia today.  It is tragic that his truly glorious and beautiful voice is stilled forever, but, thanks to the blessing of recording, his songs will live on.

One of Gran’s favourite voices, sadly departed. Image from iclassical Com via Flickr.

Cousin Ivan and his wife, Jill, sail from Southampton on a cruise on the Strathmore on August 19th.  Gran visits them at Aunt Em’s in Bassett the day before, and Bob Fowler, giving her another chance to see them, on board before they leave, prepares “a little bowl for them, with Carol and Garnet Roses, and it looked very pretty and was quite enough for a cabin.  Ivan and Jill were very pleased, which was the main point”.

Joan and Norris’s cousin, Ivan Adamson, in the early 1960s. Image courtesy of Gray Elkington.

 

…and his wife, Jill, some twenty years earlier.  Image courtesy of Gray Elkington.

She receives a surprising and unwelcome reminder of passing time later in the month writing ruefully:

This evening I went to a farewell party given by friends who are leaving for Africa on Thursday and, meeting others whom I have not seen for many years, I was slightly shattered to find them mostly rather portly, white- or grey-haired men and women!  One forgets the passage of time until confronted with a situation such as this.

A fete is held in the grounds of Cranbury Park on August 26th, and Gran visits, she says, “primarily to take the opportunity of going into the house, which was open to the public and also to wander round the lovely grounds again”.  She describes something of the interiors: “the wonderful ceilings are a feature, and are the work of Sir George Dance, 1780 – 1782”; the gilding throughout the Drawing Room; pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Opie, George Romney and others; a fire screen in the Library worked by Charlotte Yonge, and the Tent Room, with its “original silk hangings still in excellent condition, put up in 1790 or 1830 and not touched since. The whole enchanted me”, writes Gran.

Cranbury Park Mansion House.  Gran was enchanted by the interiors. Image by Anguskirk via Flickr.

The next day though, Gran is emotional.  She fails to join a B.E.N.A. outing because of unhelpful bus times, but there is clearly something else upsetting her.  She writes:

This afternoon I painted the Bristly Ox-tongue, finishing it after tea. It did not come easily today, for I felt unhappy and near tears, and, unlike my usual self, I found it difficult to concentrate and, at one time, despaired of ever getting the flower to look right.  It would have been my first failure…

She gets it right in the end, and the following few days see her spirits rise a little. She purchases sets of new stamps and first day covers commemorating the Centenary of Post Office Savings, which she keeps for herself and Jane, as well as sending to her friends, Gilbert Whitley in Sydney and Phyllis Thorpe in Pakistan.  She does, however, record that she thinks the stamp designs could have been much nicer.

Stamps celebrating the Centenary of the Post Office Savings Bank.  Gran thought they could have been much nicer.  I quite like them.

Andrew Young and Pauline Muirhead make a return visit to the New Forest on the 29th, with Gran and also the same popular driver as before, hired in Lyndhurst. They have a wonderful day finding nice plants, and Gran ends her notes: “I was home by a quarter past six, after calling in at Smith’s Bookshop for my long-awaited book, the tribute to Andrew Young by several of his admirers and fellow poets”.

She is further uplifted by a letter, which arrives on September 2nd:

…a quite unbelievable letter  from Pauline Muirhead – a letter which very clearly showed what generous hearted and kindly folk dwell in this dear old world if only one is lucky enough to meet them… she has exceeded all imagination now by asking me to go, as her guest, to Cornwall or Scotland with her next Summer.  Of course, Scotland draws me irresistibly but dare I hope for such joy?  Whatever happens, I shall remember always this generous and wonderful offer.

In spite of these highlights, the source of Gran’s underlying tearful despair and apprehension is still present, and we now discover that it stems from her deep concern, so understandable in a parent, for her son’s welfare.  Barry arrives at The Ridge on the morning of September 6th, “exhausted and dreadfully unhappy”.  It is only at the end of the year, in her annual summing-up for Adrian, that Gran can bring herself to write of her profound anxiety over the state of Barry’s marriage, but this is clearly the cause of the family angst at this time.  Daughter Jane too, sheds tears and is terribly upset by the situation and Gran ends her journal entry on September 6th with, “I have learned to accept and live with my own misery but I can’t see how I can bear theirs.  I have lost God again”.

Mother and son search for solace, both together and alone, over the next few days and weeks, the healing powers of the natural world and places familiar and wild – the Forest and the River, Farley Mount  and Kiln Lane, Dibden Bay and Lymington marshes (the former now largely drained, Gran regretfully states) – all salving their bruised emotions, at least for a while.  “Sunset was clear and glowing”, Gran writes to Adrian on the evening of the 9th, “I wrote for some time dear, but was too sick at heart to make much progress”.  And a day or two later, alone after Barry returns to Mill Hill, she adds, “I feel utterly lost and helpless again and so powerless to help…”

The oh so familiar River Itchin – balm to the soul. Image by Andy Morffew via Flickr.

The state of Hiltingbury Lake, so familiar to her as a local unspoiled backdrop to her life for nearly forty years, does little to raise her listless and unsettled spirits.  “I walked home through Coronation Walk and past the Lake”, she says.  “Unfortunately this is becoming as all so-called recreation grounds and is polluted by litter, even in the water and round the seats.  It is revolting in the extreme.”

On the marshes at Lymington, with Peg Eagle on September 19th, Gran writes in a more uplifted frame of mind, describing her famous finding of a rare migrant moth:

…I was thrilled to see a Speckled Footman (I am sure it was one, though I have only seen this moth illustrated) flying over Orache, and I caught it for Barry, as I do not think he has a specimen in his collection.

And early the next day the story continues:

I had just had a cup of tea and was about to start my breakfast, when the Hockridge children came in to say I was wanted on the phone.   It was Barry, bless him, and it was a great relief to me to hear some of his old enthusiasm in his voice.  He had just received my postcard about the Speckled Footman and was full of excitement.  I was right with my identification and Barry had rung up to ask me to post it to him at once, giving me instructions as to the best way to pack it… I was overjoyed to have been able to do even this little thing for him, and, in my anxiety to get the moth packed up and posted straight away, I forgot altogether to have any breakfast after all!

Flower painting, which in her despondency of late, Gran has found difficult, comes more easily to her after the relief of this phone call.  Somewhat cheered, she records that she “painted the Greater Sea-spurrey found at Lymington yesterday, and found myself able to concentrate much better.  It made a dainty picture”.

On September 22nd, in an excited letter from Dad, we learn the proper English name of this moth, Gran recording that:

Of the Crimson Speckled Footman which I sent him he writes, “This is a rarity of the first order and I had not even left a space for it in my collection”.  How glad I am that I was lucky enough to find it for him!  It was perfect, and arrived “in fine condition”.

“How glad am I that I was lucky enough to find it for him” – Image by Gailhampshire via Flickr.

Having had what she calls a day of singular stupidity on October 4th, mainly characterised by forgetfulness at Fowlers’, Gran says:

To cap it all I allowed myself to be persuaded to play Badminton (the first time for about thirty-two years!) this evening, quite forgetting that it was the Annual General Meeting and Members’ Night at Southampton Natural History Society… Actually I surprised myself enormously at Badminton and played quite well.  I think it will soon come right back, and I enjoyed it very much.

We learn on the following day that she has been knitting vests for Nigerian babies: a total of twenty-three out of a total of seventy, which were exhibited in Compton at the A.G.M. of the Church Missionary Society, “…where a film of Nigeria was shown, and the [collection] boxes opened, (Jane’s contained 13s 7½d, making her total £39. 1s. 7½d)…”

October 9th is a dull day with little sunshine and Gran can find in it nothing uplifting except for the singing of a Mistle Thrush.  She views the prospect of Winter with some dismay, saying:

I do not really feel well and seem to lack any incentive to make an effort to do anything much.  Usually I find life full of interest even if it has its sorrows but at present… Perhaps it is just the end of my painting season but I know that really the cause goes deeper than that.

A letter from Barry arrives next day, telling Gran:

…that things are settling down at the new school at Elstree after an exhausting week and Julian is enjoying everything very much and seems to be coping well in spite of the fact that he has to leave home at 7.30 each morning.

Nine-year old Julian is to spend the few days of October half term at The Ridge – “It will be a delight” says Gran, and he travels down by himself on the 23rd.  “I went to Winchester this morning”, she writes on that day:

…to meet Julian off the 9.30 train from Waterloo and was delighted to see  him on time at eleven o’clock.  He was excited and had not minded travelling alone in the least.  The ticket collector had kept an eye on him and a lady in the carriage chatted to him all the way.  He had his stamp album, recorder, paint-box, roller-skates and several books with him.  Otherwise he “travelled light”…

Probably meaning he forgot his pyjamas!  They spend the afternoon touring Southampton: Fowlers’ shop to check on sailings for the week, the Tudor House and Bargate for their historical interest, and the aviary in the Park.  “I was quite glad to get home to tea and to ‘rest’”, says Gran, though her journal entries are put on hold while she writes up a full account of the day for Julian’s own diary.

Southampton’s Bargate. Image by Matt via Flickr.

Grandmother and grandson, undaunted by the day’s wet weather, take a packed lunch to Hythe Pier on October 24th, from where they can watch for ships sailing from Southampton.  Julian lists all the vessels he can see in dock and they watch the Hanseatic sail at noon, the America at one o’clock and the John Biscoe at three.

A tired but happy little boy, bathed and relaxed, went to bed at 7.30, leaving me to write the story round his notes for him to copy tomorrow, and to write up my own afterwards.  So now our journal is up-to-date once more, and I can lay aside my pen.

So Gran concludes one day, only to face another filled with amusement for the boy, when they take a bus to Romsey to watch the Salmon leaping at Sadler’s Mill.  It is another wet day but a very successful one.  During their two hours there they count eight hundred and forty-seven attempts by fish to negotiate the torrent over the weir.  Gran enjoys Julian’s pleasure, summing up the experience thus:

We saw some remarkable leaps and some very large Salmon, some a beautiful colour in the sunshine.  Julian was thrilled and I must say that today’s exhibition far exceeded anything I had seen here before.

Article series

^

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.


Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 52) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 111) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 116) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 126) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 133)
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. That Crimson Speckled Footman is a remarkable moth. I have never seen one or anyone like it.
    Have you any record of how many species of plant and animal your Gran described in her journals?

    Reply

  2. Finding that moth was an absolute highlight of Gran’s life, Mike. I don’t think Dad ever found one himself. As for the number of plants and animals recorded by Gran, I have no idea. What a task it would be to go through all her diaries (236 rather than the 150 that I originally thought, my having discovered a load of missing ones in the attic of The Ridge). Of course, in my edit, I mention many fewer than she lists.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.