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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 119)

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Gran gives thanks; a change to the Castle Line schedule; The Bartered Bride; a tough time for the Eagle family; two christenings; disapproval of plant collecting; fifty pounds saved; “nippers” on HMS Victory; a new bird on Brownsea Island, and farewell to Winston Churchill.

October 4th 1964: “A quiet afternoon writing more letters”, Gran tells us, and she continues:

…this evening I went to Church, primarily to give thanks for Geoffrey’s safe arrival and Jane Elizabeth’s well-being, but it proved to be a most uplifting and inspiring service, conducted by a visiting clergyman, a Welshman, whose name I unfortunately do not know.  His sermon was based on our interdependence one upon the other and our Brotherhood in God the Father, and he spoke with the utmost sincerity and forthrightness.  I shall long remember this evening.

Jane Louise Elizabeth – Gran gives thanks for her well-being.  Image courtesy of Barry Goater.

Gran attends the AGM of the Southampton Natural History Society on the 6th.  She finds the business tedious, as ever, but, “once disposed of” she says, Mr Ron Eastman:

…showed us two beautiful films, the British Transport Commission’s “Wild Highlands”, and his own, “Way of a River”.  This last was a year’s sequence on and about the Test, in Hampshire and was really wonderful, close-up views of birds, flowers, butterflies, moths and caterpillars being quite enchanting.

The River Test near Kimbridge. Image by James West via Flickr.

The next few days are taken up with work for the Fowlers.  Shipping, Gran says, is disorganised owing to another dockers’ strike.  Diana Fowler has told me that Union Castle sailings to South Africa always took place at the same time and on the same day each week, but on October 8th, Gran writes:

This afternoon we packed for the “Windsor Castle”, which sails tomorrow, a day late – the first time in all my shipping experience that a Castle boat has failed to sail at four o’clock on a Thursday.

The weather too, affects shipping at this time, “Sunset was golden in the west, and it is a still quiet night”, she says on October 10th, and continues:

We seem to have missed the gales that ravaged the Channel Islands last night and delayed the departure of the “France” from France last night.  She should have arrived in Southampton at ten o’clock but did not do so until three o’clock this morning!

At the end of another day delivering flowers at the docks, Gran has tea with Tommy and Bob before:

…going to the Gaumont Theatre… to see a performance by the Sadlers Wells Opera Company of Smetana’s “Bartered Bride”.  It was very colourful and extremely well sung and acted.  I enjoyed it immensely.  I saw several people whom I knew, including Helen Horne, with Mary and Jill Harding, with whom I had a lift home.

Gran has a lovely day in the New Forest on the 17th – the Natural History Society’s annual “Fungus Foray”, led by Dr Manners of Southampton University.  She is interested to walk through Shave Green Enclosure, “through the Long Ride of Douglas Fir trees, which”, she says, “had been planted ninety years ago by the grandfather of one of our members, Mr Knowlton, who was a Forester”.

On the following evening she writes, worried, about Peg’s son John:

Today has been shadowed by disquieting news of John Eagle.  Hazel [Bidmead] phoned me early this afternoon to tell me that his family had been urgently called to his bedside in London, but he did not know them.  Poor Peg, one can only pray for them all.

And six days later, after a bird-filled and enjoyable day at Keyhaven with George Green, Gran returns home, and, reading the local paper, her up-beat mood changes.  She tells us:

I was extremely saddened to read in the “Echo” that John Eagle died yesterday in St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.  It is unbelievable and my heart aches for his family.  He was only fourteen.  There was some cloud at sunset.

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

October 25th:

Hazel Bidmead called to discuss flowers from the Natural History Society for John, and the wording on the cards.  We went for a walk, but it is almost impossible now in Chandler’s Ford to find anywhere not built up.  Still, quite a few trees are left and these were beautiful.

Parts of Chandler’s Ford are still well-off for trees. Image by Martoneofmany via Flickr.

She retires early with a headache but a letter from Jane uplifts her spirits the following morning.  It contains:

…a delightful photograph of our sunshiny Katherine, and the news that all is well with her and Andrew, and Andrew still gaining weight satisfactorily.  Jane seems to be quite herself again and they want me to make Andrew’s Christening cake.

A few days later, at Fowlers, Gran is given the job of writing the cards for John Eagle’s funeral flowers and, she says, “I had difficulty in restraining my tears”.

October 30th is eagerly awaited, for it is the day when Gran will see new grandson Geoffrey for the first time.  She tells us that she travels by road, so presumably with Grampa, reaching Bushey about four o’clock:

…and found Jane Elizabeth and Geoffrey at home.  Julian and Ricky were not yet back from school and Barry was out on a Field Day at Odiham.  Geoffrey is a dear wee babe, just a month old, and very like Grandpa Lansdown, a little dark hair and dark blue-grey eyes.  A neat little person.  There is a pair of budgerigars flying free in the kitchen, the male blue and the female green, and both rescued from the wild.  The blue fell exhausted on the back doorstep of Grant’s Close during a bad spell last winter and the green was found in the school grounds.  Both are very well now and like sitting on shoulders and going all over the house.  A most engaging pair.

The grandparents leave Bushey on November 2nd – Barry and Jane Elizabeth’s first wedding anniversary, Gran notes – after a full weekend of activity with various family members. This includes much table tennis on a removable table-top with net, set up on the dining table and positioned diagonally in the room, with very little space for the players in each corner.  Ping-Pong was a source of much competitive hilarity over the years in Bushey.

Book 107

It appears that Gran did not attend John Eagle’s funeral; she does not mention it, but on November 6th she writes:

After household chores this morning I packed up some lunch and met Peg at Bassett for our first outing since John’s death.  It was a subdued Peg, but I think the time spent in the loveliness of the New Forest did her good, and her high courage made me feel very humble.

Gran is at Bulcote on November 29th, travelling to Nottingham by train, for Andrew’s christening in Holy Trinity Church.  The cake, made by Gran, and iced pale blue and white in St Cross by Mrs Cowper, is much appreciated.

Andy Brenan was christened here.  Image courtesy of Reg Goodrum via Flickr.

Barry spends a weekend with his mother in early December.  Gran loves his presence – it reminds her of earlier days before the family dispersed, and she excitedly writes that he, Jane Elizabeth and the Boys:

…have given me “The Highlands and Islands” in the New Naturalist series, which I have been trying to get for several years.  It has recently been revised and reprinted.  It is really my Christmas present, but I am reading it tonight for a start!”

“To Mother, with fondest love…”  Gran’s Christmas present, 1964.

On December 8th:

An uneventful day until the evening, when I went to the Christmas meeting of St Michael’s Garden Club at Bassett.  The speaker was Mr Burgess and his subject Alpine Flowers, of which he showed some beautiful slides, but he is a collector and goes abroad for this purpose, and this I deplore for it is his kind who causes the depredations among our wild flowers.  His garden is full of plants collected in Italy, France, Spain and the Dolomites.  It was raining when I came home, late, and Winter Moths were at light on the front door.

“Abroad” is a place Gran does not want to go but she has pleasant memories of her one visit there long ago, as she reminds us on December 12th:

This afternoon I went to have tea with Tom and Nellie Veal, and spent a very pleasant evening seeing their slides of holidays in Portugal, Tunis and Italy, all very colourful and interesting.  The Leaning Tower of Pisa and Milan Cathedral brought nostalgic memories of my visits when I was seventeen years old!  We also saw slides of old Southampton as I first knew it.

December 19th is an example of what is becoming a typical day for Gran, when she is not working at Fowlers’.  “A busy morning”, she says:

During which I dashed to the village to buy secateurs for Barry and Jane Elizabeth for Christmas, and to do some necessary shopping.  The afternoon I spent more quietly but nevertheless busily, finishing off Andrew’s two coats, and writing letters.  This evening I read a little and stuck in some stamps, which arrived from Australia this afternoon.

Christmas 1964 is spent at Bushey, so for once it is not Gran’s responsibility to find bed-space, feed, and entertain the family.  Presents are opened around the tree after early Church –  “The only way, I think, to start Christmas”, she says, and, again, there is much table tennis.  Julian and Ricky return with the grandparents to Chandler’s Ford on the 28th and several days of New Forest walking, train-spotting and ship-watching with Gran, follow.  At the year’s end, Gran sums up 1964 for Adrian, including her pleasure in her new grandchildren, and also saying:

Julian and Ricky are here, in bed, but I promised to call them for midnight to see the New Year in.  This I did but was unable to rouse them so I saw and heard the midnight service alone.  Now 1964 is really at an end, and as it moves on to 1965, I pray that there may be peace and goodwill between nations and happiness and prosperity for my dear ones.  In the last eighteen years I have learned to find my happiness entirely in theirs and have nothing to ask for myself.  Neither have I a New Year’s resolution, I think, though I achieved my last year’s one of saving fifty pounds…

1965

Gran takes the two Boys to Portsmouth, to visit H.M.S. Victory on the first day of the year.  Four pages of interesting information gleaned on the guided tour follow, including this little snippet:

The Anchor Cable and the “Messenger”, the endless cable, were side by side and were nipped together to bring in the anchor… Boys were employed to do this nipping, and this is the origin of the word ”nipper” as applied to boys.

I well remember our trip to HMS Victory – the lack of headroom and the creation of wooden pipes hollowed out with red-hot canon balls. Image by Hugh Llewelyn via Flickr.

Gran returns to Bushey on January 2nd, Ricky’s 10th birthday, and the family makes its way to Mill Hill on the 3rd for Geoffrey’s christening.  I remember the church, of an interesting design, being built just a few years earlier, and I am not surprised by Gran’s attitude to it.  This is what she says:

The Service was at the very modern Free Church of Mill Hill East. So very different from our ancient little Compton, and I had some misgivings, but it was very sincere and reverent, and the Christening Ceremony only a little simpler than ours.

Gran will have been delighted that one of Geoff’s Godparents is Dr Mike Harper, with whom she spent time in the Drumochter Hills during her first visit to Scotland.  His wife, Sheila, is Godmother but owing to all three Harper children suffering from “feverish colds”, she does not attend the Christening.  Gran returns to Chandler’s Ford later that day – the Bakerloo Line from Stanmore, and train from Waterloo – and she arrives home around nine o’clock, “cold and glad to get to bed”.

January 14th:

I went to Southampton to help at Fowlers’, the morning being spent packing flowers for the “Edinburgh Castle” and delivering on board.  During this latter occupation I saw Field Marshal Lord Montgomery who was sailing today, talking to the Captain at the head of the gangway, and John Johnstone, of B.B.C. Television, who, I presume, was going aboard to interview the Field Marshal.

The Hide at Brownsea Island.  No Little Egrets there in Gran’s day! Image by Trevor Owen via Flickr.

Brownsea Island is a new destination for Gran, on a B.E.N.A. outing on January 24th.  The group is met by a guide from the Dorset Naturalists’ Trust, who leads them to a hide along a bamboo-screened walk, and involving two ladders to the top of the structure.  “Among the Oystercatchers”, records Gran:

…was a bird that thrilled us all, though it persistently slept and never showed itself fully.  This was a visiting Avocet, a bird I have long wanted to see and which, the guide told us, had been on Brownsea for two or three days.

Like this juvenile, Gran’s Avocet didn’t show her its characteristically shaped bill. Image by Squeezyboy via Flickr.

It is a long day in the field, “…a most satisfying time on Brownsea”, she writes, and:

…it was dark throughout the journey home.  When I alighted at Lakewood Road it had cleared and stars were shining.  Owls were calling among the trees.  I walked down Lakewood Road in darkness as the lights suddenly went out but the way is familiar to me.  I reached home about six o’clock, to hear on the “news” that Sir Winston Churchill had died this morning.  A fine man.  “Songs of Praise” on Television this evening with special prayers, came from Harrow, his old school, and was a beautiful and moving tribute.  The boys’ voices and the English Master’s reading from Sir Winston’s biography were most pleasing things to hear.

Wise words from Winston Churchill.  Image by Jimmy Cardosi via Flickr.

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