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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 124)

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No Church on Christmas Day; fears for 1967; a wretched rabbit; a new washing machine; unaccustomed boredom; thank goodness for Mrs Hillier; an adorable bundle; a party in Bushey; a new bicycle; a driving test passed; a long session of tiddlywinks, and an anniversary.

It is Christmas Eve, 1966.  The Brenan family arrives at The Ridge for the festivities and, Julian and I, the two older grandchildren, Gran writes, “…came, bringing their little half-sister, Fiona, and Julian took them, Katherine and Fiona, to the Lake before lunch”.

Christmas Day at The Ridge passes as usual, with presents passed out round the tree after breakfast, preparation and enjoyment of the dinner (no doubt with the traditional Woodpecker cider), and enjoyment of the grandchildren’s antics.  Tradition, though, is broken uncomfortably for the first time since Gran began her journal, twenty years earlier, Gran writing of the day: “…I was sorry not to be able to start it by going to Church.  With an invalid and the family to look after I just could not get away”.

A Christmas Day tradition at The Ridge – and just about the only alcohol ever consumed there.

Gran does not give details of presents received except on December 30th, when she writes:

This afternoon I started to read my “Shell Book of Birds”, by James Fisher, which Finuala Murphy sent me from Ireland for Christmas.  It is most interesting as, like our New Forest lectures, it starts with prehistoric times.

The Shell Bird Book – with Slimbridge, one of Gran’s favourite places, and its wintering White-fronted Geese on the cover.

She sums up 1966 on the last day of the year, as, “disappointing and frustrating, but not disastrous… the brightest events being those connected with the children and grandchildren”.  And she adds:

…there was the acute disappointment over my holiday in Scotland with Brother, countered in some measure by several enjoyable outings with him in the New Forest… Now I am almost tied to the house as a result of Mother’s fall and I shall miss the outdoors in 1967 with all the sequence of nature… I painted only three new flowers for my collection, including the apricot form of the white scented violet Viola odorata and the Blue Pimpernel… My letters from Mum Turvey have become very infrequent and I fear that she is not at all well, and my chances of seeing her are almost nil now.

And within the news of the day, she writes:

Brother came in this morning and reported a Great Grey Shrike along the Lyndhurst – Beaulieu Road, not far from Beaulieu Road Station, where it has been seen in previous years.

There was sunshine during the afternoon but I slept for an hour, being unable to go out.  It seems an awful waste of time but I am so tired.

1967

January 2nd:

Ricky came in this morning with Julian and Fiona and they played on the swing in the garden until they felt cold and came indoors.

An escaped tame Rabbit has taken up its abode under our playhouse the last few days and it comes out soon after four o’clock each afternoon to feed upon such choice morsels as my Carnation cuttings and Mrs Carmichael’s Parsley.  It fraternizes with Anne Hockridge’s rabbits but has so far defied all efforts to capture it.  The owners arrived this afternoon with carrots, sprouts and cabbage leaves, but when approached it bolted under the playhouse again.  They are calling in the RSPCA tomorrow…

Gran dashes into Southampton next morning, and I am reminded that there was a piano, unplayed, at The Ridge during my childhood.  Gran went, she says:

…to arrange for the transport of the piano to Jane in Nottingham and to order Derek Hudson’s book on Arthur Rackham.  I was rather shattered to hear that this was published in 1960 and may be out of print.  I shall be bitterly disappointed if I cannot get it.  On Hut Hill I saw Hazel catkins fully developed.

“The RSPCA”, she writes on the 4th:

…have said they cannot deal with the escaped Rabbit and the wretched thing is still under our playhouse by day and devastating all the nearby gardens every night.  I wish somebody or something would catch it.

However, the “wretched thing” is not seen again by Gran, and on the 7th, she is relieved to hear that it has been caught.

Brother, whose sixty-fifth birthday was on January 9th, sits in with Mother on the 14th while Gran and Mary Harding attend a dancing display at the Guildhall, Southampton:

…it was given by the students and pupils of the Elfin School of Dancing, which Jane attended when she was small.  It was extremely well done and very colourful… The show was given in aid of the Muscular Dystrophy Centre and I hope it was the success financially that it deserved.

In a rare step towards modernization, a new labour-saving device appears at The Ridge, Gran enthusing that, “Though still bothered with lumbago, I appreciated the new washing-machine which came on Friday, especially the spin-dryer!”

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

In an out of character moment, which is repeated several times as 1967 progresses, and one that she tells us she is “ashamed of”, Gran complains of being bored on January 19th, saying, “How I miss my outings into the countryside, even short distances… I hope it may not always be like this”.  Nevertheless, she does manage to get out sometimes, with various friends, especially Mrs Hillier, “sitting in for Mother” and on the very next day, though not in the countryside, she writes:

Brother dropped me at Portswood where I was giving a talk on “Unusual Wild Flowers in Hampshire”, to the Young Mothers’ Club.  I took about forty of my paintings to illustrate the talk and found my audience mainly very interested… I had some difficulty making myself heard above the hubbub at times because all the mothers had small children with them…

And a few days after this, with Brother “sitting in” for her, she walks along the River Itchen with John Guningham, calling it “a real treat” and noting all she sees and hears: Siskins, Redwings, Fieldfares, courting Blue Tits, a Little Grebe, Scented Butterbur in flower, and Dogwood, “already brilliantly red with rising sap”.

“Brilliantly red with rising sap”.  Image by Peter Birch via Flickr.

Working for Fowlers and delivering flowers to ships becomes a thing of the past and Gran misses the human company.  Tommy Fowler visits her late in the month.  “She had tea with us”, writes Gran, and:

This evening Frank and Mary Harding came and we had quite a little party, which I much enjoyed.  I find the mental stagnation of unadulterated housework so frustrating and welcome the chance to talk of other things.

January 29th is a great day in the Goater household at Bushey, and Gran records it thus: “An uneventful day and no Brother to relieve me – he had taken his car to Bushey for Barry and was spending the weekend there”.  So, our full reliance on Shanks’ Pony, bicycles and public transport comes to an end at Reddings Avenue – but still we do not have a television!

Cub scouts and Brownies occasionally come to Gran to be tested for various badges, and on the last day of January, Gran after, “…a quiet afternoon reading, says:

…this evening I had eleven Cubs here for their Collectors’ and Artists’ Badges.  There were four Artists.  I passed all but one who had not brought his collection with him.  He was close to tears so I told him that his leader could drop it in and I would look at it then.  I could not pass him without seeing it.

Gran and Norris are out together at a talk at the Natural History Society on the evening of February 7th.  The talk, by Dr P. J. Hunt, is entitled “A Botanist in the Solomon Isles”.  and Gran is interested to make two new acquaintances there:

Dr Hunt succeeded Mr V.S. Summerhayes as the orchid specialist at Kew, and I was introduced to him before the meeting began… I was also introduced to a new member, the Rev. David Agassiz, who is an entomologist and has met Barry at the South London Entomological Society.

February 24th brings a little rodent-based excitement:

Jean came in to say that there was a mouse in the ponies’ bran, sitting on the top and so tame that she could have picked it up if she had not been afraid to do so.  I went into the garage with her and sure enough there was the mouse, still there.  I went straight to the sack and picked it up – an adorable fat bundle of soft fur – and took it outside and let it go.  It was a Long-tailed Field-mouse…I shall long remember the feel of its dear little body in my hand.

Book 116

Gran’s neighbours, the Hockridges, have reasons to go to Watford and London on March 21st, and they offer to take Gran with them, dropping her off at Bushey to see Barry, Jane Elizabeth and the grandchildren there, and picking her up later that evening.  She has a good time, enjoying the company of the whole family in the garden, while Barry mows grass and removes some old fence posts, plays the inevitable table tennis, and marvels at little Geoffrey’s bird identification skills, saying, “He has a bird book now and can tell the names of many of them”.

I remember – Geoff’s ability to identify almost any European bird from a picture was astounding at his young age.  He grew, over the years, into a madly keen birder and today has seen more species in this country than almost anybody else.

“Later”, Gran recounts:

Jane Elizabeth and I prepared savouries for a party this evening, to which were invited the Haberdashers’ Cross Country team and three masters and their wives.  We were twenty-one in all and the Boys were so jolly and their manners a joy to behold.

The daily natural history minutiae of the awakening Spring are recorded, as usual, such as, on March 23rd, the disappointing absence of Chiffchaffs singing in the Pinewood, but the presence of singing Wrens, a screeching Jay, and half a dozen Moorhens on the Lake.  And in the garden:

There was an egg in the Hedge Accentor’s nest”, she says, “and a Song Thrush is building in the little Yew tree outside the dining-room window… I also found a baby Slow-worm, bright orange in colour and about two inches long”.

Hedge Accentors, usually known as Dunnocks, lay beautiful eggs.  Image from the Mary Gillham Archive Project via Flickr.

She has a new bicycle too, and tests it on the evening of the 25th:

I tried out my new bicycle, the Small Raleigh, which I have bought from Brother, who found it too small for him.  It is easy to manage and very comfortable to ride.  I have given my other one to Kathleen Griffin, next door.

Mrs Freestone, another long-standing near-neighbour in Hiltingbury Road, to whom Gran has been a very loyal friend, often helping and running errands for her, has moved, and Gran visits her at the end of March:

…near Winchester, where she is staying at Crawley Court Nursing Home.  Crawley Court was once a Manor House, and the Home is now run by nuns.  It is a lovely place, in most beautiful grounds, today ablaze with Daffodils, and Mrs Freestone has a nice large, warm room with an outlook over the grounds and meadows.

On March 29th:

A letter from Barry told us that he passed his driving test yesterday and he is bringing Ricky to stay with us for a few days on Saturday.  Julian is away at RAF camp and the Lansdown grandparents are going to have Geoffrey and Robert while Barry and Jane Elizabeth have a few days camping together.

The camping is a bit of a failure, a cold wind making it uncomfortable on Portland, the original destination, and heavy rain spoiling things at Beaulieu Road, to where Barry and Jane Elizabeth retreated.  Gran writes on April 2nd that, “…a draggled Barry and Jane Elizabeth arrived at teatime”.  They stay the night at The Ridge and leave for Bushey next morning.  I’m left with Gran, spending time with her walking along the River Itchen, and, in the evenings, quietly watching television.  We do not have much conversation, but the days will soon come when my burgeoning interest in birds and bird-watching give us plenty to talk about together.

Julian joins us after his RAF camp near Bath, and we spend the rest of the school holiday with our mother at 99 Kingsway, but dropping in to The Ridge frequently to see Gran.  Julian borrows her bike and cycles to Hamble, plane-spotting, and Gran, concerned for both bike and grandson, writes at the end of the day, “…I must confess that I was glad to see them both safely home again!”

She records on the following day, April 9th, “Julian and Ricky came in this evening and we had a long session of tiddlywinks”.  We knew how to have fun in those days!

A highly competitive game of skill.  Image by Katy Tresedder via Flickr.

We return to Bushey two days later, Gran recording in her journal that she would miss us popping in – “They are two particularly nice lads”, she says.  Gran, a lovely character in our eyes, and always kind, never found anything unpleasant to say about either of us.

On April 11th, we learn, among other things, that Diana Fowler, not mentioned by Gran for some time, has been on a long journey.  Gran begins by describing an event:

This evening, Brother sitting in for me, I went to the tenth anniversary party of St Michael’s Garden Club at Bassett.  Brother had brought Aunt Em up from Lyndhurst (she is the oldest member), and she is staying the night with a friend.  Mrs Audrey Brown had made the birthday cakes, iced them and, with a spray of golden Cymbidium Orchids and golden ribbon, they looked beautiful.

The party was most enjoyable and Diana Fowler gave an illustrated talk on her journey home across Asia and Europe by bus… Aunt Em thoroughly enjoyed herself and seemed none the worse for the excitement.

A cutting from the Southern Evening Echo, dated April 12th, is kept between the pages of the journal, and it gives more details of the event with a photograph – a rare one – of Aunt Em.

It was always faintly amusing to the Goater family that Bob Fowler, Diana’s father, insisted on calling her by a name which was not hers – “Thelma”! It appears that it was he who primed the newspaper on this occasion.
It was always faintly amusing to the Goater family that Bob Fowler, Diana’s father, insisted on calling her by a name which was not hers – “Thelma”! It appears that it was he who primed the newspaper on this occasion.

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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 87) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 116) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 140) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 149) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 160)
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Comments

  1. I have only found this site and your wonderful transcriptions, what an achievement. I was brought up at 4 Hiltingbury Road and went to Sherborne House, followed by Winchester County High 1956-68. You have brought back so many memories, just amazing, thank you.
    I now live in Spain but think longingly of The Lake, Farley Mount, The Itchen at Brambridge, Otterbourne reservoir..
    and remember an idyllic childhood.

    Reply

    • What a lovely comment! Very many thanks indeed. I shall look at No 4 next time I’m walking down Hiltingbury Road and image your idyllic childhood there.

      Reply

  2. Thank you for replying, your beautiful writings have been a perfect reason to sit and enjoy the current stay home restrictions. I would just like to add that my father was a Purser with Cunard and worked on all of the ships mentioned so I am sure he would have met your Grandmother many times. His name was John Morton and his favourite was Queen Mary. I followed in his steps and worked in the Merchant Navy for 12 years, it was all I ever wanted to do and I am proud to have achieved my youthful dream. I have a memory of going to Sunday School, and I sure it was at the Hockridges, it was in a large house close to The Ridge, would I be correct?

    Reply

    • Yes Pam, there were definitely activities associated with the Methodist Church at the Hockridges, right next door to The Ridge. It was a lovely house, now demolished (to my Dad’s despair) and relatively ugly flats now occupy that site. Reading a little ahead, it seems that the Hockridges are about to move away – to Canada. Gran will be upset; they were very good neighbours to her. How interesting about your Father – I agree, he and Gran would surely have met. Another lovely comment – many thanks.

      Reply

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