Ballet for the Boys; a full house; “a nasty shock”; the serene Evonne Goolagong; a bus-driver’s kindness; new neighbours; Brother’s rehabilitation, and difficult times helped by friends.
It is April 1971, Easter-time, and Jane Elizabeth, Geoffrey and Robin are staying at The Ridge while Barry visits Scotland. On the 9th, another Good Friday when Gran is unable to find time to attend Church at Compton, she writes that she:
…took them for a walk, first through the Pinewood and past the pathetic lake, and then up Lakewood Road where we watched two Grey Squirrels gambolling about together. We turned into Hocombe Road and came home through the roads which run through what used to be the woods. Certainly the blossom in the gardens at present compensates a little but nothing can really recompense naturalists for the loss of the wonderful natural habitats we once had.
And they are out again on the afternoon of the following day, exposing the boys to a bit of culture! They go to Southampton, she says:
…to see their first ballet. On the way in we saw two Brimstones. The ballet was ideal for children and our little boys were enraptured. The Royal Ballet presented “La Fille mal gardee”, both beautiful and humorous and the sight of a real Shetland pony drawing a little trap to carry the mother and daughter to the picnic in the harvest field just made it for them. The boys were intrigued, too, when, during the storm, the umbrella of the rejected suitor blew inside out and he was carried up into the air! It was over at five o’clock, but, as it coincided with the end of a football match at The Dell, it took our bus over an hour to get us to Hiltingbury Road. We found Brother here when we arrived, and then Ricky came.
Barry arrives from a successful trip to Scotland that evening, and they are all together for Easter Day, which starts nicely for Gran, even though, again, she fails to make it to Church as she always used to. “I was just thinking about getting up this morning”, she says, “when Barry appeared, asking if he could make tea as he and Jane Elizabeth were very thirsty, and I enjoyed the rare indulgence of having a cup brought to me in bed!” Later, before the family departs for Bushey, Gran and Barry enjoy a walk together along the familiar Itchen path between Brambridge and Allbrook.
Book 135
Another missing book of the journal brings us to late June 1971 and two busy days, with a house-full of visitors. The Brenan family arrives on the evening of the 19th, to see the Brewster family, due to arrive from Canada on the following day. Barry also turns up, having arranged a “bug-hunting” night with his friend David Agassiz, and he sleeps in his bag on the dining room floor. Norris, also present, is given a bed by Jean Hockridge, “bless her”, next door. On the following day:
Jill, Dennis and family [Mark, Simon and Kim], with Diana, arrived about eleven o’clock… After coffee and biscuits the two young families went to the Pinewood to get rid of some energy and Brother and Diana helped me to set out the picnic repast in our dining room, as drizzly rain and very wet grass made an outdoor picnic impracticable. Tommy had sent a splendid assortment of goodies and the laden table looked wonderful.
It was a gorgeous and happy party, all the children sitting on cushions on the floor or on low chairs, and the rest, in between serving and looking after each other, sitting on chairs or floor also. It was hilariously joyful, fourteen of us, and the food disappeared rapidly, though Tommy and I had over-estimated what would be enough!
It had been a lovely reunion for Jill and Jane, who had never seen each other’s children.
Everybody departs that evening, leaving Gran “tired but well satisfied”, and probably a bit lonely.
It is apparent that Gran wrote an article (no doubt at the request of Gilbert Whitley) for the Australian Zoologist about Selborne and Gilbert White, related to the parson’s recent bicentenary celebrations. She writes on the evening of the 24th:
I copied out the Noar Hill part of my Selborne article, which was deleted in the “Australian Zoologist”, for two people who had wanted it, and sent off another copy of the article, which had been requested.
The morning of June 26th brings what Gran relates as “a nasty shock”, which will bring a considerable period of worry for her:
…a phone call to Mrs Griffin told me that dear old Brother had a [suspected] heart attack early this morning, 5.45, and was in the Southampton General Hospital. I phoned at once and was told that he was comfortable and I could see him this afternoon.
Of course I went and found him rather tired and naturally depressed that this should have happened just now when things seemed so bright for us. The specialist had told him that he would be able to drive the car again, so I can only pray that this will be so and that he may be able to enjoy his beloved New Forest for a long time to come.
Televised tennis at Wimbledon provides a welcome diversion for Gran at this time and amongst other match reports in her journal she writes:
I watched more Wimbledon tennis, the semi-finals of the Women’s Singles. Here was another upset and a resounding victory for the nineteen-year old Aborigine, Evonne Goolagong, over the three times Champion and last year’s runner-up, Billie-Jean King. Evonne won 6-4 6-4, and a more relaxed, charming little player I have never seen, her face always serene and a smile even when she missed her first match point. And the appreciative crowd gave the same kind of encouragement and applause that they gave Rosewall yesterday. How I would love to see Evonne Goolagong and Ken Rosewall this year’s Champions!
Rosewall is beaten next day, Gran records with regret, losing to John Newcombe. That day, too, there is more to regret; we learn that her neighbours, the Hockridges are moving away – permanently this time:
A sad day – the Hockridges have finally moved out of next door, and, when I took in a tray of tea I found a tearful Jean sitting with Mrs Hillier, on the bottom stair in an empty house. Very depressing in an already depressing week, but I shall be more cheerful again when dear old Brother is out and about again.
The result of the Ladies’ Final at Wimbledon pleases her. It is “…between the effervescent and always serene Evonne Goolagong and the dour and miserable-looking Margaret Court and it was a triumph for the popular and sporting Evonne. Everyone was delighted…”, she writes.
She is given a lift to Bassett that evening, and she:
…then walked the once familiar but now very much altered way to the hospital. Once there was only one house, owned by a Frenchwoman, Madame Petrie, who kept goats – now there are housing estates on both sides of the road except where lies Hollybrook Cemetery.
The news at the hospital is not particularly good. “I was disturbed”, she writes directly to her long-departed Adrian:
…at finding Brother still extremely tired and depressed and even more so when the Sister-in-charge told me that he did have a heart attack last Saturday… I came home more unhappy than I have been since you died twenty-four years ago, dear, and nobody realizes that it is only Brother who has made my life tolerable during the last three or more years, and without his help I cannot go to see Barry and Jane and their families…
I came home by three buses – it is not an easy journey– and as I walked towards the stop for the Winchester one I saw it coming round the roundabout. I started to run, but knew I would never reach it, but the kindly, charitable driver stopped for me about a hundred yards before the stop and I climbed thankfully aboard.
A little kindness, much appreciated at a difficult time.
July 3rd:
Our new neighbours moved in yesterday and the two little girls were talking to me this morning. They, the Kingstons, are a nice family – but there will never be another like the Hockridges. Jean came to say “Goodbye” early this afternoon and the tears, so close to the surface today, were hard to hold back. Tennis, on television, helped later…
In the years to come, Ruth Kingston will become a great friend and confidant for Gran and the place that the Kingston family held in her heart surely grew to equal that of the Hockridges.
Gran finds Norris “…looking and feeling better and far less depressed” on July 4th, and typically, she then admits, “I feel ashamed now for my downcast spirits of the last few days and pray that my renewed hope is not to be misplaced”. And on the 9th, as Gran prepares to visit Brother again, we read of an early kindness from the new neighbours:
…Ruth Kingston asked me if I was going, and, as I was having a lift to the hospital, she said she and her husband would bring me home…. The Kingstons met me as promised and I was home an hour earlier than I should have been had I come by bus.
Gran’s almost daily visits to the hospital are nearly over by July 19th. On that day she writes:
This evening I went to see dear old Brother, the last time in hospital I hope, for he is coming out tomorrow and Doreen [Norris’s neighbour at the Thatched Cottage Caravan Park in Lyndhurst, where he lives], who was there also, is bringing him here to me at eleven o’clock. I pray that I shall do the right thing for him and that he continues to get stronger. He was in a very sensitive mood, which is only natural, but I feel sure he will be happy here and so make good progress.
Norris’s arrival at The Ridge on the following day is, naturally, emotional for his mother. Gran says, “I did not tell Mother until just before he arrived and tears were close with her, too, but only with their happiness.”
Gran’s journal entries at this time are primarily concerned with Norris’s recuperation. Brother and sister take gentle daily walks – along local roads and down to the Lake, where they sit a while together before returning home. “Depression at the thought of curtailment of his favourite activities seems the biggest problem at present”, she writes, “but we all have to accept the most devastating changes in our lives and despair is useless, as I have learnt.”
The period is a tiring one for Gran. It is her 67th birthday on July 22nd, “and I realize I am getting old…”, she resignedly admits.
Other small events help to buoy Gran’s spirits; Collared Dove, so recently a new British species, nests for the first time in the garden of The Ridge, and the pair rears a single chick, and she gratefully receives a number of first-day covers in the post, including those commemorating decimalisation in Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man. And on July 27th:
A card came from Ricky, in Shetland, and was full of birds he had seen which made me green with envy! He had been first to Fetlar, where he saw the Snowy Owls and many Red-necked Phalaropes and he and his friend Mick stayed up one night and were surrounded by Storm Petrels. When he wrote he was in north Mainland and seeing Black Guillemots, Puffins and Skuas.
Her anxiety over Norris is always near to the surface though. Two days earlier, she had written:
Andrew’s seventh birthday, bless him, and it does not seem possible that it is seven years since he was born and Stuart and I looked after him, from two days old, and Katherine, when Jane was so ill and in hospital. And here am I again, just as anxious and weighed down with responsibility, this time caring for dear old Brother…
Days out, understandably, have become relatively uncommon for Gran at this time, but on July 29th, after receiving an uplifting post, she goes out with two friends. She writes:
Post brought me a copy of “Snowdonia National Park” from Australia where Gilbert had found it in a jumble sale(!) and the envelope was a first-day cover of the Australian Air Force stamps. My self-addressed first-day covers of our “poet” stamps also came this morning.
Phoebe Yule and Sylvia Haines came to take me out today whilst Mrs Hillier held the fort for me here. Joy Bailey had told me she went to Catherington Down yesterday and found it interesting and beautiful so I went to ask her the way so Phoebe, Sylvia and I went there today.
She has a wonderful day, in an area new to her, amongst her much-loved chalkland flowers; Small Scabious, Clustered Bellflower, Dwarf Thistle, Burnet Saxifrage, Rockrose, Frog Orchid and many others, “including”’ she says, “the greatest number of the beautiful Round-headed Rampion that I have ever seen. They were everywhere”. The songs of Turtle Doves and Yellowhammers fill the air.
Brother, continuing his gentle local walks, gradually regains his strength and confidence, and on July 30th, Joy Bailey, the new friend to whom we have not been introduced by Gran, drives Gran and Norris to Selborne – “Brother’s first real outing and it did him a world of good”, she says.
John Guningham, mentioned less frequently in the journal than he used to be, and seemingly notorious for bringing rain whenever he visits, spends an hour with Gran and Norris on the last day of the month. Gran says that, “it was nice to have a fellow naturalist to talk to Brother and me”, and, typically:
Rain set in soon after he arrived and he had no jacket, so I lent him and old umbrella, whose only remaining virtue was that it was brown and matched his clothing. I told him not to bother to return it.
August 3rd, Gran records as “an awful day”. It is Adrian’s birthday – “…you would have been fifty-nine dear”, she writes. Norris’s mental state still worries her and she finds it difficult, she says, “coping with my own feelings and Brother’s depression but somehow I have got through it… I went next door to phone Tommy who is trying to help me over my difficulties”, and, “Afterwards I swept up the litter scattered up our drive and along the path. What a dirty lot we have round here now”.
Book 135 ends on a more positive note. August 4th:
After a visit to Dr Crozier this morning, during which he helped me with some sound advice, keeping things in perspective, Brother and I have felt better and more optimistic.
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)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 103)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 104)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 105)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 106)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 107)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 108)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 109)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 110)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 111)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 112)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 113)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 113)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 114)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 115)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 116)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 117)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 118)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 119)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 120)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 121)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 122)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 123)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 124)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 125)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 126)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 127)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 128)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 129)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 130)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 131)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 132)
- Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 133)
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