Forty Years in Chandler's Ford - a Journal (Part 135)

A sad loss; enjoying “The Queen”; a new bird for Gran – and one for Barry and Rick; Julian runs for England; power cuts encourage good neighbourliness; Geoff does well, and Robin – no longer a baby.

Christmas cards have been arriving at The Ridge, and on December 20th 1971 the contents of one, from her Sussex friend Pauline Muirhead, distresses Gran. She explains:

A sad note today came in Pauline’s card – our dear friend, Andrew Young, died in his sleep on November 20th. He had suffered much pain and frustration since he broke his hip a year ago, so one could not wish for him to go on, but one does not like to think of the loss of such as he. But I shall always think of him enjoying the picnics in the New Forest with us, and read again and again with pleasure the books that he wrote. There is his last to be published in January and I shall hope to get it. I am glad I was privileged to know him and to call him friend.

Barry, Jane Elizabeth, and the boys, Geoffrey and Robin spend Christmas at The Ridge, and the day starts well for Gran:

I rose at six o’clock and Barry took me to Early Service at Compton at 7.15. The Church was beautifully decorated with yellow, bronze and white Chrysanthemums, with holly, ivy and pyracantha berries and yellow jasmine added in the small arrangements. The Service was uplifting and a joy to me.

Compton Church – where Gran often experienced great joy and solace.

Barry drives her home, and they take time for a short walk together along the Itchen at Brambridge, and they are delighted to see a Water Rail fly out of the reeds at Gran’s feet, and land on the opposite riverbank, giving good views.

A Water Rail giving good views. Image by ianpreston via Flickr.

First Norris, then Julian and Ricky (staying in Eastleigh with their mother, Jock), join the family for the opening of presents around the tree after breakfast, and the Christmas dinner is a great success, “…and much appreciated – making any effort entailed very worthwhile”, writes Gran.

They all watch television during the afternoon, Gran, as usual enjoying “The Queen”, whose, “message to her people” was:

…informal and delightful this year with the Queen, as Mother, showing the Family Album of photographs to the little Princes, Andrew and Edward, and speaking to us of the duties and responsibilities of parents in leaving a goodly heritage for our children.

“A very busy morning here but Barry and Ricky spent a very successful day bird watching at Pennington and at Beaulieu Road”, says Gran on Boxing Day, and a couple of days later, she is persuaded to leave Greaty with “a hot drink in a thermos flask to tide her over if we were late back for lunch”, while Barry drives everyone to Titchfield Haven in search of more winter birds. They are home for lunch and then in the afternoon, Gran records, “Barry took Ricky to Litchfield to look for Short-eared Owls, but could not find any. However, they had a good bonus – a new bird for them both – a Rough-legged Buzzard”.

Dad and I were looking for Short-eared Owls, but imagine our excitement when a Rough-legged Buzzard, new to both of us, rose out of a wood and flew towards us. It was seen subsequently by many other birdwatchers. Image by Thomas Landgren via Flickr.

Gran sums up the past year, on the 31st, as “one of much pleasure, great anxiety and, at times, the realization that I am getting old”. She remembers the departed; “our dear Aunt Em” and cousin Norah; re-lives the wonderful visit by Gilbert Whitley, “showing him some of the haunts he knew fifty-odd years ago”, and writes of Norris’ coronary, “which ruined the rest of the Summer for us – but we were blessed with beautiful weather in which to get him on his feet again”. She continues:

The children and grandchildren have been a source of great pride and joy. Julian left school with eleven O Levels and four A’s, and now has a job until he goes to Oxford next year. Ricky passed nine O Levels and had a trial for the England Basketball team but was too short. Katherine has passed another ballet exam and is progressing well with the piano, and the three younger boys getting on at school.

A while back, Gran had written of Julian’s plan to spend a year in America, concentrating on his athletics, but an injury had prevented this, and the job that she alludes to in her summing-up of the year is with the Sun Alliance and London Assurance Company, in Watford.

1972

“Busy”, she writes on page 18,669 of the journal at the start of the year, “but getting back to normal, which might mean the house is tidier but infinitely more dull. However, I am still basking in the warm glow of Christmas”. On January 2nd, she kindly writes of me, “Ricky is seventeen today and I cannot really believe it. He is a fine lad and may God bless him always”. She is concerned about Greaty though, saying, ”…Mother has seemed very frail the last day or two and has only wanted to sleep. I wonder if she would be better in bed but she will not hear of it”.

Book 139

Weekly outings to record the natural world, usually with Norris in the Ford Anglia, but sometime by bicycle on her own, continue – Farley Mount and other familiar local sites, Keyhaven, Sowley Pond and parts of the New Forest. On January 19th:

We went along Poles Lane… we were much cheered by seeing Green Hellebore plentiful and in bud in its usual thicket. Barry, now forty-one, first found it when he was eight years old.

Green Hellebore – Gran searched for this early flowerer every Springtime. Image by Peter O’Connor via Flickr.

And on February 4th, cycling locally looking for early flowers:

I discovered that the Biro, which I had taken with me had run dry, but I found two 2p pieces in my pocket so I went into the little general store in Otterbourne to see if they would buy me a pencil! They did!

Later in the month brother and sister are out on Stanpit Marsh. There is clearly a particular reason for their visit but she keeps us in suspense until she writes:

I was just beginning to think that the object of our visit had moved on when Brother, scanning a wide area with his binoculars, said, “There is your Spoonbill”! And it was, the first I have ever seen! It was only half visible at first, just its back as it stood in a small ditch, spooning to and fro with its curious bill, but once or twice it raised its head and then walked out onto higher ground. It was a juvenile, with black wing-tips but otherwise all white. Eventually it flew, a gliding flight with neck extended…”

A few days before this, I had visited Chandler’s Ford with a good school friend, dropping in at The Ridge once or twice, and spending several days birdwatching. Gran writes on February 15th:

Ricky and Martin came in to say “goodbye” before returning to Bushey. They had enjoyed two good bird outings since I last saw them – to Farlington Marshes yesterday… and today to Ringwood, where a great flock of White-fronted Geese, one Barnacle Goose and many Bewick’s Swans were obligingly in the fields by Ibsley Bridge and easily seen from the road.

It appears that Gran had given us inaccurate information concerning the Spoonbill, and felt guilty about it because on February 22nd, after I had been home several days, Gran reports:

Ricky phoned early this evening to say he might come down this weekend to try to see the Spoonbill. I had written expressing my regret for sending him and Martin to Farlington in search of it instead of to Stanpit but I am forgiven!

A juvenile Spoonbill – Gran and Norris’s objective at Stanpit. Image by Tony Sutton via Flickr.

Returning to January’s journal entries, we see that Gran proudly writes on the 21st, that “Julian phoned me this morning to tell me that he had been selected to run for England in Milan this weekend and is flying there this afternoon. He was naturally delighted…”

And three days later:

I phoned Bushey to see if Julian was home safely from Milan. He arrived back at five o’clock and had come third in the race in a field of just over one hundred, which I consider very good, but he said he should have done better! However, he much enjoyed the trip, and the banquet last night, and said the Alps looked wonderful from the plane as they flew over!”

Gran’s God-daughter, Diana Fowler, gives her news from The Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge on the 23rd:

Diana came in early this evening on her way back to Slimbridge, where there is much concern about the finding of some of the Bewick’s Swans, dead with gunshot in them, in some of the surrounding fields. At present it is not known whether they were shot in the neighbourhood of Slimbridge or along their migration route. In any case they are internationally protected so someone has blatantly broken the law”.

The large pantry, off the kitchen at The Ridge, has needed redecoration for some time, and for this, Gran has enlisted the skills of her home help, Mrs Hillier. “Mrs Hilly”, as Gran calls her, has been working on it for several days, filling in cracks, rubbing down, and painting. On January 28th:

Mrs Hillier had lunch with us and this afternoon finished her part of the pantry redecoration. It looks very nice indeed, and there now remains for me to cover the shelves, and Mrs Hillier is going to measure up for me for new linoleum on the floor”.

Her husband fits and lays the lino a few weeks later.

There is bitter weather on the last day of January, and Gran records it with displeasure: “Ugh!”, she writes, “The lowest minimum temperature I have ever recorded occurred last night, only sixteen degrees, and maximum yesterday remained below freezing at thirty-one!”

Snow falls that afternoon, and Gran records, with pleasure this time, that, “… some kind soul swept a pathway clear of snow up our drive today and I have no idea who did it. I heard nothing – being in the back of the house”. But two days later, she finds out, and writes, “I discovered that it was Ruth Kingston who had swept my drive, bless her”.

More good neighbourliness is called for during much of February. There are power cuts, and on the 10th, Gran writes:

Roused this morning by a knock at the door just as I was thinking of getting up. It was Ruth Kingston seeking to use my gas stove, as invited, because the expected power cut had come at 7.30 and she has an electric one. I scrambled downstairs – fortunately it was light enough to see – and let her in, and afterwards dressed, and the day proceeded as usual.

She adds, “Ruth put my blankets into her large airing cupboard, as Jean used to, so I shall feel safe about those”. And later:

Ruth came in again to boil a kettle to make a pot of tea for her family. Power was restored just before half-past six. We are lucky to have gas for cooking and coal for a fire – I can manage without electric heating and can fall back on oil-stoves if heavy frost and snow should return.

Paraffin stoves similar to this gave The Ridge a characteristic smell during the cold months.

February 18th: “Another power cut from noon to three o’clock, and two of the assistants from the grocers’ shop opposite came over to boil some water on my gas stove!” And on the 25th: “Another power cut from noon until three o’clock but the miners are going back to work on Monday so things should slowly improve”.

On the same day she notes: “A Hedge Accentor was singing and the Collared Doves were about the garden during the afternoon. The little Crocus species [Crocus tommasinianus] are a wonderful sight now and prolific in several parts of the garden.”

Dad tells me that these little mauve crocuses, which originated in the garden of The Ridge, have now spread over a large area at Hiltingbury, including many of the road verges, where they make a colourful show each Springtime. He adds that Geranium lucidum, Shining Cranesbill, “a bit of which Mother [Gran] brought back from Wales, has done likewise”.

*Crocus tommasinianus*, now widespread in Hiltingbury. Image by Andreas Rockstein via Flickr.

Reading, watching television and knitting are Gran’s main indoor activities at this time. On February 5th:

Tommy came, to collect Diana’s jacket, with which she was very pleased, and to bring me a book to read, “Returned Empty”, by Florence Barclay. An old book to be sure, but we had not read it before, and it provokes much thought – of uncertainty, yet also of certainty and comfort in some respects and leaves one not quite sure of one’s own beliefs except of the Love of God. Too difficult to explain, but it grips one and I read it all this evening.

And on the following day:

The fine documentary film of the Royal Family occupied the afternoon and filled me with a deep sense of pride and loyalty, and this evening’s film “Brief Encounter”, indeed, found an echoing sense of loss within my heart, but also the knowledge that I too, would remember until my life’s end.

Later in the month, a television programme sparks a memory for her:

This evening the classic “Anne of Green Gables” commenced as a serial on Television and it promises to be very good indeed. Also “Songs of Praise” came from the re-built Mother Church of Southampton, where Mother, in her late ‘teens taught Sunday School at the Guild of the Holy Child when Canon Wilberforce was at St Mary’s.

Works at Hiltingbury Lake, just “the Lake” to Gran, leave her unimpressed but she has a pleasant time there with Jane Elizabeth, Geoffrey and Robin, visiting mid-month:

Mallard and Carolina Ducks were on the Lake and its shores as usual and the boys had taken some bread to feed them. They were not very hungry, being usually copiously fed by visiting children, so Robin ate the remaining slice himself!… A mechanical saw being used to fell and cut up trees “unwanted” where the Council proposes to landscape the area between the Lake and the road, somewhat destroyed the peace and serenity but it was nice to sit in warm companionship with Jane Elizabeth.

“New stamps issued today”, she writes on February 16th, “British Explorers, were both colourful and interesting, and I was early at the Post Office sending off the usual to Australia and to Penang and to myself”.

A new First Day Cover for Gran. Image courtesy of Andy Brenan.

We have a little more news of Barry and Jane Elizabeth’s boys at the end of the month:

A letter from Jane Elizabeth this morning…told me that Geoffrey has his own special badge from school, with “Bird Boy of LRI” [Little Reddings Infants] on it. A lot of trouble is being taken by the teachers to encourage him now – he finds some subjects difficult to master but his knowledge of natural history is great for a seven year old.

And also, on the 28th, “Our little Robin’s sixth birthday and the baby of the family is a baby no longer. I hope he has had a very happy day and may God bless him”.

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Tags: Chandler's Ford, Chandler's Ford Today, family, Hiltingbury, Hiltingbury Road, history, Joan Adamson, Joan Adelaide Goater, local interest, memory, nature, writing

Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 135)

A sad loss; enjoying “The Queen”; a new bird for Gran – and one for Barry and Rick; Julian runs for England; power cuts encourage good neighbourliness; Geoff does well, and Robin – no longer a baby.

1972

Book 139

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A sad loss; enjoying “The Queen”; a new bird for Gran – and one for Barry and Rick; Julian runs for England; power cuts encourage good neighbourliness; Geoff does well, and Robin – no longer a baby.

1972

Book 139

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