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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 142)

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A betrothal; a comet on Julian’s 21st; gales bring down trees; a cabinet for medals; a ferocious audition; a negligent godfather; Greaty does what she ought not to; “I could have wept”; Gran owes Tommy five pence; Andy – the peak-bagger, and Katie receives a necessary boost.

Gran enjoys Christmas Day, 1973; Barry and family join her and, to her great satisfaction, the day starts with Church at Compton:

Barry and I took the little boys and were joined by Julian at the Church gate just before we went in at eight o’clock.  It was overcast and rather murky outside but the Church looked beautiful and the Service was taken by the Bishop of Southampton.  The boys were very good and, as Mr Ovenden was seeing people away afterwards I introduced him to Barry, Julian, Geoffrey and Robin and felt very proud of them.  I returned to the business and excitement of the Day with renewed heart and spirit.

Presents are opened, distant family members telephoned and, Gran writes, “… as we celebrated afterwards, Barry announced that Ricky and Beverly are soon to become engaged and everyone was delighted for them.  The dinner was a great success”.

Among the events mentioned in Gran’s journal, summing-up her year on its last day – “… a trying one for our dear Country”, she says, referring to strikes and, oil shortages, she writes that:

The Grandchildren continue to be a great joy to me, and Julian has become a full International Athlete and an Oxford Blue.  Now at the close of the year, Ricky is engaged to Beverly, whom we all like very much.  I have only seen one new bird this year, the Pectoral Sandpiper, but Brother and I have had some very pleasurable outings together.

1974

Julian is twenty-one on January 12th and a celebratory party is held at Reddings Avenue, in Bushey.  Gran travels there on the following day for a smaller celebration:

I arrived at Reddings Avenue just before two o’clock and, of course, was warmly welcomed by the family, though Ricky was out.  I met the rabbit for the first time, a beautiful soft pale brown with enormous lop ears, so I call him loppylugs.  He roams about the house like a puppy and is house-trained and very friendly.

“He roams about the house like a puppy.”  Image by Dennis Jarvis via Flickr.

… the Party last evening, with eighty-four guests, had been a great success.  Today’s was just a small teaparty for the older folk, but we had the family and Mr and Mrs Archer, old friends from Mill Hill, were among us.

During the evening there was a sudden high wind and a heavy hailstorm, but it cleared in the necessary area and we had an excellent view of the Comet Kohoutec which, I was surprised to find, I had been seeing from the garden at home.  It so outshines Venus, that I had not realized that Venus was the small body to its left, and I had been looking for something else.

She adds at the end of her visit that, “Barry has been very pleased with results from Haberdashers’ last year, when the pupils won eleven scholarships, eleven Exhibitions and six places at Oxford and Cambridge – a record”.

John Guningham, of whom we hear less these days than a few years ago, visits Gran at The Ridge in early February, and theymake their way to Poles Lane to search for Green Hellebore in flower.  They find it “flourishing” but Gran adds, “Several Elm trees had been felled and, upon investigation, were seen to be riddled with Elm Disease”.   Gran, with her great love of trees, must have felt deeply the loss of almost every Elm from the countryside to this disease during the 1970s, which seemed as much a hallmark of that decade as did the Irish “Troubles” and industrial unrest.

Tunnels made under the bark by larvae of Elm Bark Beetle, which infect the trees with the disease.  Image from Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project via Flickr.

February 11th:

A terrible and frightening night with the worst gales I ever remember, but I shall also remember the extreme kindness of my neighbours on both sides.  I was only just rising, after eight o’clock as I slept so little earlier on, when Ruth tapped on the back door to tell me that a tree had blown down in the front garden but I was not to worry because Bill would deal with it when he returned from work.  When I went out I saw that it was the largest of our Lawson’s Cypresses, and it had brought down next door’s telephone wire with it!

Going to read the thermometer I found that two large limbs from Griffin’s Macrocarpa had come down and one had fallen across the fence and into our garden.  The damage everywhere is great.

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

Frank Harding, Mary’s husband, has been making a cabinet for Gran, for her to give to Julian, to house his ever-increasing collection of athletics and cross-country medals and trophies.

On February 18th Gran writes, “Mary phoned to ask me to go round and see the cabinet he is making for Julian before he puts the finishing touches to it”.  So she quickly makes a “little Spring bowl” of flowers for Mary and then cycles to their Merdon Avenue home.  She continues:

Mary was thrilled with the flowers, of course, and so was I with the cabinet.  It is exactly what I wanted and Frank took me to the shop to choose the lining for the shelves.  We chose a soft green stick-on velvety material, which should be perfect.

The cabinet made by Frank Harding – it now houses Snooker and Pool trophies won by Geoff.  Image courtesy of Geoffrey Goater.

There is news of Granddaughter Katherine towards the end of the month.  Gran has already been much relieved to hear that in spite of two heavy colds over the Winter, neither has gone to Katherine’s chest, perhaps indicating that her severe early childhood asthma attacks are a thing of the past.  And her Mother, Jane, in a letter to Gran tells her:

… Katherine had her audition for the Arts Council School at Tring last Friday from 9.30 am until 4 pm.  Katherine survived very well, her “topic books” scrutinized, an hour’s ballet, French conversation, a medical examination, reciting a poem, reading a whole chapter from a stage as though telling a story, playing the piano and answering questions on the music.  Then an interview and lunch, after which a maths test, more reading, and an English test.  The result will not be known for two weeks and competition was “ferocious” but Katherine enjoyed it and Jane and Stuart are sensibly not building her hopes too high.  The 11+ exam came on the same day, so Katherine had to scurry home and take it in the headmaster’s office alone next day.

The school at Tring where Katie experienced “ferocious” competition.  Image courtesy of George Edwards via Flickr.

Gran adds: “Andrew won his recorder contest and now has to go on to the Lancashire Finals next month!”

Book 153

It is many years since we have heard of either of Julian’s Godfathers, but on March 12th Gran writes briefly, of John Crook, Dad’s old friend from University days:

This evening I watched a programme on Television in which Barry’s erstwhile friend and Julian’s negligent Godfather was, with another, examining one John Macmillan for his Doctorate and his thesis was on the Orang-utans of Indonesia.  The thesis was excellent and the film of the work which went towards it, quite outstanding…

“What a day”, she exclaims on the 14th.  Brother has stayed the night, following their weekly outing together, and Gran says:

When we saw Mother this morning she had an extremely bruised and swollen left wrist and told us she fell yesterday, but would not tell us how, except that she was doing what she ought not to have done.  We decided to call the Doctor and in the meantime, Brother returned to Lyndhurst.

When Dr Bradford came, he suspected a broken bone and said it must be X-rayed.  I rang Brother and he came back.  We took Mother to Winchester Hospital this afternoon and the X-rays showed a broken wrist.  A charming and kind young doctor, three sweet nurses and a delightful young porter soon had the wrist in plaster and a sling, and they were all delighted and amused at our “ancient” and she was quite enchanted with them all.

A few days later Gran receives a letter from Jane, who has already given her the news that Katie did not get into the Arts Council School and says it was:

… a little depressing because it said Katherine had taken it very badly… and had hidden all her Ballet Certificates and books in a cupboard and had to be pressed to go to Ballet class on the previous Saturday.  But she went on the Tuesday with her usual enthusiasm and they are all going to the farm in the Lake District during the Easter Holidays so I hope the change will do them all good.

Gran feels somewhat distraught and close to tears at this time, without stating why in her journal, but her Mother’s increasing forgetfulness and broken wrist, and the need always to have a friend to sit in with her whilst she and Norris go out must be a strain.  Things are not helped on March 24th, a day after she has enjoyed taking two Guides for their Observer’s Badges, which involved the naming of twelve trees – a bit difficult for them before the leaves appear.  Gran says:

As soon as we had finished breakfast I went down to the Lake to check the Guides’ trees… On my return I found that vandals had torn off half my Wild Daffodils on the front bank and thrown them into the path and road.  I could have wept.  If it had been a child wanting them for Mothering Sunday I would not have minded, but I cannot begin to understand the mentality of anyone tearing them off and throwing them away and I endangered my own soul by cursing them vehemently.  Fortunately most of the flowers had stems so I was able to arrange them in a bowl where they looked beautiful and gave Mother much pleasure.

Doris, Norris’s good neighbour at the Thatched Cottage Caravan Park in Lyndhurst, sits with Mother whist Gran attends a B.E.N.A. meeting, led by Norris, to Ashlett Creek on March 27th.  They are particularly pleased to see ten Twite on this outing, a small species of finch rarely seen by either of them.

Sometimes called the “Mountain Linnet”, after its typical breeding habitat, the Twite often winters on saltmarshes. Image by Hans Norelius via Flickr.

Mother, “Greaty” as the younger generation calls her, needs the plaster on her wrist for more than five weeks and is particularly frail at this time, but Gran writes this of her on March 28th:

A Brimstone butterfly made a lovely picture on Muscari in the morning sunshine.  It was so warm and beautiful when Mother was ready to come down to lunch that I persuaded her to come into the garden and Ruth came in to help me support her.  She was enthralled and I am sure it did her good.

Not on Muscari here but the yellow and blue combination is just as lovely.  Image by Steve Childs via Flickr.

And later:

Ruth came in for some mulch for her asparagus bed and brought Mother and me delicious cream sponge cake for tea.  We are a delightful little garden community here, all friends, Ruth and Bill, Mr and Mrs McMahon, the Carmichaels, Mr and Mrs Griffin and the new young couple whose garden runs at the bottom of Ruth’s.

Clearly my early hopes of flying helicopters in the Royal Navy have not materialized, for her last entry for the day is: “Ricky has got a place at the Agricultural College in Newton Abbot [Seale-Hayne] and Beverly has passed her exams [Orthopaedic Nursing Finals].  Good news!

Early April brings the Boat Race.  “Oxford won in record time”, Gran records, “thus breaking the Cambridge run of wins since 1968.  I owe Tommy 5p in consequence though it was a proper shilling when we started our little bet when we were at school together”.  Inflation was a concept that Gran never really grasped!

Barry and family are down for Easter, and on April 8th Gran enjoys a now rare excursion “bug-hunting” with Dad:

Barry persuaded me to go to Shawford with him to look for the caterpillars of Centre-barred Sallow Moths, which feed on Ash flowers, and climb rapidly up the trunks at dusk.  We searched with a Tilley lamp and were quite successful.  I pleased us both by finding one myself.  We also found Scarlet Tiger caterpillars on Comfrey.

Down by the river a Snipe was calling with a note I had not heard before and later we heard it drumming.  Stars were shining as we left Shawford.  I was glad I went.

The Centre-barred Sallow.  Image by naturalhistoryman via Flickr.

A few days later, the family is in the New Forest, hoping to find new birds for the increasingly keen Geoff.  “On to Vales Moor”, writes Gran:

“… hoping that Geoffrey might see his first Dartford Warblers and the little birds could not have been more obliging.  Two perched on the top of gorse bushes in full view for several minutes and Geoffrey was highly delighted.

Thus does Gran record the third generation of Goaters’ first experience of the Dartford Warbler.

Easter morning sees the family at Compton Church, where there is a slightly awkward, though perhaps not unexpected, moment:

We took Geoffrey and Robin to Church with us and they were very good indeed.  The Bishop of Southampton took the Service and the boys came to the altar rails with us and as the Bishop reached them he just laid his hand on their heads and said “God bless and keep you”.  Robin, following my example, lifted his hands one upon the other to receive the Bread and I gently pushed them down.  When we left he wanted to know why he could not have it as well.

The Brenan’s Easter appears to have been a healing one for Katie:

… they have spent Easter on “their” farm… All are well and Katherine has been helping with the sheep and lambs and the farmer has made her a crook.  She and Andrew helped to put out a fell fire and altogether were having a wonderful time.

A letter from Jane at the end of the month tells Gran that:

Andrew has become a “Peak-bagger” and is anxious to climb all the hills over 2000 feet.  They had all climbed Wetherlam, Pike o’ Stickle, Crinkle Crags, Thunacar Knott, Pavey Ark, Seargent Man, High Raise and Place Fell for him…

The top of Crinkle Crags, “conquered” with several other Lake District peaks by a 10-year old Andy Brenan.  Image by Pat Neary via Flickr.

And, “Katherine has passed her Ballet Grade V exam with honours recently and also Juvenile Tap with honours, so her morale has received a necessary boost”, writes Gran, relieved.

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