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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 157)

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A European Champion – for a change; a tragedy in France – and another at the airport; a good result in Singapore; Rick and Beverly come home; twenty-four chatterers; generous sponsorship; a particularly difficult Remembrance Day, and Rick gets a job.

As ever, Gran is gripped by the Summer’s tennis at Wimbledon, and this year, 1978, she makes her usual observations, such as, on July 3rd:  “… the best match, between Roscoe Tanner and Ilie Nastase, was, unfortunately, ended on a conflicting point”, caused by a poor line call at match point; and she is pleased that Chris Evert beats Billie-Jean King; sorry to see Evonne Cawley lose to Martina Navratilova in the Ladies’ semi-final, which, she says, began as a, “…very good match but ended in the third set sadly as Evonne uttered a sharp scream as her suspect ankle gave out.  She gallantly played on but could not run and inevitably lost…” The Ladies’ final she does not think a particularly good match, “neither player being at her best”, but Navratilova, having beaten Chris Evert, Gran is pleased to write: “Nice to have a European Champion for a change, if we could not have Virginia Wade again.  Martina is a Czech”.

And of the Borg – Connors Men’s final, she writes, “Borg demolished Connors by 6-2 6-2 6-3 to become Singles Champion for the third year in succession, the only one to achieve this since Fred Perry did so forty-two years ago”.

July 9th provides Gran with a small ambition accomplished:

I went to Church at Compton this morning… Mr Ovenden came to shake hands with me and welcomed me, and, as I left, Daphne Meller was standing at the gate of “Cherrycroft”, her delightful old cottage, and asked me in to have coffee before she brought me home in her car.  The cottage was once two, and later was the Village Post Office and I have long wanted to see inside it.  I was not disappointed!  Low ceilings, black beams and panelled walls, huge fireplaces and furnished in keeping, a lovely garden and the outside of the cottage clothed in Honeysuckle, Clematis, Wisteria and Vine.

Book 176

Gran’s journal numbered 175 is missing, and her first entry in Book 176, dated September 28th 1978, gives us a hint that something serious in her life has occurred since early July, which would have been recorded in that book, for she writes:

I also spoke to Jane, who has not yet heard much except that a French judge has been appointed for the enquiry.  Katie has a cold but not a bad one, and Michael Tindsley is back at School but his face is scarred, poor lad.  This should fade in time… Jane is still receiving great kindness and help from everyone around her.

And turning to the last pages of the book, and her entry for December 31st, we read:

Thank goodness this year is rapidly drawing to a close, for the hoped for “careless rapture” turned to infinite sorrow on July 18th when our dear Stuart was killed in France and I suffered grief such as I have not known since 1947; perhaps even more, because it is easier to bear one’s own sadness than that of one’s loved children, and my thoughts have been so much with Jane, Katie and Andy.

Below, Andy relates the parts of this awful event that Gran would almost certainly have included in her record.  He tells us:

 

“Dad was taking a group of boys from Hutton Grammar School to the Pyrenees in July 1978. He was killed on the 18th July along with two boys [Roderic Tasker and Graham Sherry] when the minibus in which they were passengers, was hit by an articulated lorry travelling in the opposite direction, at Barcugnan, near Trie sur Baise.

 

Michael Tindsley was seriously injured and was taken to hospital in Toulouse. I and two other boys with more minor injuries were taken to hospital in Tarbes. The rest of the group were cared for in Lourdes, where we joined them after a few days, before being flown back to Castle Donington. Julian came to pick me up and take me home.

 

The funeral took place at St Andrew’s Church in Longton. It seemed like the whole  village turned out and there were long lines of people at the roadside. Police cleared the way for the funeral cars and saluted as the cars passed on the way to the crematorium.  Dad’s ashes were later scattered in the Lake District.

 

“Dad’s ashes were later scattered in the Lake District”.

Thankfully Michael made a good recovery and was flown home a few weeks later. Tragically, however, his father collapsed and died at the airport as Michael returned. The Tindsleys were our next-door neighbours.“

 

On October 29th Gran writes:

… I went to catch a bus to Bassett to take the Freesia picture to Joan. A lady took my arm and helped me across the main avenue when I alighted from the bus!  I must have looked elderly but I thanked her gratefully for it is a difficult crossing when one cannot run as agilely as heretofore!  I walked down Winchester Road and along Highclere Road where Mother and Daddy lived until 1939, and received my usual warm welcome from Joan.

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

 
October 2nd is Geoff’s fifteenth birthday [actually his fourteenth], Gran notes, adding that, “when I saw him in July, his voice was breaking!  May he have many more years in which to add to his bird records!”  She walks down Merrielees Drive to pay her Community Centre subscription, saying that “… Mrs Britten, whom I do not know, was most kind and sympathetic about Stuart and told me that all the Community Centre members had been most shocked and concerned when they read about the accident”.

A few days later:

Post brought me a long letter from Julian, telling me about his latest races and enclosing two cuttings from Singapore newspapers, one in English and one in a language unknown to me.  Apparently in the Asian Games, Julian broke the record for the 5000 metres and won the 10,000 in convincing style.  Ricky is coming home at the end of the month, as he cannot get a job in America.

And a letter at this time, from Barry, encloses two letters from Rick, in Arkansas, which, Gran says, “mostly concerns the birds he has seen in America”, and I think was unlikely to have been of great interest to her, since the species named would be totally unfamiliar to her.

The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher – a widespread species around Little Rock – exciting for Rick but unlikely to have been of much interest to Gran!  Image by Ken Slade via Flickr.

She manages to attend a number of outings during the month: a “Mystery Tour”, the destination of which turns out to be Brighton – “Not where I would have chosen”, she states; a nice day with friend Sheila at Dibden Bay (in the process of being reclaimed, apparently, and disappointing for birds) and the New Forest, and on the 14th, a Community Centre outing, also to the Forest.  There, a walk through Broomy Inclosure she says, “was lovely”, but:

Helen and I tried to keep ahead of the main party in the hope of seeing deer, which she had done when plotting the walk, but with the other twenty-four members loudly chattering, such a hope was a forlorn one.  I cannot think why these people go on such rambles if they see and hear nothing, even the scenery, but I suppose they just enjoy walking and talking”.

She phones Jane that evening:

… after changing for tonight’s Cancer Campaign Whist Drive, and was glad to speak to her, Katie and Andrew.  Katie answered the phone and I was struck by the similarity between her voice and Jane’s… They are getting on quite well and Jane says they will manage alright…”

October 16th:

A pleasant surprise this evening when Pat Nicolson (née Littlecott), home for three weeks from Canada, came to see me.  Jean had sent her my letter telling her of Stuart’s death and she was extremely concerned about Jane and is going to phone her.  Jane will, I am sure, be pleased to hear from her old friend.

And later, Gran herself is pleased to hear on the News that:

… the seal cull in the Orkney Islands is called off and the Norwegian marksmen and their boat have been sent home.  This because of the huge concern of the general public and the action of the protestors.  Hurrah.

A note from grandson Andy at the foot of a letter to Gran written by Katie, tells her modestly that, “… he has wormed his way into the Lancashire Schools Training Orchestra with his flute and piccolo and was surprised to find himself playing First Flute!”  Katie, Gran reminds us, “is already in the Orchestra with her violin”.

Gran records a scene that delights her on October 23rd.  She had been to the Lower Village to pay money into the bank and to look for “throw-in” presents for Christmas, and she walks home by the Lake. “I wished I had my camera with me”, she writes:

… for such a pretty picture presented itself!  A small boy, about two years of age, was feeding the Muscovies on the grassy bank, completely surrounded by the birds but unafraid, even when a big drake snatched the food from his hand.  He and his mother were dressed in attractive bright colours.

During the last few months of 1978, Rick and Beverly have been living in Arkansas, Beverly working at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock where burns and gunshot wounds are depressingly common reasons for the hospitalization of young people.  Rick, with “Employment Unauthorized” stamped across his passport has been unable to find anything other than voluntary work and has spent much wonderful time birdwatching within the State.  In spite of loving the experience, they have decided to return to the UK.

On October 4th, Gran writes of an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by Rick to land a job managing Yarner Wood Nature Reserve on the edge of Dartmoor:

Ricky and Beverly came in this evening and it was wonderful to see them again.  They had been to Devon for Ricky to try for a job, and he is after a very suitable one that he would greatly enjoy but will hear later if he has been accepted.

Early November brings a letter from Jane:

… and she sent two of the latest snapshots of Stuart, with another a friend of Andy’s had given them.  One was taken in the Lake District and the other in camp in France just before the accident.  They brought tears to my eyes but I am so glad to have them.  Jane says they have very few snaps of Stuart, as it was always he who held the camera.

“Andy”, Gran adds, “has a sponsored swim coming up in aid of a new minibus for the school”.  She works hard over the next few weeks to help Andy by gathering as many sponsorship promises as possible, including at “the Club” at Hillside where she is:

… profoundly touched when Mrs Dennet asked the members if they would sponsor Andy’s swim and besides four, who gave me donations, the number of sponsors swelled to fifty-nine!  Mrs Reynolds collected names for me, as I know so few of the members myself.  I stood up and thanked them for their response and Andy will be very surprised.

By the end of November she is able to send him a cheque for £33.60; easily the bulk of Andy’s ultimate total.

Gran is very pleased to renew acquaintance with Antony, one of Mary Harding’s children, on November 7th:

I went to have coffee with Mary this morning to see Tony and Sally with their children Robert, Greta, and Emma, who are home from Australia for a holiday.  Of the children I had only seen Robert before, but though shy at first, Emma soon accepted me and climbed up beside me to show me a new toy.  A nice little family.

73 Merdon Avenue – the home of the Harding family until about 2004, and where Gran was always assured of a warm welcome. Image courtesy of Jill Andrew.

It is not a surprise that Remembrance Sunday, on November 12th, and televised, is particularly overwhelming for Gran this year, and she, for the first time, mentions the names of two men she once knew, lost in war, saying:

I became very overwrought and tears trickled down my cheeks as I remembered, not only those who died in two World Wars, of whom I knew personally only Ralph Merry in the First and John Lance in the Second, but those two specials who died so tragically in times of peace and in the prime of life, Adrian in 1947… aged 34… and Stuart, beloved son-in-law, in France in the tragic accident this July 18th, aged 44.  May God bless them…

“I heard on the Radio this morning”, she writes on November 16th:

… that Broadwood Pianos have been manufactured for one hundred and fifty years, and Royalty for several generations have had them and the Broadwood museum has the original one on which Chopin played his last concert in England.  It is to be played for the Celebration Concert for two items.  My piano is also a Broadwood and Jane and family have used it ever since I gave it to them.

Gran was proud to have owned such a good quality piano, but I was never aware of her, or anyone else in the family playing it.  Image by Lex McKee via Flickr.

We are given another small hint about Stuart’s accident and its aftermath on November 19th, when Gran is distressed watching “Songs of Praise on television, when Crimond and He who would valiant be were included, because both of these were sung at the funeral of poor Stuart and the lad from Hutton Grammar School”.

At the Hillside Club again on the 22nd, “… a surprise awaited us all”, she recounts:  “The Mayor arrived to present Mrs Dennet with a medal for nearly twenty years’ service with the Women’s Voluntary Service and this she richly deserved.”

Later in the month though, she does not enjoy her time at the Hillside whist drive as much as usual, because she has lost something of great value to her.  She writes:

I have lost Brother’s black Biro and, on enquiring about leaving it at Hillside on Thursday, I was told I had done so, but someone had picked it up when looking for his and said it would do instead and dropped it into his wife’s handbag.  When I told him he had picked it up, he denied it and showed me his own.

“I do not know how anyone can be so mean, and then to lie about it”, she writes angrily.  “Cards were today a mixture but I won a cucumber in the draw.”

“An uneventful afternoon but I made a start on Ruth’s cardigan”, she begins on December 4th, and continues:

It was the evening that brought today’s greatest pleasure.  Barry rang to tell us the glad news that Ricky has secured the job for which he went to Scotland for an interview last weekend.  He is to be Assistant Scientific Officer at a Nature Conservancy estate near Arbroath, on the Solway Firth.  A house is provided.  We are delighted for Ricky and Beverly.

Of course, this message is entertainingly garbled; the truth of it being that Rick and Beverly had stayed overnight with old Devonian friends, themselves newly based in Arbroath, and on the following day had been interviewed for a job with the Wildfowl Trust at Caerlaverock on the north shore of the Solway Firth.

The “House Tower” at Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Caerlaverock, on the Solway – scene of Rick’s interview.  Image by Laurence Arnold via Flickr.

And, in relation to this, two days later Tommy Fowler phones Gran with a “quite extraordinary story”, having been telephoned by her daughter:

Diana had rung her from Slimbridge to tell her that her boss had just told her that he had been to Caerlaverock on the Solway Firth and had appointed Mr Goater to the post of Assistant Scientific Officer!  Diana said, “Ricky?” and Steve (?) replied, “Rhoderick, do you know him?”  Whereupon Diana told him that his Grandmother taught her most of her natural history during the War, and she had known her all her life.  She also told him about Barry, and he said,  “Ricky didn’t tell me”.  Diana then said, “Of course he didn’t, he would not take advantage of his Father’s position.”  Caerlaverock is not far from Dumfries and when Diana said that Ricky’s wife is a nurse, Steve said she would be all right as well… Caerlaverock is a subsidiary of Peter Scott’s Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge.

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