Forty Years in Chandler's Ford - a Journal (Part 158)

A rare bird at Pagham; Katie on the telly; frozen neighbours; The King’s Head, Hursley; news – good and bad – about Pennington Marshes; “a very fine man indeed”; a lovely experience at the Junior School, and a historic election.

A bird new to the British List has been at Pagham Harbour during December 1978 and Barry and Geoff, who have already seen it, are keen for Gran to enjoy it too. She writes on Christmas Eve:

Barry, Geoff and I rose at six-thirty and set out optimistically for Pagham to see the very rare avian visitor, which the two had seen earlier… we went straight to the area which our special bird had been frequenting and Barry soon located the Greater Sand Plover which, even now, in winter plumage is a beautiful bird. It is larger than a Ringed Plover, which we also saw, sandy-buff above, white below, with black ear-coverts and band across the forehead. It is an Asian bird and is accidental in Greece, Sweden and Germany. Barry got it focused in his scope and told me to look, and I was so excited that I lay flat in a puddle to reach the telescope.

A Winter-plumaged Greater Sand Plover. This is the kind of view Gran would have had at Pagham – a first record for the UK. Image by Sergey Yeliseev via Flickr.

Christmas Day begins with a visit to Compton Church, usually very much Gran’s preference but she says: “I had not been to Church since Stuart’s death, unable to be reconciled and feeling lost and bewildered, and the familiar Service did not help much yet. The flowers were beautiful…

The day passes pleasantly though, and, she says, it:

…was enhanced when we phoned Jane and heard of the kindness and attention she and the children were receiving. They had been to the midnight service and received their first phone-call at 1 a.m. from someone who had seen them at Church. Then they were having Christmas dinner with friends; tea with the Taskers, parents and sister of Roderic, who was also killed and spending the evening with the Headmaster and his wife. Andy had won first prize for term work and exams with double A’s in every subject and Katie is to appear on Television in the New Year.

Heavy snow and floods in the north of the country at the end of the year worry Gran because Rick and Beverly need to get to their new home at Caerlaverock after Christmas, and Barry is also to be near there, taking a group birdwatching in Dumfries and Galloway. Gran reveals her concerns by writing, “I am frightened of accidents now”. Nevertheless, all is well, and Gran’s last written words of the year are:

I did not go further than the garden today but made good progress with the sleeves for Ricky’s pullover whist watching some television this afternoon and evening – the “Wizard of Oz”, “Alice in Wonderland” and “My Fair Lady”… Barry did go to Scotland but had phoned that all was well. There are six adults in the party and they were near Dumfries where the farmer, where they had proposed to camp, would not hear of it in the prevailing weather and had given them the use of a cottage so they were warm and snug.

Book 177

1979

Gran watches more television on January 2nd. “On Nationwide this evening”, she writes:

… Frank Bough said, as promised, they would show the Finals of the Schools Carol Competition, postponed owing to industrial action, next Friday and gave us a brief preview. I was surprised and delighted when it showed the Choir of Penwortham High School, Preston, and there, in the front row, was Katie! The girls looked very smart in their red skirts and white blouses, and sang well. I look forward to seeing the whole programme on Friday.

Friday is January 5th, and Gran records that she:

… saw Katie singing with the Penwortham High School Choir, the Christmas song “Camel Boogie-woogie”, which the composer said she had only entered for fun, but, though it did not win, it did well to be among the six finalists out of the hundreds of entries.

Post on the 8th:

… brought me a letter from James Hamilton of Sheffield City Art Galleries, whom Derek Hudson, author of the biography of Arthur Rackham, had mistakenly told that I had forty drawings by Rackham and he wanted to trace as many as possible for an Exhibition he is planning. I have, of course, written to tell him it is forty Rackham illustrated books that I have, and the only drawing is the sketch at the end of the letter Rackham sent me in 1935.

“Dear old Brother”, she remembers on the 9th, “would have been seventy-seven today had he lived, but I can only now say ‘Rest in peace’ and ‘Thank-you’ for all the good times you gave me”. She receives in the post that day a belated combined birthday and Christmas present from Barry and Jane Elizabeth:

… a beautiful cardigan. It is in Hebridean double knitting, “Fisherknit” by “Gaelspun Ltd” of Stornoway and is in natural with Fair Isle yoke, tops of sleeves, cuffs and bottom, above the ribbing, in shades of purple, mauve pink, white and beige in a lovely design. I am delighted with it.

She is delighted again, a couple of days later, to read in the newspaper that a “record number of 571 Bewick’s Swans have arrived at Slimbridge from their breeding grounds in Siberia”, and also that “… a grant of £258,000 from the Countryside Commission will help Hampshire County Council to pay for 188 acres of Oxey and Pennington Marshes on the South Hants Coast. The Council will revoke planning consent for gravel extraction”.

Late January sees very low temperatures and some snow, not for the first time this Winter. Gran reports that Hiltingbury Road, “was completely iced over, with the cars again stationary all past this house up to the main road”, and:

At almost ten o’clock, a frozen Helen and Jenny came in to see if I had a key to their house. Ruth was out, having walked with Jamie to school and no buses from Winchester to Southampton arrived to take the girls to their school in Southampton, the road, un-gritted, being impossible, and the buses awaiting police clearance to proceed. I had no key, but Helen and Jenny were welcomed inside and I put the fire on to thaw them out. When Ruth came home she found the girls’ bags on the doorstep and knew where to find them!

Gran describes January 27th as a most enjoyable if surprising day”. She joins a Community Centre outing to Titchfield Haven Nature Reserve, during which much snow falls and problems are encountered on the roads. Nevertheless, she gets there and sees several bird species that particularly please her; a drake Smew, a single Bewick’s Swan, and an unexpected flock of White-fronted Geese – all indicators of severe weather conditions on the continent, further east. She notes too, another such indicator – many Skylarks present and learns from the reserve warden that on New Year’s Day, a passage of this species was recorded at an estimated rate of 4000 birds per hour.

March 7th:

This afternoon I walked up to the Club, but the anticipated pleasure turned to a minor disaster. We were to have an illustrated account of a coach trip round Hampshire but the poor man who was to have shown it, first dropped all his slides and took about half an hour to re-arrange them in order, and then the projector refused to work. He was extremely chagrined…

But they try again, successfully, a week later, and Gran writes, “Many well-known places were shown, though, naturally, the pub signs held no clue for me as to the locality except the King’s Head at Hursley, which I have passed by many, many times since my childhood.

Passed many, many times by Gran since her childhood. Image courtesy of Doug Tidwell via Flickr.

Gran did not know it, but for much of that time, including during the First World War, the King’s Head was managed by Rick’s wife’s great-grandfather!

Book 178

Gran is somewhat reassured as to her daughter Jane’s situation after a phone call from Stuart’s mother, Muriel, on March 28th. Jane, Katie and Andy are all well, she hears, and:

… they have been to tea with Mr and Mrs Nelson, the Headmaster and his wife, at their Lake District house and had then been to Muriel and Oswald for an evening meal. Muriel reassured me as to Jane’s welfare and said her finances were satisfactory and Andy has it worked out for her. They are both fine children and a credit to Jane and Stuart and all settling down bravely and cheerfully to their new circumstances.

On April 5th Gran includes between the pages of her journal, a newspaper cutting entitled, Coastal nature park scheme. It gives news that rather disappoints her:

A plan to turn Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes into a Nature Reserve with hides and a charge for entering is a questionable improvement to my mind, though the public footpaths are to remain. But to those of us who have enjoyed the area and its wildlife in freedom since childhood, it is already less attractive, and with a car park and access roads it will inevitably be spoiled.

There is another newspaper cutting on the following day, from The Observer, with an article by Chris Brasher about a man revered by Gran since she and Norris first met him in Snowdonia some years ago:

… Evan Roberts, the slate miner who became a leading Snowdonia botanist and later warden of the Snowdonia National Park. He it was who took Brother and me up to Clogwyn-d‘ur Ardhuu in June 1968 to show us Lloydia serotina, the Spiderwort, and gave us such a wonderful day. His ambition was to see the Killarney Fern in its true home after finding just ten fronds of it in Snowdonia. Three summers ago, when he was seventy, his son took him on his motorbike and set out for the far hills of Ireland. Leaving his father in a safe place, the son climbed up and came running back to say that he had found the fern. He asked Evan if he though he could reach it and he replied, “I’ll reach it if it’s the last thing I’ll do on this Earth”. He did, and said, “I went down on my knees and kissed it”. He kissed it because Evan Roberts is now blind. This saddened me very much because I realize how I should feel if I could no longer see my beloved wild flowers but I can understand the enthusiasm that made Evan Roberts determined to get to the place where the Killarney Fern grows. A very fine man indeed!

The Evan Roberts article. “A very fine man indeed”, says Gran.

Whist drives continue to occupy some of Gran’s time on many days and she always indicates how much she enjoys them, whatever hands she is dealt. But on April 10th:

I walked up to the Whist Drive this afternoon, in rain and, for once, did not enjoy it as much as usual. I was dogged by the one aggressive and controversial player and the most miserable one as well! Nevertheless, I met many good friends and the games without these two (both men!) were fun.

“It is Maunday Thursday”, she writes on the 12th:

… and the Queen came to Winchester Cathedral to distribute the Maunday Money to fifty-three men and fifty-three women, one for each year of her age. We watched the Service and Ceremony on television and very magnificent it was. The Cathedral looked most beautiful with new, specially embroidered banners hanging from the ancient pillars and Easter Lilies in the flower arrangements… This year the Cathedral, and the New Forest, which the Queen is to visit this afternoon, celebrate their 900th Anniversary and, watching this morning’s wonderful spectacle, I was proud that I, Barry and Jane, had been Confirmed in this great and extremely beautiful building.

She and Grampa leave by car to spend Easter in Bushey that afternoon, about the same time as the Queen is due to travel to the Forest, and Gran noting, “… little pockets of people, the children with Union Jacks, were waiting hopefully at vantage points past which they hoped she would pass”.

There is no record at all of how Grampa spends the next five days, but Gran is out birding with Barry and Geoff for much of the time, usually at the local reservoir, seeing many returning summer migrants including her highlight, a male Ring Ouzel, “which flew out of the Sallows and into the conifer wood. I saw only its back view and heard it call but Geoff had a good view of the white bib and dark bill”, she writes.

A Ring Ouzel stopping off on migration. It’s always exciting to see a migrant out of its usual habitat, and it would have reminded Gran of her visits to Dartmoor, the Welsh hills and Scotland. Image by Michael Sveikutis via Flickr.

On April 23rd, Gran is a little anxious:

… this evening Jean Wingate came to discuss arrangements for my flower talk to pupils of the Junior School on Thursday. I am not looking forward to it but Jean has promised help from the staff. She was here for almost two hours and we talked about various aspects of natural history and the mutual hope that we could arouse some enthusiasm in the pupils.

Her worries proves to be unfounded:

Jean Wingate called for me at 1.30 this afternoon for my talk… and, after initial nervousness, it was a lovely experience. We put up the paintings on screens and the children were divided into two groups of about fifty; seven to eight year olds, and eight to nines, the younger ones first. One of these, a small boy, presented me with a badge he had made, “Be on the safe side”, and was pleased when I pinned it to my jumper. Both groups were extremely good, well-behaved and interested and asked numerous questions, both about wild flowers and about painting.

I wonder, who was the boy, by now in his 50s, who made this for Gran.

She adds that “pupils and staff were most flattering”, and that “I was particularly taken with a little girl, with wide brown eyes sparkling with enthusiasm and a delightful smile”, and “ the children gave me an overwhelming round of applause at the end”.

“This afternoon”, she writes on the 27th, ”I cycled up Kingsway, along Hocombe Road, down to the main road and Otterbourne Hill, along Poles Lane into Hursley Road and back along Hocombe Road and Lakewood Road home, walking sometimes also”. She lists flowers that she sees and on arriving back at The Ridge, she finds a message from Mary, “… telling me that Jill had a son yesterday and all well. When I went down the garden later there was an Early Grey at rest on the trunk of the Pine Tree”.

May 3rd:

I went early to vote in the Election (with which I am heartily sick!) and went part of the way with some of the children to whom I talked about wild flowers. Their school was the polling station… the children recognized me and were very friendly, giving me all sorts of advice on who was the best candidate for election!

She records on the following day that, “History was made today when the Conservatives scored an overwhelming victory in the Election and Mrs Thatcher became the first lady Prime Minister in any European Country.”

Article series

Subscribe to Blog via Email

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

Comments

Doug Clews says

February 21, 2021 at 9:39 am

Hi Rick, another excellent episode …
I’m not sure why, but I was surprised when Jean Wingate’s name appeared …
My first wife, Diane Wilmott, as she then was, and Jean both taught at ‘The Camp School’ under Mr. Mann …the school was within the Hiltingbury Army Camp, basically for children of the Army Families, but also took English speaking children from the Polish Dependents Hostel across the road … Jean became a good friend of ours and I often wonder what became of her, as we lost touch after emigrating to Western Australia … someone might know !
Cheers …
Doug Clews

- Rick Goater says
  
  February 24, 2021 at 1:50 pm
  
  I hope someone who reads this will be able to enlighten you Doug. Many thanks for keeping up with this – people’s comments and interests often help me to decide what to include or leave out of the edit.
  
Monica Schwalbenberg-Pena says

February 27, 2021 at 10:10 pm

Thank you for this wonderful journal, Rick Goater! I am sitting at my kitchen table, looking out at the bird feeder and garden, and feeling that I know your grandmother. I love all the natural history and the lovely paintings, and the connections with other people I have read about and admired. Joan’s journal has brought great pleasure and fascination to me this past year, and I so appreciate your work on this project.

- Rick Goater says
  
  February 28, 2021 at 10:28 am
  
  Thank you so much for these lovely comments Monica. If my Gran had only known…!