Forty Years in Chandler's Ford - a Journal (Part 160)

Back in Cornwall; what will Katie do next?; “the insufferable I.R.A.; Grampa does some pruning; an Olympic qualifying time; seeds sown by the Devil; Andy and Katie at “carthorse”; a “pretty little plant” survives; Forster’s Tern – new for Britain; Thomas Goater; cycling – “too much for me”; time wasted at the pub, and a Blue Tit acting strangely.

Book 180

On August 24^th 1979 we find Gran at Coverack, in Cornwall again, sharing a holiday with Barry, Jane Elizabeth, Geoff and Robin. Barry is running his moth-trap and some of the family’s time is spent sitting on the beach, but on this day, she says, “Geoff and I walked towards Black Head instead of going to the beach again and I must admit that this was more in my line”.

She writes of Barry, ever the enthusiastic schoolmaster, on August 27^th:

Barry has been showing the children from the [nearby] hotel the contents of the trap and an elderly lady has been keeping a list of the species. Today a small crowd of about fifteen people gathered and the “star” was the Convolvulus Hawk, which allowed itself to be picked up and admired, and when Barry had it he was even able to draw out its very long proboscis to show the company and the moth then curled it up again.

A Convolvulus Hawk-moth with its proboscis extended. Image by David Short via Flickr.

She leaves Cornwall on the 30^th after a stay of five days during which she notes a huge migration of Large White Butterflies; sees her first ever Grey Seal; undertakes a relatively unproductive birdwatching trip to Stithians Reservoir, famous as a magnet for rarities, and watches Geoff almost tread on an Adder on the coast path. She’s has a wonderful time.

The coach ticket from Helston to Southampton costs £14.80, and arriving at her destination at 7.30 pm she says she hears a “voice say ‘Do you want a taxi?’ and Bill [Kingston] was there to meet me.” She does have kind and attentive neighbours.

A letter arrives at The Ridge on September 3^rd, Gran proudly relating its contents concerning her only granddaughter:

… which told us that Katie had passed nine O levels, including Maths and German, which had been shaky, and had two grade As and a Grade B in History, French and Music and she will now take these subjects at A Level. She failed in Biology but may take it again in November, but she has ten passes with the English, which she took last year. We are delighted for her and Stuart would have been very proud of her.

On September 5^th:

Enid came to lunch, arriving early to watch, on television, the funeral of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, tragically murdered by the insufferable I.R.A. last Monday together with his young Grandson, son of Lord and Lady Braborne, a young boatman, seventeen years old and the Dowager Lady Braborne, over eighty years old. It was a most impressive, beautiful and moving programme, the funeral arrangements beautifully and faultlessly executed and the television presentation so excellently put over that one almost felt oneself present in London.

The Service at Westminster Abbey could not have been more suitable for the wonderful and universally loved man in whose memory it was dedicated, and in the presence of the entire Royal Family. We had a somewhat scrambled lunch, I having been loth to miss this most British spectacle.

The grave of Earl Mountbatten, in Romsey Abbey. Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr.

This afternoon Enid gave her talk on Norway to the Happy Bunch Club, and we walked up together, going by the Lake where Enid was enchanted by the Muscovy ducklings of all ages who ran to meet us expecting food.

Grampa, not often in the garden of The Ridge, appears to have been doing some pruning without consulting Gran, for she writes despairingly on the 7^th:

My day was ruined when my lovely Laurestinus, the only winter-flowering shrub in the garden, was mutilated and cut back to negligible proportions when it was full of bud and just bursting into flower. Whether it is lack of soul or extreme ignorance behind such vandalism, I have yet to understand.

Two days later there is exciting athletics on the television, from Gateshead:

Huge and exhausting excitement for me today, when Julian won the 5000 metres in a close finish with David Black, within the Olympic qualifying time, and these two, without a sprint finish, had dropped those who had, earlier in the race, one or two dropping out altogether. I think Julian ran a good tactical race, at one time being last but one, and then increasing speed in bursts to break through as David Black led, and then having just enough speed to pass him within the last few metres.

Son-in-law Stuart’s death a little over a year past, has severely dented Gran’s once strongly-held religious beliefs and faith in the words of ministers. She does not attend Church much now, and on the 19^th she writes of words uttered by a Reverend which she surely would never have accepted:

It was our Harvest Festival at the Club this afternoon and we had the Reverend Bianchi from Otterbourne again to conduct the very nice Service. Only two things disturbed me – he read the parable of the seed-sowing and stated that the “weeds” which grew amongst the good corn were sown by the devil. I cannot accept that such as the lovely Poppies, Cornflowers and Corncockles were indeed spread by the devil. To me they are wild flowers, created by God and only termed weeds by Man, who wants all the earth for himself and his needs. I believe they were here before Man inhabited the earth…

The work of the Devil on the arable machair of the Western Isles.

The other thing that upset me was the last hymn, “Now thank we all our God”, to which Jane walked up the aisle at Compton Church for her wedding to our dear Stuart. The Harvest goods brought by members were sold after the Service and I bought some Blackberries, which I bottled when I reached home.

September 23^rd:

Ruth gave me a marrow this morning and I prepared it for jam, with pineapple, to be made tomorrow. When I went to thank her (Jamie brought it in) she was cooking a delicious concoction of courgettes, onions and tomatoes, with spices, in a frying pan and gave me a dishful, with breadcrumbs on the top which I heated again later for my supper, I being the only one to enjoy onions!

On the following day:

Post brought me a new Lindsey tartan kilt and matching scarf, to which I treated myself to replace the one I bought in Braemar, when on holiday with Pauline Muirhead in 1962 and which now, alas, is almost worn out. It has done well and I have been very fond of it.

And the marrow and pineapple jam, made that day, is she says, “so delicious that I have been tempted to eat spoonfuls from the half-filled last pot!”

We have an update on the Brenan children’s musical development on the 28^th, Gran relating from a letter received from Jane, that they:

… have both been promoted to the Lancashire Schools Symphony Orchestra, Katie one of just six violinists and Andy one of only two flautists. Katie now plays the piano for the dancing class on Saturday mornings for three hours, for which she is paid £3.00…

I am reminded while writing this that Katie and Andy always referred to “Orchestra” by the anagram, “Carthorse”.

A few days later in early October, Gran introduces me to a new word, meaning “a foolish person” writing:

When I roused at two o’clock this morning, the huge, brilliant Harvest moon was shining into my south-facing window and, soon afterwards a Tawny Owl was calling in the garden. A large smile spread over my face, alone and in the darkness of my room! Was there ever such a Sawney old woman?

That day also:

Post brought me news of an engraved glass goblet ordered by the New Forest Association to commemorate the nine-hundredth Anniversary of the formation of the New Forest by King William I in 1079, and I have ordered one for Barry who has known and loved the Forest since childhood.

Next day:

I went for a long walk in search of Sphagnum moss but was unsuccessful but I had a very rewarding outing. I was pleased to note, now on a bank in someone’s garden, Bog Pimpernel Anagallis tenella which used to grow in the very wet road in the opposite wood before it was made up and houses built on both sides. I did not think this pretty little plant had survived.

The “pretty little plant”, Bog Pimpernel. Image by Hugh Knott via Flickr.

Her walk takes her to once flower-rich Beattie’s Field near Flexford Bridge, and she notes with some despair more unwanted changes there, while looking for:

… moss by the stream but building is already advanced in the field beyond, round the old farmhouse, and the stream appears to have been drained. There is very little water and a road has been cut through “Tussock Corner” and up into the distant fields.

Nevertheless, along a hedgerow there she finds “the most luscious blackberries” and she picks “about four pounds for Barbara, who had said only yesterday that she had not had any this year.” And delivering them later that day to the Smith’s home in Kingsway, she says, “… and the pleasure shown by her and her mother gave me a nice warm feeling”.

Book 184

1980

We jump now to the Spring of 1980, three of Gran’s books covering the Autumn of 1979 and Winter of 1979/80 having gone missing, and Gran writes on March 18^th:

This afternoon I gave my talk on Hampshire Orchids to the Methodist Ladies and was lucky to have a lift up to the Church Hall. The talk pleased the audience and they admired the paintings, but I felt that the very short time allowed (about twenty minutes) did not do justice to this fascinating subject.

On the 20^th Gran is given news of the first British record of a Forsters’ Tern, a North American species:

… Geoff rang to tell me that there was a photograph of Barry and him in Monday’s “Mirror”, showing them watching a Forster’s Tern at Portland [actually, Falmouth]… they hope to get a copy for me.

The characteristic black”ear” of the winter-plumaged Forster’s Tern is very distinctive. Image by shell game via Flickr.

Gran orders her own back-copy of the Daily Mirror, receiving it on the 24^th and she is pleased to have the photo within, writing:

… in the photograph of the birdwatchers looking at the Forster’s Tern, Barry and Geoff are in the forefront, both in typical positions, Barry flat on his “tummy” and Geoff sitting, leaning back, both with telescopes. The report said there were about three hundred watchers with about £30,000 worth of telescopes and binoculars!

That’s Geoff and Dad (Barry), prone at the bottom right of the photograph, with someone else between them.

That is only £100 per birdwatcher; the values of their kit, even that long ago, would surely have been much hgher.

On March 30^th, a phone call from Sue tells Gran that she:

… saw Julian off to Kenya yesterday, for high altitude training… He will be away a fortnight. She was pleased with her birthday present last week and also with the snap of Thomas which arrived yesterday. She told me that they think, as some others do, that he is like me, but, though it is a great privilege if it so, I have never had any illusions about my looks and hope, and think, Thomas will be much better looking.

This is the first we read of her new great-grandson; Beverly and Rick’s boy, Thomas Stuart, born in January, and no doubt initially welcomed in one of Gran’s missing books. Tom and Gran shared the characteristic “Adamson upper lip”.

The “Club” meeting, which Gran attends on a weekly basis, she tells us, “… was really great fun” on April 2^nd:

… with a wonderful assortment of Easter bonnets. The prizes for the first four were large Easter eggs and the six runners-up had small cash prizes, and two, who “wept” at not winning were given 1p each by the two judges who said they had found it a difficult job. They gave my novelty the first prize with no hesitation and it was much admired by all. I received a large Easter egg also and the Club generously gave half a dozen large farm eggs to every member.

Competitive Gran’s popular “novelty” appears to have been a flower-decorated depiction of the Resurrection Garden, for she had earlier described its completion thus:

I finished my Easter novelty, putting in the little flowers in the Resurrection Garden, tiny heads of Forget-me-nots, Muscari, Arabian Currant, Primula, a white shrub whose name I do not know, and yellow? (Oh! my memory).

April 6^th is Easter Day. “ I rose at six o’clock”, she writes, “and cycled to Compton to Church, impelled by some inward force in spite of my still troubled mind.” She does not comment on the Church Service, normally so uplifting for her, but she notes the wildlife and flowers that she sees on her journey, and ends with:

I was very, very tired when I reached home and felt that this mode of travel was becoming too much for me. I rested this afternoon and was very stiff, but this evening enjoyed two television programmes – Tony Soper and Eric Ashby about the New Forest in “The World about us”, and the delightful musical, “The Sound of Music”, with Julie Andrews.

A new friend and an old friend are mentioned on April 13^th. Gran is walking around the Lake, enjoying the signs of Spring, and says:

A Wren was singing vociferously and a large fish, possibly a Carp, rose from the lake just as I heard a Great Spotted Woodpecker “drumming”. A young lady spoke to me then and asked about the Canada Geese, who were not present this morning. She was very interested and knowledgeable and she expressed a wish to go along the river but did not like to go alone. She is Susan Weston, of Lakewood Road, and we hope to arrange a trip together.

And later:

… Tommy came for me and we went to see an old friend who is in Otterbourne Grange Nursing Home. It is a very pleasant place and Marjorie [not to be confused with the other Marjories of Gran’s acquaintance] has a nice room but I have not seen her for some years and I was dreadfully shocked at her appearance and would not have known her. She is only two years older than I am, but she did not know us and soon fell asleep.

On April 20^th Gran joins a “Budden’s Mystery Tour, the coach stopping for me at Kingsway”. It’s not really her “kind of thing”, but having started the journey squashed between members of a single family on the back seat, she manages to secure a window seat elsewhere, and, she says, “enjoyed the trip, taking notes”. The coach tours north Hampshire and, nearing, home Gran writes, “Near Sutton Scotney the coach was pulled into a pub at seven o’clock and half an hour was wasted when I wanted to get home…” She finally gets back to The Ridge:

… just in time to see the end of the programme “Young Musician of the Year”, which was won by a young trombonist of eighteen from Winchester. He was splendid, but I was sorry all the four finalists could not win. They were all so good. His name was Nicholas Daniels.

April 27^th sees Gran gardening for much of the day, and she notes:

A Coletit [always spelled this way and written as one word in her journal] has been coming to drink several times today at the little bowl outside the French window and the Bluetit [also always written as one word] at the nearest nest box, still mystifying me, has been taking feathers out and flying to a tree branch, and after pecking at them, has been taking them back again. I cannot understand this behaviour.

The Coal Tit. Image by roger mepsted via Flickr.

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

Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 160)

Book 184

1980

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Book 184

1980

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