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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 173)

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A Club Christmas dinner; “disgusting behaviour” by Connors; Christmas with the neighbours; a “superb boy soloist”; Adrian -remembered; bitter weather; radiotherapy for a fortnight; red and black Adders; along the River; a Tristan cardigan, and some antiques.

It is December 14th 1984, “My driver”, Gran writes:

… called for me at 10.15 this morning to take me to hospital again to have part of the spot cut out for analysis… the operation, under local anaesthetic, did not take too long and I was home by 12.20.  I had taken ham rolls in case I was much later, but had one after soup at home.  I am perfectly well and am to see Dr Charlewood on Wednesday or Thursday to have the stitches out.

Gran and some other Club members are picked up by coach in Kingsway for transporting to their Christmas dinner on the 15th, and Gran has clearly managed to produce the required floral table decorations, asked for at short notice.  She writes:

… as I stood with the table decorations, a lady came and asked me if they were for sale, and another, who lives over the wine shop, and knows Ruth, said she had seen a copy of my “Te Deum”, [recently read out at one of her Club meetings] which Mrs Burton has and she wanted to know if she might read it to a prayer meeting to which she goes.  I gave her permission…

Of the Christmas dinner, Gran says:

Kings Court Road House provided the lunch for us and it was very good indeed.  The son of one of our members who recently died, wrote to say he lived in Aberdeen and had not been able to see his father as often as he would have liked, but, because he, the father, had been so happy with the Club members for so long, he (son) sent little bottles of Scotch whisky for every member present today.

Not really Gran’s cup of tea.  Image by GariochT via Flickr.

And characteristically:

I was embarrassed when our Chairman, Mrs Chick, stood up and thanked me for doing the table decorations in spite of having had a minor operation yesterday morning.  She mentioned that I would be leaving early!  This was not because of the operation but because Julian was running in the International Cross Country at Ipswich and would be on television at 4.15!

Much of the following day is taken up with television programmes, particularly sport.  Gran watches a Davis Cup tennis match between the Swede, Mats Wilander and Jimmy Connors.  She tells us that the former “won 6-1 6-3 6-3 after disgusting behaviour by Connors who swore at the Umpire almost continuously in the third set and was punished by the loss of a point and then of a game”.  She adds’  “Who do these Americans think they are?”   There is also International show-jumping, and the evening brings Songs of Praise from Manchester Cathedral and, she says, “… the Awards for Sports Personality of the Year.  There were joint winners this year, not surprisingly, the skaters, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean”.

The ice-skaters Torville and Dean – Gran thought they were fabulous.  Image by Andy via Flickr.

“A lovely surprise just before dinner”, she writes on the 19th:

… when Ricky blew in to leave presents for those we hope to see on Sunday.  He had been to Dorset for an interview and stayed last night with his mother.  He could not stay long but took our presents for his family.

On the top of the presents which Ricky brought was their card, to Gran and Gramp, which Tom had coloured and inside was a delightful photo of Tom wearing a tee shirt with “Slimbridge” across the front.

Young Thomas Goater enjoying his Slimbridge childhood. It was a wonderful place to be a small boy.

Gran and Gramp spend a pre-Christmas day with much of the immediate family at Julian and Sue’s house in Farnham, loving particularly the company of the younger members, and Gran is disappointed that Grampa insists on leaving early, at 3.30, in case of fog on the journey home.

Late Christmas Eve television provides, “… the best programme of the Day”, she enthuses:

“Born in Bethlehem”, a film made in and around Bethlehem, with a series of carols and religious songs given by the BBC Welsh Chorus with a superb boy soloist, Aled Jones, whose beautiful voice was most moving especially when he sang Gounod’s “Ave Maria”.

Next day Gran and Grampa are next door, with the Kingstons:

We went to have Christmas dinner with Ruth, Bill and family… Ruth and Bill gave me a pretty patterned umbrella and water-proof scarf to match, Helen a box of lovely flower notettes, Jenny a pale pink small Cyclamen with many flowers, and James a box of “After Eight”.  It was a traditional and enjoyable dinner and we spent a very pleasant afternoon, seeing the Queen give her speech, with lovely pictures of the Christening of Prince Harry.

What important and highly valued neighbours the Kingstons are!

1985

And just a few days later, on January 2nd, we are reminded of their equally loved and important predecessors, when one of the Hockridge girls pays The Ridge a visit, Gran recording:

… there was a knock at the front door and there stood Ruth Bedford (née Hockridge) her husband Steven and two dear little daughters, Laura and Rachel.  Ruth was completely at home and the others soon were also, and the children explored the garden.  Later I made tea and squash for them.

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

January 7th is an important day each year for Gran, as she remembers Adrian’s last contact with her, five days before he died:

Post thirty-eight years ago, brought me your last letter to me… which led me to believe that you were recovering from your illness… and I have blessed you for asking me to promise to keep writing these notes for you and for the inspiration you have given me with my flower painting.  Until it becomes physically or mentally impossible I shall keep that promise.

She writes on the anniversary of his death, again with sad gratitude, as well as acceptance of her situation, adding that Julian, born on the 12th, “… has with the rest of my lovely family, given me ever-growing interest, pride and pleasure”.  And, as an example, the following day:

Today’s “Sunday Telegraph” had a picture of Ricky feeding the swans, geese and ducks at Slimbridge, which, because of the huge numbers being many more than last winter, has to be done nine times a day instead of the usual.

It was a very cold and icy January, and indeed, I wheeled that grain-laden barrow about four miles each day!  Post at this time brings a letter from Gran’s God-daughter Diana Fowler, by then a long-serving member of the Slimbridge staff, telling her of the wonderful sight made by the huge flocks of geese, in flight against the backdrop of blue skies and sunshine.

Rick was well-practised feeding wild swans. Here he is at Caerlaverock, on the Solway, before his move to Slimbridge.

Later in the month, Gran has to return to hospital, to see if treatment is necessary for the spot on her face.  “I was disappointed to hear”, she says:

… that I have to go every day for a fortnight except Saturday and Sunday.  Dr Hall examined it and her assistant gave me the X-Ray treatment straight away for two and a half minutes.  The main snag is the wasted mornings.  I did not get home until twenty past twelve.

So begins a fortnight of almost daily morning transport to the South Hants Hospital and brief radiotherapy treatment.  Her mornings are not entirely wasted, as she notes on the 22nd: “Fortunately I had taken my knitting today and almost finished one half of a vest for Ethiopia before I was picked up again at 11.30”.

She relates more medical news that evening, concerning Frank Harding, Mary’s husband:

I phoned to see if Frank had gone into hospital yet for his hip operation.  He goes in on Sunday so I wished him all the best and hope he will get on as well as I have.

Book 217

Heavy snow later in January causes Gran’s daughter Jane to phone her: “… to check on how I am, bless her”.  Gran learns that the snowfall has been particularly heavy in Lancashire, resulting in the cancellation of the Staff dinner at Jane’s school, and also that:

Andy’s Judy had phoned Jane from Paris and said it had snowed there and electricity had failed.  It was bitterly cold so she and her flatmate had retired to bed at seven o’clock and knitted in hats and mittens!

“Andy’s Judy had phoned Jane from Paris”. Image courtesy of Andy Brenan.

January 30th:

Post brought a surprise!  A letter from Mrs Baker, to whom I wrote some time ago (but had forgotten) in reply to a request for information about Adders, and I told her about the little red Brick Adders [sic] which were in the garden when we came in 1928, and the black one beside the Ringwood Road when Barry and Jane were children.  She was delighted with my letter and said I was one up on her as she had never seen a black Adder.

Gran had also told her of the lovely red eyes of the black Adder, which Mrs Baker, in her reply, wrote,  “… must have been quite a sight”.

Somewhat unsafe to have these beautiful creatures within reach of small children, but nevertheless, wonderful to have them in the garden!  Image by Stoutcob via Flickr.

At the Club on the afternoon of February 6th, Gran enjoys a more interesting “entertainment” than usual, writing:

Mr Gandy, of the Market Garden in Kiln Lane, talked to us about his work through the year and showed a series of slides.  Very interesting and informative.  As I have known him for many years, having gone with Bob to get Chrysanthemums for the Old Tauntonian Dinners, I was asked to give the vote of thanks.

And she is entertained too a few days later, by the television programme Mastermind in which:

… a part-time lady farmer, took as her subject the Hebridean stories of Lillian Beckwith, who was present in the audience.  I have her “The Hills is Lonely” and have read and enjoyed it many times.  It is pricelessly funny.

 

“Pricelessly funny”, says Gran.

The cold winter continues and February 11th Gran, still wedded to the Fahrenheit scale, records as “the bitterest day yet, with my bedroom windows ice-covered on the inside after the night minimum temperature had fallen to a new low of only seventeen degrees”.  She adds, “The biting easterly wind did dry the washing which I bravely hung out, though two drip-dry articles froze first”.

The weather had brought Redwings, those wintering thrushes, to Chandler’s Ford in some numbers, and Gran, walking home from the Club on the 13th, notes:

… Redwings were all along beside the Lake and, with no-one else there, I walked slowly behind one on the path and, when it flew and remained in a small tree nearby, I had an excellent view of it.

“… when it flew and remained in a small tree nearby, I had an excellent view of it”.  Image by Sue via Flickr.

Barry and Jane Elizabeth, together with Jane and Katie, are expected at The Ridge three days later, and Gran undertakes busy and tiring work to prepare for them:

… shopping, cleaning and baking towards the weekend but Ruth, bless her, made me a summer pudding for tomorrow and Jane Elizabeth rang up to say she would bring fruit and vegetables.

This afternoon I cleaned Mother’s room, first fighting to close and fix the transom window from which the arm had been removed long ago and the window had remained partly open ever since.  Alright in summer but not in this Arctic weather.  This evening I put down some carpet in “Minnie’s room” and hope to put the rug under the window tomorrow morning.  Very tired, I watched a nature programme in which, amongst other things, Tony Soper visited Slimbridge to see Bewick’s Swans and was feeding them and the ducks on “Swan Lake”, which was kept free from ice for them.  Ricky was shovelling food from the barrow in the distance.

The family visitors arrive on the 16th and on the following day, while the two Janes cook dinner, Barry, his 81-year-old Mother, and niece Katie, walk together along the Itchen, almost as far as Allbrook.  It is a lovely Winter’s day, with Fieldfares and Redwings, a Kestrel, Moorhens, Coot, a Little Grebe, Grey Wagtail and five Mute Swans, “three of them last year’s cygnets”, writes Gran, adding, “Great icicles had formed at the sides of the rushing waters between river and canal”.

As usual, Gran is left somewhat lonely and depressed on the departure of her guests.

“Post” she writes a few days later:

… brought me the cardigan of Tristan da Cunha wool which I ordered months ago and it is well worth waiting for.  White, the wool similar to Shetland, in a nice pattern with openwork triangles and a good length.  I am delighted with it and it is so nice to have Tristan-ware when the latest stamps, depicting the crafts, include one of knitting.

“… the latest stamps depicting the crafts, including one of knitting”.  Image courtesy of Andy Brenan.

Later, she calls the Harding home:  “I phoned to ask how Frank is getting on after his hip operation and I was glad to hear that he is now using only one stick and going upstairs with ease”.

The afternoon of February 23rd sees Gran enjoying a matinee in Southampton:

The coach picked me up at Kingsway for the outing to the Gaumont Theatre in Southampton to see “White Horse Inn“, performed by the Southern Theatre Productions.  It was an excellent show, very colourful indeed in an Alpine setting and lovely bright Tyrolean dresses, with quite beautiful singing and dancing.  Very enjoyable.

“This afternoon”, she writes on the 27th:

… we had our Antiques Fair at the Club and I took up my Gran’s tea caddy, the Chinese fan-shaped wall ornament and my pink drop pendant with silver chain between small pink beads and silver leaves with seed pearls on them.  Also two of Gran’s lockets.  The antique dealer who exhibited some of his goods and described and valued those the members had brought was excited with my tea caddy and described it thus: “Date 1810. Pine box, with rosewood veneer, satinwood stringing, satinwood cross-banding, lined with lead paper to keep the tea in good condition, Ormolu handles, brass ball feet and ivory escutcheon, which is a pivoted keyhole cover”.  With glass mixing bowl and one cover missing on one of the tea containers, the caddy was valued at £250.

Gran’s Chinese fan-shaped wall ornament – with a couple of other items.

The Chinese wall ornament is glass, “very beautiful” and valued at below its worth owing to the cheapness of Chinese labour, at £40 – £50.  The necklet, which surprised me, was valued at £20 – £30.  I hope these will all remain in the family for many more years!

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