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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 180)

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Gran has a difficult time; support from all quarters; a memento from Tommy’s tree; letters to Auntie Bunnie; Grampa – a lovely, cheerful patient; solace in the garden; a simple Funeral Service; a family Christmas; Paul brings gifts, and a wedding to look forward to.

Difficulties at home continue for Gran.  Grampa is increasingly frail and unwell, more or less confined to bed and needing daily nursing care, and, Gran says on November 1st 1986 , “The plumber came and cleared the airlock in the downstairs hot water tap and is coming to deal with the overflow pipe in the toilet and the leak under the sink”.  Jane Elizabeth has been a wonderful support for Gran, her Mother-in-law, at this time but she needs to return to Bushey on the 2nd and Gran is sorry to see her go, writing also:

She meant to leave me half of the large brown loaf she bought yesterday but forgot.  She phoned from Winchester Station to say she had left it in the grit bin by the Hiltingbury Road bus stop and luckily, Cousin Bill Worsfold came at 11 a.m. so I was able to go and get it while he was here with Bill.

Gran has mentioned several of her husband’s relatives or friends lately, as they visit Grampa at The Ridge, but we are not always enlightened as to their relationships to him.  There is not only Bill Worsfold, but also Cousin Ray, who has often provided transport for Grampa; Anthony (a nephew) and his wife Hazel; Joan and Ken Birch (“Bill’s half-sister and her husband”, Gran writes), and Joan and Alastair McKenzie (“Joan is his Cousin”, Gran tells us).

“I made a bad beginning with tummy ache after I had taken Bill his breakfast and was sick just as nurse came to the front door”, she writes on November 4th, continuing:

I called that I was coming but I look so ghastly when this happens, she was very concerned and made me sit down and made me a cup of tea.  I assured her that I do this occasionally but soon feel perfectly alright.  After attending to Bill she took my pulse and blood pressure, both of which were perfectly normal, which is reassuring!  Ruth came in, with a stick, because she saw me looking to see if she were about.  She has broken and chipped ribs!

Joan and Alastair came early this afternoon and whilst they were talking to me, we heard a thump and Bill had fallen.  Alastair picked him up and got him back into bed!

The following day sees Grampa taken by ambulance to the South Hants Hospital in Southampton, because he has lost all feeling from the waist down.  There is much concern throughout the Family and amongst close friends.  Bob Fowler and his daughter Jill visit Gran to give moral support, and Gran is delighted to receive from them, “… some very gorgeous red Maple leaves from Tommy’s favourite tree”.  She presses them within the journal.  Further support is provided by Barry on the 6th, who, given the beauty of the day, suggests a drive up to Farley Mount, where Gran delights in the beautiful colours, especially of the fruiting Spindles there.

“… red maple leaves from Tommy’s favourite tree.”

Also between the pages of her journal here, we find a rather lovely letter, addressed to “Aunty Bunnie”, from Mary, the wife of John, Tommy and Bob’s Son.  John was a Medical Officer with Cathay Pacific.  Mary writes of Tommy’s illness and of her and John’s recent movements between Hampshire and Hong Kong, where they live, and also this, concerning Tommy:

She was very dear to me.  I know in the beginning it was very hard for her to accept me.  I know in those days it was not a thing for an Englishman to marry a foreigner, but she accepted me and never made me unwelcome in her home.  She was a Mother to me and I like to think that I became a third daughter to her.

Mary was Burmese.

Book 228

In mid-November Gran receives another post-funeral letter, this time from Jill, Tommy and Bob’s elder daughter and her husband, Dennis.  Again, it’s to “Dearest Auntie Bunnie” and Gran quotes from it:

These are sad and difficult times for all the family, as well we know, but how good it is to have one’s dearest and closest to share the heartache.  Their love and friendship is invaluable.  Take great care of yourself – we need your natural ability to see the threads of beauty in life again.

Gran has trouble finding the “threads of beauty” on one particular day around this time though:

So-called tree surgeons came to cut off the top of Griffin’s Japanese Oak and the branch overhanging my shrubbery.  I told them not to let it fall on my Azaleas and was furious when they let it split off instead of a clean cut and broke one of the yellow Azaleas right down the middle.  The chief man said he was sorry but I told him that wasn’t much good… There was an awful mess in the shrubbery.

Family members of all the generations, and many friends visit and enquire after an increasingly weak but good-spirited Grampa in hospital these days, and preparations are made to move him to The Moorings, a care home in Chandler’s Ford.  However, it becomes clear that he is likely to have only a few days to live and the hospital medical staff say he cannot safely be moved.  Whilst awaiting this sad but inevitable news, Gran’s daughter Jane receives equally unhappy tidings, and she phones Gran to say that her Mother-in-law had died early in the morning of November 24th, and Gran writes, “Jane was just going to Windermere to be with Oswald, to whom I wrote expressing our sympathy on Muriel’s passing”.

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

The evening of November 27th is busy with phone calls and arrangements being made for a number of visits to Grampa, including one from Barry to say that he would be arriving at The Ridge in the morning, but:

At 7.30 Barry rang again to say that his Dad had just died peacefully in his sleep.  Ruth had taken James [her son] to see him earlier this evening and had not been able to waken him.  I am glad he did not go on suffering.  I rang the Hospital and the nurse told me he was a lovely, cheerful patient and the end was very peaceful indeed. I thanked her for all the lovely care they had given him.  Ruth came in to be with me and looked after me.

For some days afterwards there is much rallying round of the family, phone calls made and received, offers of support by a huge range of people, and letters and cards of condolence arrive in the Post.  Gran and Gramp, we know, lived rather sadly separate lives, often irritating each other, but Gran clearly finds this a sad and stressful time, and gains her usual solace in natural things, noting, for example, the golden orb of the sun shining through the branches of the Pine Tree in the garden, and on another occasion, “A Treecreeper was going up the trunk of the Pine Tree and a Jay came into the garden later”, and also, “A Great Spotted Woodpecker flew from the Shrubbery to the Pine Tree and ascended the trunk”.  She seems to have spent a lot of time looking at that Pine Tree!

” A Treecreeper was going up the trunk of the Pine Tree”  Image by Phil McIver via Flickr.

December 4th is the day of the funeral, “A dreary day weatherwise and one of mixed emotions for me”, writes Gran, continuing:

The first part of the morning was occupied with putting things ready for the coming of family…  Geoff arranged the dishes and the table most beautifully.  Jane, Katie and Andy were the next to arrive, then Julian, Sue, Sam and Anna.

The Rev. Williams conducted a simple, lovely Service and all the family except Rob was able to come.  I hate cremation and felt upset but received splendid support all round.

I did not know most of the extra men, possibly Masons and Old Tauntonians, except “Jackie” Mitchener, who, at five years old, was my “special” at school when I was in my teens.  About forty came back here afterwards.

Afterwards, when almost everybody has left, she writes, “All the family were so pleased to meet each other, some for the first time.  I watched a little television with Katie and then Emmerdale Farm alone, then quietly reading the papers”.

William Cecil Goater – “Grampa”: not a happy marriage with Joan Adelaide but much loved within the family.  He had a lovely Hampshire accent and a gentle sense of humour.

Gran receives more support over the next weeks.  Her Home Help, Mrs Hayward, is very much appreciated and Gran writes on December 9th that she:

… did the washing and some cleaning.  I gave her two jackets, a cardigan, some shirts and socks for her husband.  Sister Yvonne, one of the nurses who helped me to look after Bill here until he went into Hospital, called in to see me this morning and chatted for some time.

And, two days later, after a bus journey to Winchester to organise a Railcard and ticket for Preston:

I had not been home long when Dr Charlewood called in to see how I was and had a long talk with me.  He was very interested in the length of time I had lived here and what my interests were.  I told him I was alright and would get by, and he said I was strong-minded and unlikely to go under but to remember where he was if I need him at any time.

And again, on December 15th:

Early this afternoon the representative of the Pirelli’s Pension Fund called to see me about the part pension of Bill’s which has been transferred to me and said he would help me with the Income Tax if I wished.  I am pretty sure I shall appreciate his help.

Gran’s Christmas is spent with Family at Longton, and they attend a Carol Service there on the 21st.  Gran records that the Service was very enjoyable and the Church was “packed”, and also, it:

… was entirely lit by candles, including two on pedestals at the end of every two lines of pews.  Unfortunately some of these were crooked and the melted wax from some of them fell onto folk in the end pews.  Some of this fell on Katie’s hair.

On the next day they all visit the Wildfowl Trust Centre at Martin Mere, “which was very lovely and interesting”, Gran writes.  The highlight for her, of this trip, was large flocks of Pink-footed Geese “amongst a huge concentration of ducks, and parties flying in all the time”.

At Martin Mere – “Large flocks of Pink-footed Geese”.  Image by Stephen Gidley via Flickr.

Christmas Day begins with a Midnight Service and the family arrives home afterwards at 1.15 a.m.  “After putting the presents round the tree and having a cup of Horlicks we retired”, says Gran.

Presents are opened first when everyone has risen and then Gran writes, “After all this excitement the real work of Christmas Day began:

… with the arrival of Judy’s parents, Grandpa and young Brother David, for dinner.  Jane, with help with preparations, provided a most excellent traditional Christmas Dinner, which everyone enjoyed, and the young people washed up.  Andy’s best friend, Nick McCarthy, who had played the piano in the [Hutton Grammar] School Quartet with Andy and another flute, and a Cello, had made music his career.  At present, besides having pupils, he plays in London Hotels and hopes to do so at the Savoy.  He entertained us with some of his repertoire.

Boxing Day brings a drive to the Ribble Marshes to look for winter birds, and to Formby, to see Red Squirrels.  Katie remains at home, waiting expectantly for her boyfriend Paul, recently returned from a trip to California.  “We were home at 4.15”, writes Gran:

… and Paul arrived soon afterwards.  He had brought Katie a red Christmas stocking with her name on it topped with a delightful little Teddy Bear wearing a tee shirt with a heart and “I love you” on it, perfume and a lovely little diamond and pearl pendant.  To Jane he gave a pair of African salad servers with elephants carved on the handles and, very surprisingly, a box of chocolates for me.

Jane, having made up a packed lunch for her Mother, takes her to catch the 12.53 Winchester train at Preston, where their parting is somewhat stressful.  Gran explains:

Unfortunately there was a great queue of cars trying to get into the carpark, so Jane dropped me and my luggage at a pedestrian crossing near the station and said she would join me on the platform in time for the train.  I managed to carry my luggage down the many steps and get into my carriage and find my reserved seat.  I hung out of the window until the train moved out at 1.5 but no Jane had appeared.

Once back at The Ridge, having been collected and delivered by Ruth Kingston, Gran writes, “I immediately phoned Jane who, as I expected, was very distressed and worried about my coping alone, but very relieved to know I was safely home”.  Much post awaits her attention, including, she says, “… a bottle of Sherry from the Masonic Lodge, which always sends Christmas presents to its widows!”

December 31st 1986 brings to a close forty years of Gran’s journal, dedicated to Adrian Turvey, her friend from Kingston-upon-Thames, who died on January 12th 1947 and whom she never met.  As usual, she sums up the past 12 months in a letter to him, saying first, of the journal, “It has been a continuing comfort and inspiration to me over the years”.  And then, of the year itself:

This has been a strange mixture of anxiety, pleasure and pride for me.  Anxiety and some difficulty throughout with Bill’s illness, pleasure in the visits to and from Barry and Jane and unforgettable outings… Pride in the achievements of Katie and Andy, both graduated in their respective Degrees… The Family has been a tower of strength to me in my difficulties and I dare to look forward to good times in 1987, the outstanding event for me being the Wedding of Andy and Judy on August 8th.

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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 164) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 171) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 172) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 177) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 178)
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Comments

  1. Thanks for this wonderful labor of love. It has been such a pleasure to share your grandmother’s life, and to meet your family and vicariously enjoy the natural history
    and human history Joan wrote about! I will miss these journals!

    Reply

  2. Hello Rick, I look forward to reading the “winding up” episodes, and will surely miss these remarkable accounts of your Gran’s life, and interests. Thank you so much for making them available to us.

    Reply

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