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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 57)

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A poor fruit crop this year;  12 years’ work at Pinewood Gardens comes to an end; some new Hampshire plants; a muddy situation along Southampton Water and the Dominion Monarch’s  special place in Gran’s heart.

Gran has already mentioned that the blackberry crop is particularly poor this year, 1953, and the same appears to be true of the apple crop.  She writes on September 16th, that she spends time in the Pinewood Gardens apple shed:

…clearing up and laying out the Green Blenheims, a poor crop, covering only half of one shelf with one layer, instead of being heaped right up.  It is a bad apple year here, for there are no Bramley Seedlings or American Mothers, and only a few Russets and Newton Wonders.  One tree of Lemon Pippins is fairly well covered but I have not seen the Christmas Pearmains or the Worcester Pearmains.  There were no Beauty of Bath and no Gladstones.  Three baskets comprised the bulk of the Grenadiers and there are only a few of the Early Victorias at the top of one tree.  I have not searched but I can see no Lanes from the end of the greenhouse, and there is only one Maltster.  I have never known a worse year since I have been working at Pinewood Gardens.  There simply was not the blossom in spring – the frost in May had nothing to do with it. Plums were the same.

Gran is depressed at this time, noting that “it is scarcely a week to the time of Jane’s departure to Chelsea College and my heart is heavy at the thought of the house without her as well as Barry.  You, beloved,” she continues, addressing Adrian:

…once wrote and spoke to me of this time…”and what of the future without the presence beside you of the children you love and to whom you have devoted so much of your time?”  And I replied that I never permitted myself to think of the future since I knew that without them life would be empty indeed.

With Jane, on September 9th, Gran listens to “Last Night of the Proms”, with Sir Malcolm Sargent as usual, revelling in the patriotism engendered by Elgar’s music and by the singing of “Land of Hope and Glory”, which, she says, “inevitably created whole gaggles of geese, as Jane expresses it, down our spines”.

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

The 21st is a Monday, and Gran, as is her custom, takes tea with Mary Harding.  She was particularly keen to be there this day:

…as Jill had a nasty accident last week, falling heavily from her bicycle, and I was anxious to hear how she was.  She had been taken to hospital but was home again, not seriously damaged fortunately, but sadly bruised, particularly about her poor little face.  But she was cheerful and it was good to find her at home again.

Exciting plant news arrives from Kew on the 23rd.  Gran had sent two flowers there a few days ago picked, with Barry and Jock, in the vicinity of the Epipactis leptochila at Nursling, and she hoped the latter would prove to be more specimens of that species.  However, she tells us that both plants are new for her Hampshire list, which now stands at five hundred and ninety-eight:

The Ragwort was Senecio erucifolius (Narrow-leaved Ragwort) and the Helleborine the rare Epipactis vectensis (Isle of Wight Helleborine).  The species was first discovered on the Isle of Wight in 1917 near Ventnor, but it has not been seen there since.

Very small and short-lived colonies have been found in other counties since then, but it is truly rare.  Gran writes, “It was, indeed, an exciting find”.

Barry comes home on ten days’ leave this day, Gran records:

He has been awarded his Fighter Command colours for athletics and has a most imposing badge for his tracksuit.  One achievement of which he may be proud during his National Service!

Crossbills continue to be seen in small numbers in Chandler’s Ford, but Norris writes to Gran on the 25th having counted between 150 and 200 of them in an “enclosure off the Lyndhurst – Beaulieu Road Station Road.  He says they were a grand sight”.  1953 is clearly one of their occasional “irruption years”, when continental birds flood into the UK.

The Black Rustic.  Image by Ben Sale via Flickr.

And Dad is pleased to record a Black Rustic moth at his light – only his second in Chandler’s Ford, this usually being a Northern species, Gran tells us although, today at least, it is common in the south.

More plants, including the rare little umbellifer, Slender Hare’s-ear Bupleurum tenuissimum are added to Gran’s list on September 27th, during a BNA field trip to Hythe, Dibden and other parts of tidal Southampton Water, organised by Gran but led by Barry, with Jock.  Julian was left with Jock’s mother for the day.  The Goaters have become somewhat notorious over the years for leading their friends and family into mud, water and other difficult places on such trips, and this proved to be the case here!  Gran records many good bird and plant sightings and experiences on this outing but her description of the stress of managing a wayward group of naturalists is the main part of this story.

Slender Hare’s-ear.  A little annual plant, which likes disturbed coastal sites.  Image from Dr Mary Gilliam Archive Project via Flickr.

“We joined five other members, and more were coming from Guildford, Aldershot and Warsash later”, writes Gran, already suffering one of her migraines, and:

We encountered our first snag soon after we started to walk along the shore, though the tide, as had been hoped, was out. One of the lady members, quite inadequately shod for such an outing, put her foot right into the mud and forthwith abandoned the attempt and decided to return to Hythe.  I went on until I was sure of the direction before returning to collect the late-comers.  It was at this point that things went very awry.  I went back to meet the rest of the party, who came in two cars, and Barry had suggested that, as the mud was more awkward than anticipated, we could go round by the road and then cut down across the fields and join them on the sea wall.  This was all very well in theory but the only turning we could find came to a dead end at Army property and enquiries led us to Cracknore Hard at Marchwood – a good five miles from Hythe and with no access to the sea wall.

The wrong footware for such a situation – often a problem for me during my working life when escorting school groups around estuaries.  Image by William Beutler via Flickr.

Returning, we tried another turning but this one merely took us round in a circle and back onto the same road again.  By this time I was thoroughly embarrassed and the top if my head feeling that it would burst open at any moment.  At Dibden our hopes rose, for there, on the sea wall, beyond the fields and the railway, we could see Barry, Jock and another member quite clearly through binoculars.  Enquiry however, revealed that we could not cross these fields, and all the lanes of access which Barry had previously used were now all wired up, so we returned to Hythe.

A narrow footpath led us once again to the shore, but still with a large tract of mud to negotiate before reaching the wall, and the tide was coming in.  I was now nearly distracted and desperately hungry, and my food was about four miles away with Barry and Jock!  At length I found a way to the sea wall along the fields belonging to an hôtel, obviously well-used by other venturers, but Mr Hebditch said he was sure the ladies would not try it.  In the end, the whole party remained where they were and I, thoroughly hot and upset, set out alone to reach Jock and Barry and… some lunch.

I seemed to walk alone for hours on that sea wall, with no-one in sight now, and the rising tide seeming to make very real my chief nightmare, which assails me when I am overtired at night – water rising and rising all around me until there seems no path left!  In spite of my discomfort and anxiety I found a new plant for my Hampshire list, the Artemisia maritima (Sea Wormwood). At long last I heard a familiar call, and there was Jock, waving violently, and anxiously hurrying along to meet me.  I was so glad to see her and soon recovered spirits and energy after having some lunch.

Sea Wormwood.  Image from Dr Mary Gilliam Archive Project via Flickr.

After lunch Mr Southwell and Paul Bowman went back to Hythe to try to persuade the rest of the party to join us, following the way I had come…Relieved now of responsibility towards the other members, I was determined to enjoy the rest of the day as much as my head would allow.

The rest of the party was not seen again that day, but much to Gran’s relief, she receives a letter the following day from Mr Hebditch, on behalf of his group, hoping that she was not worrying about their inability to join up with hers!

October 4th:

This afternoon I went to Winchester to see the Roman mosaic floor which had been uncovered during excavations.  I found a small crowd of interested spectators round the Roman site, where Miss Bennet-Clark, daughter of the Professor of Botany at Kings College, London, was at work, together with two others.  A few relics were unearthed as I watched, but all only fragments, but the floor, though incomplete, is beautiful in places and a good example of Roman art.  Parts are large square tiles, but much is mosaic, tiny red and white stones in a design typical of the time.  I would have liked some more information but excavation is incomplete as yet.

There is a hint the next day, that Gran’s life is about to change significantly. We already know that both her children will be away soon, often a very hard thing for a parent to bear, and she writes now that she works disconsolately in the Pinewood Gardens:

…for I had been told that since Miss Cope must have permanent help in the house as her chances of walking again are slender, and, with things as they are this year, two of us could not be employed, I should have to leave.  A few weeks ago, with migraine and arthritis very bad, I rather wanted the opportunity of leaving, but I could not desert Miss Cope in her need of help.  Now that it has come I do not want it, for I must do something to give me a little [cash] with which to do as I like, and I do not want to work for strangers.

Whilst working on the border, Miss Cope came down in her wheelchair with me, talking all the time about what she hoped to do with it next year – talking fast for her, and, whilst I knew it was only to hide her feelings (for we are good friends and I have worked over twelve years for her) I would much rather have been left alone.

I went to tea, as usual on Monday, with Mary, and felt better for the family’s ready sympathy with my troubles.  What a blessing friends are!

And next day:

I watered the Arum Lilies, in the greenhouse at Pinewood Gardens for the last time, rather sadly, for I have become attached to them in spite of the somewhat heavy task of carrying so much water to them during the Winter months.

On her way to the General Meeting of the Southampton Natural History Society that evening, Gran drops in on “Tommy” Fowler, Bob’s wife:

…who wants me to do some gardening for her and told me that Bob would like me to help him at least one day each week, so I shall not be out of a job when I leave Miss Cope.

The Society meeting interests Gran after the “rather tedious work of the General Meeting”, various members showing exhibits, including some of coral from India and South Africa, local fungi, unusual dark varieties of Scarlet Tiger moths, and an “outstanding” talk with exhibits by Councillor Stevenson, on Geology.  Gran has a part to play too:

When all the other members had spoken, I read to them my account of the B.E.N.A. outing to the Jefferies’ Country, and, though rather prolonged, it gripped their attention from beginning to end and several of them said how very much they had enjoyed it.  I was glad I had gathered sufficient courage to read it.

She works in the Fowler’s garden the very next day, enjoying it because the garden “is secluded, and orderly and only routine work is necessary – cutting away dead blooms, tying up, weeding and such, and nowhere is it overrun with anything particularly noxious”.  Unfortunately, Gran is deeply disappointed next day when, she tells us, the Fowlers break the news to her that they cannot, after all, promise her two days work each week “as the slack time is approaching”:

… so it was with a heavy heart that I cycled home to a dark, cold and lonely house, feeling utterly hopeless, for without the small, regular sum each week all the little pleasures that I have been able to give others and enjoy myself must be extremely rare.

October 9th is Gran’s last day at Pinewood Gardens and she sums up her feelings thus:

It was with mixed feelings that I finally left Pinewood Gardens…relief, in a way, since for long I have felt it a hopeless task and I was getting very weary and dreading the Winter’s rigours, but also rather sadly for it has made life easier for me, particularly during and since that disastrous Winter of 1947 when I felt utterly desolate.  True, the future looms equally desolate, particularly since Barry and Jane are away from home, but acceptance of my heart’s unending pain has made it easier to bear…

Shaw Savill and Albion’s Dominion Monarch at Southampton in 1960.  Image by William Davies via Flickr.

There is hard work at the Fowlers’ shop on the 15th, and, amongst other tasks, Gran unpacks fresh Carnations “for tomorrow, when I have promised to help again, since already there is a huge number of orders for the Dominion Monarch, which arrives at eleven o’clock in the morning and sails at one o’clock, giving us barely two hours to deliver all to their respective cabins”.  This is a special ship for Gran.  She writes this on the 16th:

I went down to the dock to help with delivery…and found the “Monarch” a delightful vessel.  Also, I had a personal and special interest in her because she belongs to the Shaw Savill Line, with which my dear father was connected, and, soon after his retirement in 1939 he saw her off on her maiden voyage, her Chief Engineer being his late Second, Mr Reid, who sent Jane the brochures about the ship.  Poor Daddy, after over forty years at sea, died before the “Dominion Monarch” returned from this voyage, barely three months after retiring.  Now, today, fourteen years later, I walked along her alleyways and into her staterooms and cabins, and my Father seemed very near to me…He was the greatest lover I ever knew and with a romantic heart to the end.  I adored him as a child.

Percy Adamson – known simply by his initials “Pa” in the family.

Article series

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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 75) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 81) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 84) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 99) Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 120)
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