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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 81)

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Farley Mount butterflies declined; the Blackbirds fledge; Pyrola minor – gone; Jane departs Chelsea College; failing to shop in Bournemouth; an unexpected meeting; cricket with Julian; Smarties from Ricky; Adrian’s Day, and how that Yellowhammer sings!

July 10th 1956.  “Just before two o’clock”, Gran writes:

…Alan Hill, the young naturalist from Ireland, who is again in England on holiday, came over to see me, and we took our tea to Farley Mount. Alan was on a motorbike, so he went on and waited for me there.

Among the commoner plants and other wildlife they note there, Gran describes passing a “flowery corner, teeming with butterflies, among them several lovely Silver-washed Fritillaries”.

“This was the area”, Dad reminds me, “which was known to the family as Pa’s Corner, strictly in Crab Wood. It is now an overgrown picnic area, and there are very few butterflies to be seen”.

Gran, in her journal, adds:

I picked a spray of Deadly Nightshade Atropa belladonna since I had promised to paint it for Maureen Toole… We enjoyed our tea among the downland flowers before climbing up to the monument, from which we had an excellent view of the Isle of Wight, bathed in brilliant sunshine, and Fawley.

Deadly Nightshade from Farley Mount – painted by Gran in 1959.

Back at The Ridge after their outing, they “talked birds until Alan left.  He is a nice lad and a very keen naturalist”, Gran says.

She notes on July 12th, that:

The four young Blackbirds were overflowing the nest this morning and much fluttering of baby wings was taking place.  Later I discovered that there were only two in the nest and was disappointed, as I had hoped to see their first flight.  The two were still there this evening and I thought the parent was trying to induce them to fly.  She was perched in one of the Birch trees calling to them, but apart from much fluttering, they refused to move.  They were there when I came upstairs to bed.

“Overflowing the nest”.  Image by Tuxdriver via Flickr.

And on this day too, Gran records what is, as far as she knows, the local extinction of a much-loved wild flower:

…I painted the Common Wintergreen Pyrola minor, which had obligingly flowered for me in the pot after I rescued it from the builders’ depredations in the Oakwood.  It remains one of my favourite flowers, and was the first I ever sent to Kew for identification – in 1928.  Now it has disappeared from this district – a victim of town and country planning!

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

The Blackbird saga continues next day, Gran writing, “I was grieved to find one of the little Blackbirds dead on the ground near the nest this morning.  The other one was still there, looking very well, but it had later flown”.

July 16th:

…a beautiful sunny day for our trip to Eastbourne to be present at Parents’ Day, at Chelsea College, Jane’s last, since she finishes her training on Wednesday 18th, and comes home next day.  I went with Tommy and Bob Fowler, and, since there was a spare seat in the car, we took Fairlie, my cousin and Jane’s Godmother.  She had stayed last night, after coming out with my Aunt, with whom she was staying with her sister, Marjorie, for a few days.

Gran is spellbound by the young performers they watch during the Open Day.  She writes:

These youngsters, whose every movement was a joy to behold, gave exhibitions of gymnastics and dancing which had to be seen to be believed; the perfect body control, the grace and poise in their dancing and the nimbleness of their movements filled me with wonder, and I was proud and grateful that Jane was one of them. And when the Principal, Miss Rogers, said that Jane had been a splendid Deputy Senior Student and she would miss her badly next year, my cup was full.

Before leaving, I went to see the Exhibition of Flowers in the Biology Laboratory and was amused to hear that Barry had named many of the grasses for them when he visited Jane yesterday.  He also named their spiders.

A tremendous thunderstorm, with heavy rain, causes Jane’s arrival home on the 18th, by car, to be delayed a little, owing to flooded roads and failing brakes.  Gran is pleased to have her daughter home, apparently after tearful farewells at Eastbourne, and finds Jane, “a little worn out with emotion tonight but she is ready for the next step – at Nottingham High School, in September”.

Jane’s first job – at Nottingham High School for Girls.  Image by Lee Haywood via Flickr.

By the evening of July 22nd, her fifty-second birthday, Gran has painted one hundred and forty-four flowers, of which, she tells us, thirty-two are orchids. She finishes Spear Thistle and Marsh Fragrant Orchid this day.

Mother and daughter do much in each other’s company around this time, often gardening, but also, on the evening of the 24th, they:

…went to Winchester to have dinner with an old school friend of my Mother’s – Nell LeLacheur, who, at eighty-two, had flown over unaccompanied, from Jersey, and was visiting friends here in England.  We dined with her at the Royal Hotel, where she is staying for a few days.

The Royal Hotel, Winchester.  Image by Lizsmith via Flickr.

And on the next day’s afternoon:

Jane and I were taken to Bournemouth – not very much in my line, but Jane thought it would be an opportunity to try for some items for next term’s teaching.  The Shopping was fruitless but the drive through the New Forest was lovely and very enjoyable, apart from the persistent headache, which still dogged me.

…Bournemouth was really rather dreadful to me, very hot, very, very crowded and oh! so noisy.  Jane and I tried several shops for what she wanted and then sat in the shade in the gardens until teatime.  I have seen plenty of exceedingly pretty dresses this year, but in Bournemouth hardly anyone seemed to be wearing them.  We saw only two that we liked.  We had a very nice tea in Bobby’s.

Gran helps the Fowlers with flowers for the Athlone Castle and the Queen Elizabeth on the 26th, and in the afternoon she delivers to the Castle ship where she has two pleasant experiences.  And I also learn that the spelling of the name of endearment that those close to her use is “Bunney” and not “Bunny”.  She writes that she was:

… pleased to take a box of flowers to a young couple whom I judged  to be setting out on a new venture, for they had already received other flowers, and their delight was infectious….I also had a surprise on board!  I delivered a box to one cabin and asked the lady if the name was correct.  Whereupon she said, “Surely it’s Bunney!”  It was!  I had not seen her for nearly thirty years but as soon as she spoke I recognized her.  I used to play tennis with her.  She had been home for a holiday and was now rejoining her husband in South Africa. She had two of her three boys with her.

Who was this friend of Gran’s? Once again Gran neglects to give someone a name!

Joan Goater nee Adamson, the 1920’s tennis player of some repute.

 

Joan and Bill Goater, in their tennis days together, on the left. Who was the pair on the right?

Having spent some time at Kingston-upon-Thames with Adrian’s mother in early August, she takes a Green Line bus to Finchley, from where she catches an Underground train to Mill Hill East. There, she:

…received a gleeful welcome from Julian, and, after initial shyness, an affectionate and friendly one from Ricky as well.  Julian and I played “cricket” until lunch was ready  – a somewhat exhausting pastime for Granny!

She continues:

This afternoon we went for a walk across the fields.  Swallows were flying round and Yellowhammers singing.  A pair of Whitethroats chattered in the hedge. When we reached the cricket field, I played again with Julian whilst Ricky ran to and fro bringing us chocolate beans (Smarties) and putting them in our mouths.  Dear little people.

“A-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeeese” – A Yellowhammer in song.  Image by Nicholls of the Yard via Flickr.

After tea, it’s the Underground again, to Waterloo, and the crowded half-past seven train to Winchester, in which she manages to find a seat and she says she “…sank down very thankfully to cool off and relax after the dreadful din and stuffiness of the Underground.  I was sorry to leave the children but it had been so good to see them again”.  Dad, Gran mentions, is not at Mill Hill this time: he’s camping in Chester with the school RAF cadets, but we are given no news of Mum (Jock).

August 3rd, Gran calls “Adrian’s Day”; it is his birthday, and as is her wont on this date, she cycles to Compton Down to be alone with her thoughts.  First, though, she has more mundane tasks, recording, “After shopping I went to Mr Woods for vegetables and also bought some flowers to put in my room for Adrian today, blue Scabious and pink Pyrethrums with dainty pink flamingo Gypsophila”.

She notes Creeping Watercress flowering in Kingsway, and a pair of Spotted Flycatchers in Hurdle Way as she cycles to Compton.  She finds a quiet spot on the Downs to write, as usual, evocatively describing the scene for the man she wishes was there with her:

Beloved, once again it is your birthday, your forty-fourth, and I have come to Memory Down to write to you.  It is nine years since I first came and I have been lucky with today’s weather.  It is very cloudy, even threatening in places, but at the moment, a pale sun is shining and all is peace up here.  A Yellowhammer, symbolic of the English countryside, is singing and Swifts fly low in the valley.  Harvesting is late this year, for there has been much rain of late, and at present the valley fields are untouched.  No corn has attained the deep gold of ripeness – the oats barely touched with yellow, the barley still sandy and the wheat only faintly golden.

How that Yellowhammer sings!  A distant field is splashed with scarlet – poppies, no doubt, and a bonfire is sending up clouds of white smoke from a garden in the village.  Things have changed her recently, dear; much fencing has been done, and the pretty hedgerows cut back.  Downland flowers abound in the field behind me, but entry is barred, though I can see them so close to me.  I do not altogether blame the farmer, for cars had begun to come right up here and even to park, uninvited, within the fields, and wherever Man rests, litter remains.  But I enjoy coming myself, and hope that I shall not be debarred from this pleasure. It is quite silent except for that Yellowhammer, the whisper of wind in the grass and an occasional outburst of clucking from hens in the distant farmyard.

Chalkhill Blues are out, and rise up as I walk through the grass.  I have found a few tiny Frog Orchids, some of them quite fresh, and, in searching for them, signs tell me that Rabbits are not extinct up here.  Ringlets, too, rise from the grass, but it is not a day to tempt butterflies to gay flight. Now I see one or two Marbled Whites and yes! I have surprised a Hare crossing the path as I emerge from the hedgerow.

“Chalkhill Blues are out”.  Image by Hornbeam Arts via Flickr.

I have just gathered a posy of favourite wild flowers, Knapweed, Scabious, Toadflax, Valerian, Wild Carrot, Earthnut, Bedstraw, Clustered Bellflower and Agrimony, to name only a few… The flies have found me and are making things difficult, and, in any case, I suppose I ought to be going home, but it is so peaceful and beautiful here.  Even when the news is disquieting as it is today, with the trouble over the Suez Canal, war seems far away, and it is sad to think that it might come again in the world.

The Bank Holiday on August 6th, Gran says, “is thoroughly wet early, with thunder rumbling in the distance”.  She and Jane, finding the weather clearer by early afternoon, go to Romsey Horse Show, held in the grounds of Broadlands but renewed heavy rain sends them home again, early, Gran recounting that evening that, “…it was as well we did!  We had not been long at home, when Barry and family arrived!  They had been going to camp at Beaulieu Road, but thought the weather too unsettled”.

The weather worsens and a tremendous storm rages that evening, a lightning strike putting out the lights “all over the district”.  Barry, Jock and the children, visiting for a fortnight, take their meals at The Ridge, but, Gran writes, “sleeping at Jock’s old home, since I have not enough room with Jane at home also…  The children are good little boys and very sweet… Barry is delighted to be in Chandler’s Ford again”.

Book 60

Barry and the family stay in Chandler’s Ford until August 20th. Gran delights in their presence.  She writes of Julian on August 9th, (having spent the morning, as she often does, helping Fowlers’ florists with shipping orders – the United States, Mauretania and Oranje this time) that “The afternoon was uneventful apart from the time spent with Julian, who becomes dearer to me every time I see him.  I pray most sincerely that he may be spared the horrors of war”.  The effects of the last two great conflicts are surely still clear in her mind and for her there is, perhaps, nothing more heart-rending than imagining the loved next generation caught up in such a catastrophe.

She is despondent at the end of the following day, finding that her efforts earlier in the season to protect the flowering “pale lady”, as she called the orchid of such interest to Mr Summerhayes last Summer, has been in vain:

This evening Barry asked me to go to Hursley with him to show him the albino Epipactis leptochila, which I was delighted to do, but, alas, not only had it been picked since I saw it and took so much trouble to hide it from view from the road, but it had been pulled right up, so I fear it is lost for ever. How very sad!

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