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Forty Years in Chandler’s Ford – a Journal (Part 82)

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Suez weighs heavily on the mind; life settles into a routine; Jill Fowler is engaged; a visit to the Masonic Hospital; Hoopoes in Hampshire; a film about Minsmere; a new hat and coat; mouth-watering Scottish birds; some Compton history and farewell to Fin.

On August 16th 1956, Gran writes, “The London conference on Suez commenced today and I can only pray as I do every night”. She then offers up a long prayer, including these words, still appropriate today, “Send thy light into our darkness and guide the nations as one family into the ways of peace.  Take away all hatred, prejudice and fear…”.

The destructive effects of international conflict weigh heavily on Gran’s mind at this time and some weeks later, when the night-time house is silent after a visit from Jane, she writes, “…it is good to know that she is happy again [following the death of her friend Robin Eastwood] and started on her career – please God the anxious state of the World does not culminate in war and render everything futile”.

As I approach the halfway mark in the journals in my possession her life now appears to be settling into a routine, with less of interest and fewer new experiences to write up.  The weather is recorded every day.  Quarterly visits are made to Kingston-upon-Thames and Compton Church is attended every Sunday. She continues regularly to tend the Fowlers’ garden in Bassett, and to prepare flowers at their florists’ shop for the liners leaving Southampton Docks.  Painting new flowers for her collection of watercolours takes up much of her time, and she continues to have tea with her great friends, “my Harding family”, as she calls them, on Tuesday evenings.

Her migraines are still problematic, indeed, increasing in frequency again, and though medication takes the edge off them, the pills leave her good for little more than resting, when she takes them.  Gran uses every opportunity she can to cycle, or to take buses, to her favourite wild areas, particularly the New Forest, the Meon Valley and the Downs, occasionally with her friend Hazel Bidmead.  She, sometimes with “Brother” and Fin, attends Southampton Natural History Society outings, occasionally to less familiar places, such as, in early September, to Highcliffe and Barton, where geology is the theme for the day.  She meticulously records all she finds in the way of flowers, moths and birds but these are generally much the same from trip to trip.

There is still no television in the house, but on the neighbours’ or Tommy and Bob’s sets she enjoys tennis and wildlife programmes, particularly “Look” with Peter Scott, and classical music on the wireless continues to give her much pleasure.  She still plays tennis, writing, for instance, on August 31st, “This afternoon we went to play tennis on a grass court, which I much prefer to hard courts, and played six setts, three before tea and three after!  Whoever would imagine that I am twice a Grandmother”!

Jill Fowler, Tommy and Bob’s eldest girl, is shortly to be married, and on September 5th, Gran records: “Jane and I went to Southampton this morning to buy a wedding present and an engagement gift for Jill Fowler, who became engaged on Monday. It rained all the time and we were glad to get home”.  On the following day, at Fowlers’, “Jill came in with her fiancé and his parents, on their way to see the ships, and she came and took me by the hand to introduce me to them.  A sweet girl and a very nice boy, Dennis. I hope they will be very happy.

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

On the 15th she writes of a place with which she will become more familiar in twenty years’ time, when she undergoes hip replacement surgery:

I went to London for the day, to see over the Masonic Hospital, with a party from Southampton. We had an ample and very appetizing lunch of roast beef followed by fruit and custard – and preceded by soup – at the Victoria Hotel at Staines.

It is a truly magnificent building with plenty of large windows and verandas for patients able to sit out.   Although fully equipped and well occupied, it seems more like a hotel than a hospital and is the least depressing Institution of its kind that I have ever seen. We were given a very nice tea after seeing the Nurses’ Home, in which there is everything for the comfort and relaxation of these hard-working souls.

“More like a hotel than a hospital”.  Image by Steve Cadman via Flickr.

And on the 16th, she writes with some envy:

An article in today’s “Observer” by Bruce Campbell reveals the exciting news that Hoopoes have bred in a Hampshire village this summer.  How I wish that I could have seen them!  Still it is good to know that this remarkable bird has been in my county this year.

And she continues that day, “Jane and I spent most of the afternoon packing for her departure to Nottingham tomorrow…” And as Jane leaves, soon after nine o’clock the following day, “There is an emptiness now – my last baby is fully-fledged and away to live her own life. I shall miss her so much, but I only want her to be happy”.

She learns, a month later, where the Hoopoes nested, telling us:

From the local newspaper I find that I was not very far out in my guess as to where the Hoopoes bred in Hampshire this Summer.  I said Mottisfont or Stockbridge and, in fact, it was Middle Wallop, near Stockbridge.  The nest was in a hole in the wall of a barn and there was one chick, which had hatched in June, and which, from all accounts was lucky to be reared safely. After the nest had been watched for some time, the chick fell down a rat hole but was rescued and put in a cage, which was hung near the nest.  The parents fed the youngster through the bars of the cage and it was set free when it was able to fly, and departed at the appointed time, for a warmer clime. The bird had been found by a Wallop gardener, Mr Fred Allen, and later watched over by a former Commandant in the W.R.A.C., Colonel Macfie.

The Hoopoe – a regular visitor to the UK in small numbers but a very rare breeder here.  Image by Sergey Yeliseev via Flickr.

Gran is clearly trying to encourage in young Timothy Harding an interest in Natural History.  She has taken him “into the field” several times recently, and on October 2nd he goes with her to the Natural History Society’s first indoor meeting of the year.  She details the evening, “a particularly interesting one for we had a lecturer from the RSPB, and three films were shown …” She describes the first, which was:

…of Havergate Island during the disastrous floods of last year, and showed what followed the breaching of the sea-wall by an exceptionally high tide whipped up by a raging gale.  It must have been quite terrifying and, not only were human lives lost, but many cattle and sheep were lost as well.  In addition to this, it flooded to a depth of ten feet, the only known nesting site of the recently returned Avocets, for so long absent from Britain… it was less than two weeks to the date of their probable return last year when the flood occurred.  But a band of willing workers, headed by the wardens and including Army, Air Force and American Air Force volunteers, worked day and night to repair the sea wall with sandbags and drain away the water.  Eventually, two days before the first Avocets arrived, early, six pumps were employed and the saltings re-appeared with the shallow lagoons so beloved of these beautiful waders.

Gran adds that the workers were well-rewarded, as seventy-nine pairs of Avocet bred there, hatching over two-hundred and twenty chicks, but is sad that, probably owing to the depredations of Great Black-backed Gulls, only one in eight of these chicks survived.

Well-equiped for predating Avocet chicks – a Great Black-backed Gull. Image by Leon van der Noll via Flickr.

Book 61

Gran receives a letter on October 29th:

…from the “Inner Wheel” of Eastleigh asking me to give a talk on Wild Flowers. [It] brought me much surprise, particularly as I know nothing of the Inner Wheel and am quite terrified at the idea of public speaking, but the subject is dear to my heart so I expect I shall do it!

Earlier that day Jane, home from Nottingham, had taken her mother into Southampton for a treat:

…and with great relish, bought me a very expensive and exceedingly nice tweed raincoat, in a soft red shade, with hat to match.  I must say that I felt quite overwhelmed at such a gift from one who, such a short while ago, was my baby, but it is a beautiful, warming thought that she wanted to spend so much of her first wages on her Mother.

November 5th, the evening of which Gran never looks forward to:

…the news was better – hopes of a “cease-fire” in Egypt – but the silence of the evening was rent by the usual cacophony of crashes and bangs which make the night of November fifth, hideous for many of us.

At a meeting of the Natural History Society on the 6th, Gran is pleased to report that Antony Harding is elected a Junior Member – and she is elected Vice-President.  After an evening of “Any Questions”, Gran returns Anthony to his home in Crescent View (the first time she has mentioned where the Hardings live) and, not for the first time, “Mary gave me a dainty supper before I left, which was much appreciated”.

Another “Look” programme, viewed on the Fowlers’ television, is described with great enthusiasm on the 7th, since it shows a suite of unfamiliar British birds that Gran would love to see, and no doubt, one day will.  It was, she says:

…introduced by James Fisher in the absence of Peter Scott, who is in Australia.  The subject was Highland Birds, and we  saw some wonderful pictures of Golden Eagle, Buzzards, Dotterels, Corncrakes, Red- and Black-throated Divers and Slavonian Grebes as well as some of the more familiar seashore species.

Did Gran ever make it to a Scottish mountain-top to see a Dotterel?  Image by Keith Murdock via Flickr.

“Brother and Fin came down from London for the weekend”, reports Gran on November 17th, but she is somewhat saddened, continuing:

This will be Fin’s last weekend with us for some time, since she has almost finished her London training and returns to Dublin early in December.  It will be strange without her visits – she has become very dear to me.

At the end of a long day bird-watching on Farlington Marshes, Gran says her goodbyes:

I went to the station later to see Brother and Fin on to the train at Southampton for London and it was with real regret that I said “goodbye” to Fin, for she has become like one of the family and endeared herself to us all.  As he kissed me she gave me a small parcel, which proved to be “The Observer’s Book of British Grasses, Sedges and Rushes”, with this charming message written inside – “With love and all very best wishes from Fin. Just a token in remembrance of my stay in London and some marvellous weekends at “The Ridge”.  Nice child!  We shall miss her!

On November 26th, Gran meets a lady, Mrs Coxhead, who had written to her to arrange a meeting, having seen Gran’s name in the B.E.N.A. magazine.  They rendezvous at Compton and walk from there, along the River Itchen, to Eastleigh. Gran writes, not only of the wildlife they see, but also giving us a bit of history:

…we quickly introduced ourselves and set off down Place Lane, an ancient road leading to the river.  A hundred yards down this lane is a fine old house, formerly the home of the Goldfinch family, who, through eight generations of Richard Goldfinches, linked the Compton of Queen Elizabeth I to that of Queen Victoria.  Further down the lane and close to the river is the site of Compton Place, pulled down early in the eighteenth century, though much of the garden wall still remains.  Here for over two hundred years lived the Phillpots, a strongly Catholic family who, nevertheless, produced a notable Protestant martyr.  There have been two and perhaps, more houses on this site; the Wascelyns who gave to Compton its medieval name of Compton Wascelyn, were living here before 1250!  But today we met no-one, until we reached the river, where workmen were busy on the bridge.

Book 62

As Christmas nears, Gran’s time is, as usual, largely taken up with painting cards, wrapping parcels and writing letters. She receives a card herself on the 17th:

A very pretty card arrived from Singapore today from our naturalist friends, Hugh and Mary Robinson, with a photo of Gaden and Maxwell, now small schoolboys! How time flies.

And on December 18th:

A truly wonderful card arrived from Barry today – a Swallowtail butterfly exquisitely done in pen and ink, in similar style to the spiders which he is doing for Mr Savory’s book.  I am amazed at it!

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