All this we learnt on our return to Ambleford. It had been just two weeks, but in fact had felt more like four. We had missed the cutting of the straw but were in time to help build the ricks. The weather was predicted to remain warm so father let them stand in the fields for a final drying. Alas on the second night we were all awoken by Henry’s shouts of a fire as he hammered at the Manor door. Henry had upon him a singed shirt and strangely Rose also had her hair in a similar state, she was bundled inside sobbing as Cook and Mother held her between them. Mother ordered Gerry to prepare a cold bath as Rose was obviously burnt in places. Then she was to take Daisy and the trap to fetch the doctor. Meanwhile Father, Tom, Henry and I took to the fields to investigate the extent of the fires. We saw two ricks alight already and a third was just starting up. Henry and Tom dashed for the third and caught hold of two figures with firebrands in their hands. Father and I had followed and we tore down the lit straw and threw it aside and stamped on it. Father then told us to return to the manor as the two ricks were well ablaze. In their light I could make out the Donovan lads held tightly by Henry and Tom. We returned to the Manor after checking the other ricks, the Donovan lads were handed over to Stumps and Bowls who had arrived post haste, having smelt the smoke in their own cottages. They delivered the rogues to Sergeant Smithers. Uncle Arthur had the Donovan’s parents pay for the ricks. As for the lads, they were set a task cleaning up and preparing the pensioners’ allotments. That took them the rest of the autumn, the elderly villagers being hard taskmasters. Thus winter came upon us, a particularly harsh cold winter with hoarfrost in the willows. On the weekends I made thatched shelters for all the swans out of some of the burnt ricks so some good came out of that fiery night. Old Ben pulled one of our old carts with the blackened straw baled up high for me. I never found out how Henry and Rose had got burnt, Tom wouldn’t let on at all. Thus I was ready to enter my eleventh year.
CHAPTER SEVEN. A LESSON IN ACCOUNTING AND TRAUMATIC TIMES.
It was a Sunday and we were walking back from church. The winter now past had been severe and Father had wanted to follow the river to inspect the waterway weirs and bridges. It was a delightful spring day and one I remember so well because the cold and blizzards of the previous months had kept up inside for much of the time. Parts of the river had frozen over and mother had forbidden us to go close to it. I was allowed to take seed to throw to the birds, scattering it on the ground. Thus it was a glorious day to tread across the frosted grass under a brilliant sky. We came upon where my swans would be, and indeed they were waltzing around one another, forming a perfect heart shaped ballet. Their bills tucked downwards, their graceful necks arched as they circled about, their foreheads momentarily touching. Mother touched my arm to move me along.
‘Have you never witnessed their spring dance?’ she asked. I shook my head.
‘Its their way of saying hello again after bringing up their tribe of cygnets.’
I asked why, as they were always here and constantly in one another’s sight.
‘Some swans fly to different parts, some of those journeys are quite long and they may temporarily loose one another in their flight. So when they eventually meet up again they dance.’ I asked how they knew where they were going, and did they discuss their eventual destination prior to leaving. Mother laughed and shook her head and said she had no idea but it was no coincidence they would find one another again.
My eleventh birthday had arrived and with it a book on water fowl from my parents. I must have picked up and read that book dozens of time over the years, in particular was a colored plate of a pair of swans caught in the midst of their heart dance.
I imagined I would become a zookeeper, as animals seemed to loom large in my life. I was now tall enough to ride the horses and sometimes I was allowed to take Father’s Forester for a run, though I always walked him for I was somewhat cautious to trot in case he lodged a hoof in a rabbit hole. Besides Spats would often accompany me and he was getting on in age. We would most frequently walk over to the Home Farm, and as it was a climb up and over the down, Old Ben would have found it heavy going. My brother Arthur was now at home there, we would be sure of a hearty welcome and a day of work on the fences or in the fields before a slap up tea. He would laugh at my dream of caring for animals, then hand me the farms account book and have me add up and subtotal all his accounts for the month. I found that particularly boring but Arthur explained that it was by far the most important duty of running any enterprise.
‘But this is a farm’ I would shout out.
‘Its an enterprise like ship building, except we have people, animals and crops to care for.’ Then Arthur would talk about a variety of professions that I might like to consider.
‘Father will choose for me surely’ I would say, but Arthur would shake his head,
‘You are fortunate being the youngest, you won’t have to follow what we elder ones do into the estate, you and Gerry will be free to do as you please.’
I was somewhat taken aback as I had no wish to leave Ambleford, so I decided I would call on Uncle Arthur at the castle to make my displeasure known to him. My brother laughed at this but said I should go as our uncle and father may already have laid out plans for Gerry and I.
Thus it was on a bright May afternoon, after school, I presented myself to my uncle for a discussion on my future. Uncle Arthur was in the study surrounded by stacks of large books. I then explained why I had come.
‘Do you see all these, they’re called ledgers and we use them to work out whether we are running the farms and castle properly.’
I interjected with ‘If you weren’t, then surely the Bank Manager will tell you there was no money in your bank account.’
‘True, but then we need to know how we are going before we got to that state of affairs.’
‘They look very boring’ said I pointing to the books. My uncle then directed me to fetch a chair and sit beside him. He didn’t ask me to add all the numbers up as my brother had, but he did explain each account and how it affected the estate.
‘See here is our cash in the bank, and here is a list and valuation of our stocks and shares. They mean we have a part ownership in these businesses and are called our assets, as indeed our farms and herds are.’ It was late evening when father came to pick me up and as I jumped up behind him on Forester I heard my uncle ask me if I had been bored. I replied I had been somewhat bewildered by it all but certainly not bored. So it was, I believe, that my future path was laid down in that one afternoon, for my father encouraged me to sit with him when he was doing his farm accounts. I could see how much it cost us to feed Mick and Mack, and how much local beef farmers would pay Father for hiring Old Ben. I saw Mothers housekeeping allowance and the cost of running our home. The only accounts I was not shown were the wages for our men, as these were confidential. By the time I was thirteen I was doing both my brothers and my fathers accounts, and being reimbursed by Uncle for doing so.
We had suffered a bad winter and to make up for it, nature bought a warm summer and mellow autumn. Uncle Arthur’s son, Cecil, joined the Air Force and came home in a sparkling new blue uniform. There was talk of a possible conflict but the general opinion was that it would pass over and common sense prevail in Europe. I myself took little notice of this general talk, but our parents were worried for my elder siblings were indeed old enough for conscription if it came. For me the river still flowed, the swans still swam and the trout were as large as ever. I discovered new things in our countryside. One day I came upon a group of university students grubbing at a Saxon camp on the estate. They were searching for tool remnants as well as laying out the site plan of the camp. And this on the day war was declared. Arthur and Tom left to join up. Beth arrived back as her husband had to rejoin his regiment and was being sent to France.
Eddie came back from Edinburgh University to help Beth take over control of the Home Farm. He had only just completed his first year and sadly never returned to complete his degree. The farming life eventually agreed with him and medicine took a backseat. Ultimately, it was for the family, a rewarding move for he managed the farm with great effect whilst Beth cared for the Land girls that eventually arrived on the estate. Soon, gone were Grandpapa’s glorious gardens of flowers being replaced by patches of potatoes, carrots and cauliflower’s. We were all instructed by Father to help in the fields for the war effort and initially it seemed to me that this war was a very quite affair with nothing much going on. But that soon changed with Beth’s husband limping home via Dunkirk, fighter planes in the sky overhead ranging themselves against the bombing raids. There were bonfires lit in the countryside to induce and confuse the enemy from dropping their bombs on the cities. Alas one night we had several bonfires alight in the fields and a stray bomb hit the field where Old Ben stood. His heart must have given out at the shock of the explosion and I found him quite dead some distance away from the bomb hole. My grief turned quickly to dismay when Father said Ben would have to be taken to the abattoir, as Britain needed every bit of food it could get. He agreed that I might bury Ben’s head and so instructed Bowls to decapitate my poor Ben. I buried it close to Ben’s favorite Horse Chestnut tree. Henry and Stumps helped me dig a pit; it rained solidly the whole time we were in the field, the weather matching exactly my own feelings.
I cannot remember any more for winter came quickly upon us and then I was suddenly twelve years old, then more sadness, our cousin Cecil was killed in his Hurricane fighting above Kent. Father took over the running of the estate as Uncle Arthur and Aunt Emily left the castle to be close to our cousin Celia, who was nursing at that time in Devon.
CHAPTER EIGHT. WAR, TURMOIL, AND JOY.
The war office decided the castle would provide a prime recuperation house, and it was thus requisitioned in the spring of my twelfth year. Eventually our cousin Celia came home as deputy matron to help run the wards. She bought her parents’ back with her to live with us all in the manor house. Father still continued to run the estate and Uncle Arthur set about educating me in the ways of the estate ledgers. I remember Wednesdays and Fridays were my after school lessons. My uncle thought it best I should immediately start using the official books. No practicing on “would be or maybe” problems, he believed in using actual factual figures as opposed to made up ones as we did in our school. My saddest moment was to write off Old Ben as an asset, then to close off the account of his earnings for servicing other farmers’ cows. It seemed so clinical. My uncle was aware of my feelings at that moment, as I twice underlined that account as closed. He touched me on the arm and pointed to the subtotal.
‘Old Ben was not only a companion to you, his earnings amounted to well over two hundred a year whilst he was with us. That would have covered the annual cost of food and clothing for all you children. Now over on this side you can see the cost of his winter feed and veterinary bills. Even so Old Ben provided…’
He didn’t finish for I had burst into tears, thus ended my first bookkeeping lesson. I remember future lessons were less traumatic and my uncle began to let me live the life of the castle and farms through his books. He would be called a bookworm those days but he did have a knack of discussing the figures he showed me in a humorous way. For instance we were checking on Gerry’s sheep and their profit for the wool clip and possible meat for market against her expenses. We heard her coming along the hall and Uncle Arthur spoke up loudly and said Gerry’s profit was down because she was always loath to release them to market for slaughter.
She overheard this discussion and immediately stormed into the room,
‘Its because the government want more wool for blankets Uncle, so I’m concentrating on wool production.’ Gerry turned on her heel and stamped off.
Our school education began to suffer for Mr. Hazel was soon to be conscripted into the Navy and we were now left with Miss Preston and Miss Durbridge. My father noticing our new boredom at school pressed old Sam Waller to help them. Sam had been a teacher in his early years and then had left England’s shores for foreign parts, staying away for many years and taking on many occupations. His geography lessons were hilarious and along with the atlas would come his own adventures. Then that part of the world would come alive for us. I don’t think Miss Preston appreciated the roars of laughter that came from the seniors’ room, but she couldn’t complain about the external marks we achieved at exam time. He was just the same in literature and would tell us about the real lives of whichever poet or writer we were studying. Often our books were kept closed as we listened rapturously. He taught us to question what was written as fact but in reality was pure fiction. “White Wash” was his favorite expression. All in all Sam Waller made us learn through laughter and true adventure stories. His own. I suppose in a way this was the start of my interest in travel, certainly he was a ray of sunshine in a dismal war.
Mother would insist we regularly visit the injured at the castle to read and talk with the patients. They were mainly servicemen from the Commonwealth countries and Sam Waller would often come up after school to chat with the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians. In between reading and talking, I would, as often as I could, listen into his conversations; it appeared to me he knew every corner of the globe including the streets, pubs and restaurants. He would sometimes shoo me away, followed by an irreverent comment about some well-known personage or place, which was followed by gales of laughter from the patients. My cousin Celia wanted to steal him away from the school, but fortunately Uncle held firm.
Sam had wandered into the village a few years back and rented a shed by the allotments. Father discovered on a visit to check the crops that Sam actually lived in the shed, it was barely two metres square. Even when he started at school he refused any offers of accommodation and continued to eat and sleep in his one room abode. Nevertheless Celia was determined to have him on site and she persuaded Uncle Arthur to have him stay in the Orangery, the matron having refused him a room in the house, as he wasn’t sick. So Sam Waller became a fixture for a time in Grandpapa’s Orangery amid the oranges and lemons. Mr.Twerton would complain that Sam’s presence reduced the production of ripe fruit, but Sam always did enjoy a fresh citrus fruit for breakfast. Word was he would bath in the large stone horse trough on the outside wall, though he denied this vehemently, preferring to do his ablutions in the house. Eddie did catch him one hot summer’s day ensconced in the trough with louver and soap. We hoped the horses had better sense than to drink from there. Mr. Twerton used the trough for watering the vegetables and remarked that it was Sam’s bath water that killed them not the drought. The two of them carried on a battle of wits right up till the end of the war, then they celebrated their own private war by going on an infamous pub-crawl in Salisbury.
I was asked to accompany my father to look at the allotments as Stumps had received requests from outside the village for some more. Father was on Forester and I was allowed to take Mothers horse Dot. We arrived on a fine summers evening in August and arranged with Stumps to clear and re-fence a part of the meadow which lay alongside the other allotments. Stumps asked if other villages could be allocated space. Father agreed as long as they bordered on the estate, but for Amblemead residents he would ask me to go to Eddie at the Home Farm and allocate some pasture for the those residents as the village lay by the farm boundaries. Father then returned to the manor and I trotted over to the Home farm to speak to Eddie and Beth. As I arrived I spied Captain Barton sitting on a deck chair enjoying the sunshine. He waved to me then called Beth who beckoned me to come inside. I tied up Dot and told them both about Fathers allotment plan. The Captain leant on his stick and sharply pulled a rope connected to a large brass bell that Eddie had installed high on the roof. Eddie soon appeared on a tractor, I told him its surprising how he managed to hear a bell whilst driving. Eddie laughed and admitted to having a break from digging out ditches. He soon agreed to the allotments and told me to come on Saturday fortnight when the allotments were drawn for. In the meantime he would plough and fence the designated area himself and, would I have Stumps collect the names of the Amblemead gardeners.
I returned on foot with Spats on the day of the draw and sat quietly under a hawthorn hedge to watch Eddie and Father call the gardeners together. One old gentleman came over after having been given a numbered ticket, and joined me under the hedge.
‘Aren’t you be going for the draw.’ He asked but I shook my head. I realized he took me as one of his own folk for I had arrived by myself and was dressed in rough clothing.
‘Well you can share my piece if I were fortunate to get one. Take your mum some vegies back in a month or two.’ I said nothing but nodded my thanks.
‘Bit proud no doubt you be, to get a ticket I mean, or is it shyness?’ He ros