ON LEAVE IN ENGLAND, 1957
At the airport we were met by Mum, who had booked us all into the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly. At once she telephoned John’s sister Mary, and brother-in-law, Norman, who unknown to us were expecting a baby at any time. We were thrilled, if surprised, to hear that a new addition was expected to the family. We discovered that living overseas, as we did, people forgot to keep us up to date with important things like when babies were due! I think everybody assumed that someone else had told us. Momentous family events were discussed on the telephone and, in those days, phone calls to us were still impossible.
I remember that we did not require any supper that night as we had eaten so much, as usual, on the plane. The children were very excited and we took them out to see the lights of Piccadilly Circus, which fascinated them, and me. Eventually they calmed down and we took them back to the Hotel and popped them into bed. Both John and I felt “disembodied,” as one often does after a long plane journey. Somehow the spirit takes some time to catch up with the body, and the disorientation persists for some time.
The next day John had to show his face at the Bank. In those days it was in Gracechurch Street, in the City. Mum and I took the children to Swan and Edgars (then on Piccadilly Circus) for some warm clothing and then on to Hamleys to goggle at the wonders in the toy world left over from Christmas. We all met up for lunch and then set off in Mum’s car for Romsey. Before we left, we called Mary again, and heard that she had had a baby boy and all was well. Peter Allum was born on February 6th.
After spending a few days at Abbotswood, Mum took us all to visit Granny Dickson in Bournemouth. The children were a good deal older than the last time they had been there. Nevertheless I still spent a lot of time walking them on the golf course nearby, so that they could work off their energy at a safe distance from Granny’s china cabinets.
We visited Granny Hill and Aunt Joy in Boscombe, and had good runs on the beach. Mrs Webb, Gran’s housekeeper, provided wonderful meals for us all, set at the large dining table. Christopher sat on the beautiful Georgian polished high chair, which pushed right up to the table, so he really felt one of the grown-ups.
Patricia loved to wind the old napkin press up and down while standing on a chair. Over the fireplace in the dining room stood an Alabaster Pieta. Granny told us that it represented Bishop Poore, lying in the lap of an Abbess girlfriend!
Conventionally, a Pieta represents the Virgin Mary with the body of Christ. Where it came from originally is open to question. Some say it is Portuguese, and once stood in a niche in the wall of Hurstborne-Tarrent Church. Whatever its history, this Pieta was given to Romsey Abbey and now stands in a glass case with other interesting items. In the 1980s it was stolen from the Abbey, later being found by the police in a house in a London suburb, along with a selection of other stolen religious artefacts, and was returned to the Abbey none the worse for its adventure.
We stayed a few days with Granny Dickson. During that time she took the children to Poole Park, where they rode on the miniature railway and John took them out on the boating lake. Honey, Mum’s beautiful blousey blonde Golden Retriever, enjoyed lolloping around with us all. However, Gran’s Dachshund, Puck, did not like having the children in his home, and we had to watch to make sure he did not snap at them. Puck was a very spoiled animal who slept on GG’s bed and was fed sugar lumps dipped in cream. The children were fascinated at the sight of GG in bed in the mornings, wearing a lace mob cap and a frilly bed jacket. There was a wonderful supply of biscuits and chocolates, though they were careful not to select Puck’s favourite. Her bedroom was very warm and there was always a luxurious smell of talcum powder and perfume.
Soon after our return to Abbotswood we set off for Scotland to see Granjo and Gramps, my parents. They had organised for us to stay in their cottage down the road from their own. As we were to be home for at least three months, they had also arranged for Patricia and Christopher to go to the village school. This was a good idea, as they were able to make friends in the village.
Often, after the children had gone to bed, they could be heard talking to each other, but we could not hear what they were saying. We put the microphone of our tape recorder into their room one night. Before long Christopher started by saying, “Teetah?” He always called Patricia Teetah. “What?” Said Teetah, wearily.
“Djou know what I was thinkin?” After a pause. “No, what?”
“There was a dragon with his tongue hanging out, and someone came and cut his tongue off. He just walked away and didn’t say anything.”
“Oh.” Said Patricia. Silence. So now we knew!
It was a wonderful, relaxing time just lazing about doing nothing much, reading, walking and playing with the children. But before too long, John began to feel restless. A man can only do nothing for so long. Granjo and Gramps suggested that they would look after the children and we could have a few days’ holiday, so we decided to go over to Ireland. John’s elder brother Edward was building an earth dam near Armagh, so it was arranged that we would spend a few days with him and his wife Mary, and from them we could visit Loughry, the Lindesay ancestral home in Ireland.
John and I caught a train to Stranraer from Dumfries and crossed the Irish Sea to Belfast, where we found the train to Armagh. Edward met us at the station and drove us to his bungalow just outside Armagh. Mary greeted us and showed us round her new home. It stood just above the site of the earth dam Edward was constructing. The house was built the wrong way round as it faced south, in line with convention, but the view was to the north. Sadly, the picture window looked on to a high bank some ten feet away, and the view could be seen best from the bathroom and the tiny dining room. The crop of thistles in the garden was very impressive.
We were taken on a tour of Edward’s creation and admired the other dams and reservoirs. One bleak area, called Silent Valley, stuck in my mind. It was eerily quiet. Birds did not sing, nor was there any sign of life. The barren hillsides appeared quite lifeless, though they were majestically beautiful. The wind was so strong that Edward’s hat blew off and into the water, much to the distress of little James, our nephew.
The Irish countryside was lovely, as spring was nearly upon us with the high hedges round the tiny fields bursting into leaf. The apple blossom along the roadside was particularly spectacular.
The next day we borrowed Edward’s car and set off for Limavady to visit John’s cousin-once-removed, Inez MacRory. She was John’s father’s first cousin. We found her in a flat in town overlooking the town square. She was an interesting lady deeply steeped in the complicated history of the family. There was much discussion with John about various members of the family tree. I wish now that I had taken more interest, as she was a fund of family gossip and information. She took us to visit a friend of hers, who lived in a large house nearby. The friend was, I suppose, typically Irish. The garden was a jungle and had not been tamed for years. The lady proclaimed it would cost her £5 per week to pay a gardener and she could buy all the flowers she wanted for ten shillings.
The inside of the house was amazing, the wallpaper peeling off the walls and the chairs draped as if she had been trying out swatches of material and had not got any further. I gathered that this was indeed the case. There was a thick layer of dust everywhere and there were heaps of books and magazines. We had a delicious tea in front of a lovely log fire. Inez’s friend made delicious scones and cakes.
The next day we drove to visit the Giant’s Causeway on the north coast. The wind was blowing a gale, but it was exciting to see the amazing rock formation of hexagonal pillars stretching out to sea.
On the way back to Edward and Mary we stopped off to visit the Lindesay ancestral home, Loughry, which means “King’s Gift.” The estate, near the village of Tullyhogue, was given to John’s ancestor, Robert Lindesay. It was part of the plan of James I of England and VI of Scotland to establish a loyal Protestant presence in Ireland by granting estates, confiscated from local landlords, to the sons of his favourite courtiers. They would be duty bound to produce armed forces on demand to defend the area against rebel uprisings. The grant was made in 1611, and under its terms Robert had to build a stone manor, or castle, within a set time, and populate the estate with English or Scottish settlers who would bear arms to defend their homes. The first manor house was built in 1632 but was burned down by the Catholic rebels, supporters of James II, nine years later and not rebuilt till 1671. Robert became Chief Harbinger to James I in 1614 and, as Comptroller of Artillery was at the Battle of Worcester, between Charles I and Oliver Cromwell, in 1651.
Robert’s son, also named Robert, succeeded to the property in 1674. In the rebellion of 1689 he retired to Londonderry for safety, with his family. The town was besieged by the deposed James II’s Catholic troops. The breaking of the boom lifted the siege across the river by King William of Orange’s ships, 105 days later. The Battle of the Boyne officially ended the rebellion in 1690 (but has been fermenting ever since).
There is a story that when the family departed from Loughry to take refuge in Derry, neither the three-year-old youngest child, John, nor his nurse, could be found. The nurse was a native Irish woman, the wife of a soldier in King James’s army, so it was decided that the infant must have been kidnapped and killed. One day, sometime after the siege, when the country had settled down, a woman arrived at Loughry’s door with a donkey with panniers on its back, apparently filled with oysters covered with seaweed (not an unusual sight in those days). One basket did indeed contain oysters, but from the other the woman produced the boy John, who was immediately recognised by his parents. The old woman was his wet nurse, who, in her devotion to the child and anxiety for his welfare, had hidden him in a cave, still known as Lindesay Cave. There she fed and watched over him, taught him a few words of Irish, and afterwards passed him off as her own son to the soldiers of King James’ army. Finally, when all had quietened down, she restored him to his parents.
In the garden at Loughry stands a summerhouse where, it is said, Dean Swift, who was a close friend of the fourth Robert Lindesay to own Loughry, used to retire to write.
The last Lindesay owner died in 1893. After another fire, the estate was sold and became an agricultural college, now run by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture.
The manor we saw is not quite the same house as it was in the 1800s, but the pillars of the entrance gates still stand, surmounted by a swan and a griffin, the emblems of the last Lindesay owners. The locals call these “the Duck and the Devil.” The manor had lost its top floor in the fire after its sale, which had had one principal bedroom, two nurseries and the servant quarters, but it still boasted four principal reception rooms, nine bedrooms and a banqueting hall with a musicians’ gallery and turret.
In a field facing the village of Lindesayville stands the family vault. We had been told that John’s father had been the last person to enter it, but he had thrown the key into the Irish Sea on his way home to Scotland, to prevent any further intrusion. The locals said that the coffins in the vault kept changing places, as if the occupants were taking part in some macabre cocktail party. We climbed the wall surrounding the vault and found the door firmly bricked up and surrounded by magnificent nettles.
We returned the car to Edward and left the next day for the ferry from Belfast back to Stranraer and then home to Glencaple and the children. It seemed that our young had been extremely good and their grandparents were still remarkably cheerful. The children did not seem to have noticed that we had been away. One comment Granjo made was that, when the children were asked what they liked best to eat for tea, they had said that they preferred pâté de foie. She really thought that I should not bring them up to have quite such expensive tastes! In Beirut pate was not very expensive, being the equivalent to meat paste in Britain.
Eventually the time came for John to return to the Middle East. Originally he had been posted as Manager of Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman, but news came through that the Manager of Doha in the Persian Gulf was ill and had to return home, so John had been diverted to Doha to take over. It seemed that I was not to go at once, as the new accommodation was not yet ready and there was nowhere for families to stay.