Blogetty Blog 8: A Home of our Own

Kindergarten at Parkfield School in Horsham was followed by proper day-schooling across the road at Springfield Park when I was six. Surviving term reports from 1934 tell me my class results varied from “improving” to “fair” to “very good”  in – guess what? – reading and history. Now there’s a surprise. Again it was ‘Mr Linny’ who chauffeured me and my younger brother Rupert to school.

He used to entertain us during the drive with surprising information such as how to count from one to ten in old Sussex country dialect: “Onethrum, Twothrum, Cockrum, Crewthrum, Windthrum, Sindthrum, Winebarrel, Wagtail, Tiradiddle, Ten”. I have never known whether this mantra has any basis in fact or was his total invention. Some of the dialect names he used were real, like ‘woomtitump’ for a molehill, so it’s hard to be certain.

My brother disliked Springfield Park so greatly that on his second or third day of attendance he took all his clothes off ‘en route’ in the back seat of the car, thinking Linny would have to drive him home again. Instead Linny had Matron summoned to redress the culprit in both senses of the word.   

Our family life was transformed when we left Warnham Court – the house where we lived with my grandfather, my uncle and aunt and my three cousins – and moved to a home of our own in 1935. My father’s stockbroking firm must have prospered and his personal career based on managing the accounts of his wealthy friends had done sufficiently well to permit him to buy his own home. There was no rift within the family; it was simply time for him to establish his own identity rather than live in his elder brother’s shadow.

My mother took Rupert and me house-hunting, which was to say driving around the district in her small Standard car on preliminary inspection of properties for sale. Some were too large, some too small, some too distant from the railway which carried my father to London.

As far as Rupert and I were concerned the hunt was over when we saw Tanfield and we nagged both our parents incessantly until we succeeded – as we always claimed – in persuading them that it was the perfect choice. We were in fact correct. It was ideal both in its friendly character and as home for the four of us, plus Mr. and Mrs. Linny – who left their minor Warnham positions to be our chauffeur and cook – and two housemaids. Sometimes we were joined by a couple of guests for the week-end or in favored cases, like cousin Gordon, visits of a week or more.

It was a substantial property of 16 acres set on the very outskirts of Horsham. The long low house under its stone roof was screened from the road by a line of established trees and bushes. Passing through the house from the front door one left the town behind entirely and emerged into a beautiful mature garden extending to fields on its southern side. Both my parents were keen gardeners and were delighted by the good taste and design achievements of the previous owner.

A long path between grass lawns and borders featuring gladiolus and iris led to circles of rose beds surrounding a stone sundial. To the left lay a huge kitchen garden protected by brick walls, a grass tennis court sheltered on one side by a Spanish chestnut and on the other by a massive fruiting walnut, a big wooden shed set up as a carpenters shop, and a row of dog kennels sheltered by white and purple lilac.

To the right more lawns surrounded a yew tree with herbaceous borders and protective hedges beyond. Its only fault was that it had no room large enough for a billiard table, but that was soon corrected when my father attached one to the drawing room. In time he added a small swimming pool nearby which was much enjoyed by Rupert and me and our Warnham Court cousins. I never saw him use it himself.

The open fields to the south ended at a muddy stream between deep banks forming the boundary with the farm beyond. To prove the pure undisturbed nature of the further countryside this stream continued to a boggy area where my father rented the right to shoot occasional visiting snipe; one of his favorite articles of diet. Rupert and I cleared a small promontory, almost an island above the stream bank and pitched a low canvas tent as a camp, but were not allowed to sleep there.

All too soon my own delight in the move was sullied by my return to Westgate in Kent, the seaside town where I had earned my red blazer years before (see Blogetty #6). This time it was to board at Wellington House, my first ‘Prep” School. My mother saw me onto the train at Victoria Station – wearing the school uniform of a grey flannel suit made to measure by a London tailor and school cap – and into the care of a junior master deputized to shepherd the organized party of returning boys. I occupied a compartment with four or five others at least two of whom were old hands, and listened to them discuss their Christmas holidays and school gossip in silence and mounting terror. I was not quite 9 and lonely beyond description.

The Reverend Underwood’s institution was held in higher regard by upper-class parents than their offspring. The food was dreadful – lots of boiled cabbage, mushy mashed potato, slabs of liver disfigured by thick white veins and fatty oxtail. The unheated dormitories where each boy was separated into a sort of fenced wooden pen were cruelly cold – I quickly developed chilblains – and every aspect of life was regulated by a complex of unwritten rules, disobeyed at peril. It was too cold at night to say my prayers on my knees so I mumbled them under my blankets. Having never conceived of an alternative or entertained the slightest doubt about God, I was still enchanted with Jesus as our immaculate Saviour and earnestly devout.

I recall the happiest few days of my first term were those I spent recovering from the discomfort of a measles outbreak. The recuperating patients shared a large darkened attic room. Two of them were Pilkington major and Pilkington minor, of the Pilkington glass family, who had been sent an enormous tin of Mackintosh toffees as a get-well present by their parents. These treasures were distributed by Matron to all recuperants after lunch and supper and brought rare moments of enjoyment.  I can taste them still.

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