MY STORY Chapter 11 Life Gets Messy

My young brother had returned to the North of England and I was trying so hard to live the prefect life. I became a perfectionist in everything I did, but also became depressed, agoraphobic and ridden with anxiety. I became afraid to eat and my weight plummeted to a little over 6 ½ stone (about 95 lbs), Anorexia before I even knew the word.

Here began a long road of addictive medication. On my first visit to my doctor, in my innocence I had thought that pills would make me better, so was only too happy to accept all that was offered, even hypnotherapy. The result was that over the next ten years I became addicted to a large number of prescription drugs until I was taking Anti-depressants 3 times a day, Librium 4 times a day and sleeping pills at night. This was in the early 60’s when the addictive quality of these pills was little known. They were the new wonder drugs. I also embarked on 5 years of Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic, London’s leading psychiatric clinic at the time.

I tried to hold down my job and look as normal as possible on the outside whilst getting more desperate on the inside. A meal in a restaurant, a coffee in a coffee shop, a simple day out or a trip to the shops would all end prematurely as I would be overtaken with fear and panic. I suffered deep guilt and loss of self-esteem as I began to see myself as a failure and I could not understand my inability to cope with seemingly ordinary things. My Psychiatrist believed that a lot of my problem was suppressed anger and would do everything to try and get me to express this anger. The more he did, the more I clamped up. None of these treatments really helped me to overcome my current problems. I think the only benefit was that I developed more insight into situations.

During this time we had moved from our rented bed-sitting room to a rented one bedroom flat in Hampstead that was actually the converted top floor of a house, there being 2 flats beneath us. Two things happened while there that made us realise we needed to move on. After a change of tenants in the flat below we began to realise after a while that our telephone bills were higher than they should have been. Also on a couple of occasions I bumped into strange men on the stairs when I had got up during the night. It turned out that the girls in the flat below were running a ‘call girl’ set up and they had been coming into our flat during the day when we were at work to use our telephone.

So in 1965 we left London and bought a house in the north eastern suburbs. I was fortunate enough to be transferred from my position in a large London General Hospital to a local Geriatric Hospital where I worked as an assistant to the then Social Worker. Not too long after I started working there she moved on and after applying or her post and being successful, I became the Social Worker, taking care of the practical needs of 450 patients with the help of a secretary.

Unknown to anyone else I was becoming sicker and more reliant on medication to cope. I knew I needed help, that areas of my life were out of control, but how could I get back to that place where I knew that God was in control. I desperately wanted to hand my life back to Him. My answer came in the form of a Billy Graham Crusade in London, it was 1966. It wasn’t that I did not believe myself to be a Christian, just that I saw myself as a miserable failing one who just did not make the grade.

In desperation I persuaded my husband Alan, who was then not a Christian, to take me up to the Haringey Arena in west London. When we arrived the place was full to overflowing and we found a seat on the furthest away row, high up and at the back of the auditorium. When the appeal was given, in spite of the distance and the logistics of getting to the front, I was out of my seat like a shot. I ran for the nearest lift only to find it was being used by the St. John’s Ambulance for a medical emergency. To this day I do not clearly remember how I got to the front, but I did with tears pouring down my face, and I recommitted my life to Christ. Anyone at any time can get on their knees before God and re-commit or repent and ask Him into ones life, but for me at the time I needed to make this public declaration. I do not know how I managed to find Alan afterwards but I obviously did because he took me home.
Was this the end of my trials, definitely not, but it was the beginning of the next step of an incredible journey. God knows what He is doing as He takes us one step at a time, teaching us every step of the way through trials, suffering and joy. He perfects us through our experiences as we walk in the light trusting in Him. He finishes what He has begun and He changes us from one degree of Glory to the next. It may not feel like it at the time but He is a Gracious and Faithful God whose desire is to see us mature and find our completeness in Him. We will see how He does this in the years ahead as we travel through the continuing chapters

Our rented one bedroom flat in Hampstead

It was almost impossible to get two people in the kitchen at once

Very different to how young marrieds start out today

I have always loved reading

Changing hairstyles


This was a Vidal Sassoon

Cotswolds Pt 13 - Hailes Abbey Ruins

Another of our visits while we were in the Cotswolds was to

Hailes Abbey Ruins

just a short drive from where we were staying.

It is the site of a 13th Century Cisterian abbey

Founded in 1256 and once a celebrated pilgrimage site, the abbey now lies in ruins.

Remains of the dramatic cloister arches survive and there is a small museum

I always find it interesting to walk around castle and abbey ruins

looking at the layouts and trying to imagine life in those times

The drain from the latrines

Pillar bases

The Monks Habit

MY STORY Chapter 10 Back on Terra Firma

A few months after we returned to the UK after a long sea trip Alan left the Merchant Navy for good. He found a shore job as an Engineer Surveyor for an Insurance Company. We eventually moved to London after about 6 month’s training in different parts of the country. I accompanied him while training. Some of the lodgings we stayed in were fine and others quite strange and we would have to move on quickly. We had little money so were not staying in the most salubrious of lodgings. One place in Scotland, our host’s Father was a serious alcoholic who stayed up all night eating oranges. The next morning there would be orange peel strewn everywhere. When I look back now I wonder how I ever survived some of these experiences.

We are both Northerners, Alan from the North East and me from the North West, but we eventually settled in London as this was the area that Alan’s company placed him. He worked from home, going out doing his inspections in the morning and his office work at home in the afternoon. Friendship wise we were starting from scratch so we needed to get to know some people.

I had always been in Brownies, Girl Guides and Rangers so was pleased to find there was a Boy Scout group meeting at the corner of the avenue where we lived. I went along to see them and they welcomed me with open arms as they were in need of an Akela for the Cub Pack. We were renting a bed sitting room in a large house in a predominantly Jewish area. It turned out that this was a Jewish Scout group and although it was closed to non-Jewish children they were happy for me to join them as long as I adhered to Jewish practice with the boys where necessary. Very quickly Alan was drawn in to help also and we made some deep and lasting friendships with other Scout leaders. However this Cub Pack was different to anything I had experienced before. Many of the parents were very wealthy and the boys would arrive at Cubs in chauffeur driven cars. When trying to get the boys to learn certain tasks they would ask why, as normally their Nannies did it for them. The parents however were always more than grateful when we took the boys camping and taught them some self-sufficiency. All in all it was a good experience and only came to an end when we moved away from the area some 5 years later.

During these 5 years living in London, alongside our social life I needed to work and found my niche in the Almoner’s Department of a local general hospital. Almoners who originated from wealthy people giving to the poor, became State run departments of Social Work. It always amazes me that this was the field I gravitated to because hospitals and illness frighten me. I think I was trying to allay my fears in the midst of a very interesting and rewarding job.

This was where my love of gardening began. My first garden was two window boxes on the window ledge.

So here we were attempting to get on with normal life after our exotic beginnings on board ship. However, the storm clouds are gathering though I am not aware of it. Probably as a result of my dysfunctional family life as a child I set out to try and create the perfect life. I think also I was wanting to prove to my Mother-in-Law that I was not too young to marry her son and could manage not only as good as anyone else, but better.

Also during this time my Mother suffered her first serious mental breakdown. She had undergone major surgery and while she was in hospital my Father, who had never been left to fend for himself, had a nervous breakdown and was found wandering in another city having lost his memory. Consequently my Mother returned home from hospital and instead of convalescing was immediately back into caring for my Father. It was too much for her and after a complete nervous breakdown she ended up spending a whole year in a psychiatric hospital. My Grandmother who was a widow and was helping care for my 11 year old brother, fell and broke her leg so Alan and I dropped everything and drove North to see how we could help. Alan’s company were very understanding but the hospital where I worked insisted that I would lose my job if I ever took time off again in this way.

After a week the best solution we came up with was to bring Stephen,my young brother to live with us until my Grandmother and Father were fit to look after him. In our bed sitting room we had 2 x 3 foot beds pushed together and we slept 3 to the bed with Alan in the middle. We lived like this for about 6 months. My friends from the Scout group kindly arranged for my brother to attend the Jewish school. They were very good to him and gave him lots of clothes as we had brought him down almost in what he stood up in. I remember him coming home on the first day and saying, “Barb, what’s a Gentile?” As you can imagine I was like a Mother to Stephen during this time and we became very close. He emigrated to Australia in his early twenties and I never saw him again. We eventually took Stephen back home and almost immediately another of my brothers who was a junior Chef on a large sea going liner decided to jump ship somewhere in the Mediterranean and he turned up on our doorstep when he got to London looking for help and financial support. Fortunately we had made friends with a neighbour in the bed sitting room next door and as she was going away for a while she allowed my brother to use her place while he was in our care. The sad part of this was that not long after she returned she decided to end her life in that same room one night while we were sleeping.

This brother Kenneth developed Muscular Dystrophy and he too emigrated to Australia before becoming wheelchair bound and apart from seeing him briefly when my Father died, I never saw him again. My other brother Geoffrey stayed in the UK and he too developed Muscular Dystrophy and became incapacitated.

As you can see my year of having nothing to do but amuse myself on the ship and visit the many ports, quickly turned around to something very different. The pressures and stress were building up and my way of dealing with it was to just try harder to make everything perfect. We will see the outcome of this in the next chapter.

My First Garden

The garden of our bed sitting room

As a child I longed for a red velvet dress

Stephen posing in his new clothes

The cubs at camp standing to attention for 2 minutes silence

A trip to the village store

The Akela

Gilwell International Scout Camp

200th Post Giveaway Draw

And the winner is

CONGRATULATIONS

Crafty Gardener

Its really strange because as the time drew near to draw this prize


I had butterflies in my stomach


I was excited to see who had won - would you believe it


Of course I wanted everyone to win as everyone who entered is a special blogging buddy


Crafty Gardener really does deserve the prize as she was the friend who turned one of my garden photos into my header





Crafty Gardener, I know you have my E-mail address so as soon as you send me your home address, which I will keep private naturally, then I will post the scarf off to you


I hope the Christmas rush has not yet started for overseas mail





Talking of 'stomach butterflies'. I was fast asleep at 2.0 am this morning

when the telephone rang right next to me

Apart from a time when we had some nuisance calls, the only middle of the night calls

I have ever had have been because of a death or an emergency in the family

By the time I had answered the phone and put it back I realised that my heart was racing

No idea what the call was as the line went dead

It took me over 2 hours to settle down again and go back to sleep

Now if that was my son, he would stay calm and collected until he knew the source of the call

MY STORY Chapter 9 - Travelling to Spain and Switzerland

Apologies to anyone who might have read the first part of this post in an earlier posting. The second part is new to my blog

About 6 months after arriving back in the UK we were off again travelling but only for pleasure this time. Our first trip in 1961 was to Spain and our second in 1962 was to Switzerland. These journeys took place before mass travel, as we know it today, had really begun. I think it worth recording these journeys at this point, before I get into the realities of everyday life once we were back on land. The first one to Spain could be counted as one of my life’s disastrous journeys. Not disastrous in the general scheme of things, nobody was hurt and we survived, but………..I would not want to do it again.

The photographs were scanned from transparencies taken 45 years ago so are not of the best quality.

Part 1 - Spain

It is July and we are about to embark on a journey from our home in London to the Costa Brava in Spain, about an hour’s drive north of Barcelona. We had chosen this particular spot for our holiday, Callela-de-la-Costa, to meet up with one of my bridesmaids who was holidaying there with friends.

We were unable to find a travel agent in London who could help us. We found out later that this was because Callela was a new resort and the German travel agents had the monopoly. No internet booking in those days! I eventually contacted the Youth Travel Bureau who said they could help us with arrangements to get there. They had a group of young people travelling to Majorca in the Mediterranean, via. Barcelona, and they could arrange for us to travel with them. We readily accepted this offer and they also booked a hotel for us. The youth group were crossing the Channel by boat and we did not want to do that, so instead we chose the option of flying and then meeting up with the group at the train station in Paris on Saturday evening.

Our journey begins when the taxi arrives at our flat at 6.30 am Saturday morning. It is our first time out of the UK since we returned from our life on the ocean the previous year. The taxi driver drops us off at Victoria Coach Station to catch a coach to the airport. At this point we are following an itinerary that has been arranged for us. We board the coach knowing only that we are going to a small airport somewhere near the South coast. On the way to the airport the coach breaks down. Eventually a replacement coach arrives and we continue our journey. We arrive at the airport and board a small prop plane – no jets in those days. I had not flown before but as we taxied away from the airport building I began to realise that we did not have a runway. Alan thought I was mad suggesting this, but several minutes later, bumping up and down like crazy, we took off from a field. We duly crossed the channel assuming that we would soon be in Paris, but not so. After only a fairly short flight we landed at Beauvais another small airport near the coast of France. This airport did at least have a runway!

After immigration and customs checks we were soon boarding another coach and unbelievably half way into this part of the journey this second coach developed a mechanical fault and we had another long wait for a replacement coach. Our train was due to leave Gare D’Austerlitz Station I the South of the City at 8.0 pm and we were really beginning to panic when the coach reached its final destination at Gare Du Nord Station in the North of the City at 7.30 pm. We managed to hail a taxi and drove several miles across Paris arriving on the station platform just as the train was beginning to move away. Fortunately there was a rep. calling out our names. We were hustled onto the moving train (can you imagine that happening in today’s health and safety climate) puffing and panting and literally dragging our luggage.

This was going to be an overnight journey so we were led to a small, narrow carriage containing 6 couchettes, 3 on each side and one above the other. For anyone not knowing what a couchette is, it is a sleeping bunk that pulls out of the wall. Arriving so late we did not have a choice and a top bunk on either side had been left for us. At the time I did not like this choice as we had to climb up over 2 other bunks to get to ours. It was only on the return journey when we had been assigned the 2 bottom bunks that we realised that in effect we had the best deal at the top. The bottom bunks were bouncy, very noisy and far more claustrophobic than those at the top. The movement at the top was more of a swaying sensation which was a little more conducive to resting; I won’t go so far as to say sleeping. My main memory of this part of the journey was the announcements over the loud speaker systems at every stop we made between the North and South Coasts of France.

We had thought that we were travelling to Barcelona by train, but at 6.30 am the following morning we arrived in Perpignon in the South of France where the train terminated. We were then told that we had to be at the Coach Station by 7.30 am – oh! no, not another coach. We had just enough time to sample 2 new experiences, the first being a demi-tasse cup of the thickest and strongest coffee I had ever tasted. It was almost like treacle. The second being French public lavatories at the time, namely a hole in the ground. I had been almost a year at sea, travelled into the interior of rural Mexico, but this was the first time that I had seen a “hole in the ground”.

We were soon waiting in a queue to board our next coach. The reps. collected everyone’s Passport to make it easier when we came to crossing the border from France into Spain in the Pyrenees. We settled onto the coach after finding ourselves the seats of our choice and prepared for a long drive. Just as the coach was about to leave another rep. boarded the bus and called out our names. They had realised that another coach was actually going to be passing through Callela and there were 2 seats left so it was suggested that we change coaches. This we did and took up the only 2 seats at the back of the coach. It soon became evident that we were the only English speaking passengers on this coach, everyone else was French. My husband Alan loves languages and always studies some of the language of the country that we are going to so he had spruced up a little on his rough Spanish but ended up relying on his schoolboy French.

We duly arrived at the Spanish border late morning to find a 3 mile queue of vehicles snaking up the mountains waiting their turn to cross. It took everyone a while to realise that our Passports were still with the rep. on the other bus. What would we do, would we be left behind? As it happens, we had to wait so long that eventually the rep. on our bus was able to contact the other rep. and collect our Passports. A great sigh of relief, we were able to cross the border and once out of the mountains we stopped for lunch in a charming Spanish town.

About 5.0 pm we were told that we would soon be arriving in Callela, Alan and I being the only 2 passengers to be leaving the coach. We alighted from the bus and stood in disbelief as we watched it disappear into the distance. We were standing in a small square with not a person or hotel in sight. Just a few old buildings and a lot of scrubland and a couple of old cars.

I was by this time exhausted and very emotional and even regretting leaving the familiarity of London. I sat down on the ground and cried my eyes out. Eventually a man, seeing me crying, walked across the square and asked if he could help us. We told him our dilemma and gave him the name of our hotel. He knew where it was and offered to take us there in what looked like an abandoned car sitting on the road. We were a little inland at this point and our hotel was on the Coast, almost on the beach. We got into the car, (again would one do this today?) and he very kindly drove us to our hotel. He came in with us fortunately because at the desk we were told that they did not have a reservation for us and added to that the hotel was still being built so was not finished. They insisted that we go to their sister hotel in the centre of town. Up to that point we had not even realised that we were anywhere near a town.

Our very kind driver duly drove us into town. We tried to check in at this town hotel only to be told that it was impossible, they did not have a single room free and said that we must go back to our original hotel. This we did and they very reluctantly gave us a large, unfinished room on the 9th floor. This turned out to our advantage in that it was quiet, and being so high up we did not need shutters or curtains and the stone floor and plastered walls meant that it was nice and cool. We had a large en-suite bathroom, which we had not paid for and was quite rare back in 1961 anyhow, and 2 brand new beds and bedding. Alan gave the chamber maid a large tip and for the rest of the 2 weeks we were there she washed whatever clothes we left in the large bedroom basin.

We soon found out however that this was a German hotel, run by Germans, and every other guest was from Germany. It is worth remembering that 1961 was only 15 years after the end of World War 2 and in some quarters there was still a lot of hard feeling between out countries. It was certainly not a problem for us but the hotel staff made it clear that it was a problem for them. They always served us last in the dining room and often made out that they could not understand us.

Added to this when we went on our first day to meet up with my bridesmaid, it became immediately obvious that in the intervening years our lives had changed and that we had nothing in common. The group that she was holidaying with were wanting to spend a lot of time hanging out in bars and that was not our idea of a holiday. So we parted company and decided to go our own ways. For Alan and I we wanted to travel and see the local sights and spend the rest of our time on the beach. So we decided to make the best of what we had and get on with our holiday. A few days later a single Canadian guy booked into the hotel. He was touring and following in the footsteps of Ernest Hemmingway. He had come to this resort to chill out for a while and we very quickly built up quite a friendship with him and really enjoyed his company and he ours. All in all we had a wonderful holiday and were soon able to put the horrendous 36 hour journey out of our minds. If it had been today, we could have gone to Australia in that time.

There is just one outing that I will relate here and you will soon see why. We took a coach trip into the Hinterland to visit the Monastery at Monseratt. We had a wonderful day and on the return journey, just as we were coming down the lower mountain, the brakes seized up on the coach. The driver managed to control the coach until we came to a straight flat road where he was able to bring the coach to a standstill. Just imagine how it might have been in today’s climate of busy holiday traffic.In the end it all comes down to the wonderful tapestry of the experiences of life.

The 3 mile border crossing queue

The Beach

The town

High in the mountains at the monastry

We were driving from here in the coach whose brakes failed

The first flat road where the driver could skid to a stop

Part 2 – Switzerland

The following year we decided we wanted as simple a journey as possible so decided to fly to Switzerland. Compared to our journey to Spain the previous year it has to be said that this was easy but it was not without it’s mishaps. The first happened when we were in the airport. We had been told there would be a delay so went to a restaurant to eat. While we were doing so the waitress slipped and ended up pouring a large jug of milk over Alan’s suit. Yes, men did travel in suits in those days. What were we to do, the luggage was checked in so nothing to change into. The restaurant staff took him into the kitchen to try and dry him off. Have you ever sat on a plane next to someone covered in stale milk, it is not pleasant. The restaurant suggested that Alan have his suit cleaned in Switzerland and they would foot the bill. All well and good but it meant him being without his suit for a good part of the 2 weeks we were there.

The second mishap put me off flying for many years afterwards. We got into really bad weather over the Alps and this was a fairly small prop plane compared to today’s jet airliners. People were screaming and falling about and others were throwing up. We finally landed and I was shaking and Alan was green. So much for an easy hassle free journey.

We did however enjoy our two weeks in Switzerland very much. Our hotel was on the shores of Lake Lucerne and looking out on our first morning felt like being in fairyland. The balcony was covered in window boxes full of flowers and they were framed by the mist on the lake with the peak of the Rigi mountain opposite just peeping out of the mist. This view was accompanied by the most exquisite perfume from all of the flowers.

Alan had brushed up on his French only to find that we were in a German speaking canton. However this caused him to want to learn to speak German and over the years he has become very fluent in this language. It really helped in subsequent years when we found ourselves making quite a number of visits to Germany.

While the other hotel guests were off on coach trips the first week we hired bikes. They were so heavy and cumbersome but they got us around. The ferry stopped at our hotel and we were able to cross the lake to another town with our bikes and then travel back and forth across the lake from town to town and in that way seeing so much more than we could have seen otherwise. The second week we were more conventional and did tour the rest of Switzerland by what would now be called a people carrier with the 2 other couples that we had made friends with. These friendships lasted for many years afterwards. In ending I have to say that until this day Switzerland remains my favourite country to visit.

In the next chapter I will be moving on to more of the realities of life.

Our Hotel View from our room

Grindelwald

A mountain road - see the Pass in the bottom left of the picture

Yes, I was scared

A postcard of another mountain pass we drove through

The Matterhorn

A ferry on Lake Lucerne approaching our hotel

The bikes

We are in a deeply wooded forest

The people who lived higher up the hill used a wooden cart on a pulley system

to get to their house







Inside the Rhone Glacier

Not really - we are on the way out, it was quite dark deep inside

More mountain scenery taken through the car window

On the way up to the glacier seen behind Alan

Typical Swiss village

The Cotswolds Pt. 12 - Sudeley Castle

Sudeley Castle and grounds are situated one mile south of Winchcombe in the Cotswolds.

It's recent claim to fame is it is the venue where Elizabeth Hurley got married,

the ex-partner of the actor Hugh Grant

Look closer and one will see that it has been the home of Royalty and Aristocrats since

the 10th century when King Ethelred (The Unready) gave the Saxon manor house and estate of Sudeleagh and its surrounding Royal deer park to his daughter, Goda, on her marriage to

Walter de Maunt

Even earlier than this, Old Stone Age Hunters, Roman legions and Saxon tribes had taken it in turns to colonise this unspoint valley where the castle lies in a fold of the Cotswold hills.

When Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509, Sudeley was still Crown property and the King and Anne Boleyn spent a week here in 1535, the last year of their marriage.

There is so much history connected to this home that it takes up a whole book

We were fortunate in that we booked a late tour of the state and private rooms

and we were the only two on this tour so we had plenty of time to browse and ask questions

Obviously the only photos one is allowed to take are outside.

The Castle is currently the home of the Dent-Brocklehurst family

The Castle is part lived in and part ruins

The ruins have been incorporated into the gardens

The gardens incorporate The Wildflower Meadow, The Victorian Vegetable Garden,The Tithe Barn Garden, The Stone Garden, The Mulberry Garden, The Knot Garden, The Ruins Garden, The Queen's Garden, The White Garden and The Secret Garden

Here are just a few of the pictures

First from the Museum

First a life sized Henry VIII

His six wives



Silk Embroidery

More silk embroidery

The Castle church

Lived in part of the Castle

Looking out from the drawing room

Private courtyard

The ruins garden

The young daughter of the family is currently in art college

This is one of her creations

The neon brain is another

Can you spot it

More of the ruin garden

Part of the secret garden

The Cotswolds Pt. 11 - Chipping Camden

Chipping Campden is one of the loveliest small towns(it's not a village) in the Cotswolds and a gilded masterpiece of limestone and craftmanship.The main street curves in a shallow arc lined with a succession of ancient houses each grafted to the next but each with it's own distinctive embellishments.
As the name suggests (Chipping means market) and Chipping Campden was one of the most important of the medieval wool towns and famous throughout Europe. This legacy of fame and prosperity is everything that gives the town it's character.
Chipping Campden's church at the north end of the town, is perhaps, the finest 'wool' church in the Cotswolds, with a magnificent 120ft (36 metre) tower and a very spacious interior. The church is famed for having one of the oldest altar tapestries (pre-reformation) in England.

The Church - tourist board photo

The Market Hall 1627 AD

now owned by The National Trust

The Pub

the tearooms sold delicious cakes

Cotswolds Pt 10 - Evesham

A few more Cotswolds posts before I have finished

This is the town of Evesham, gateway to the Vale of Evesham

not strictly the Cotswolds but just about 3 miles over the border so as we visited while staying in the Cotswolds I will include it here

Ye Olde Red Horse Pub

The Almonry - medieval home of the Benedictine Almoner who was responsible for the distribution of alms to the poor pilgrims and inhabitants of Evesham during the 850 year lifetime of Evesham's Abbey

It now houses a remarkable collection which takes the visitor from the earliest days of the Vale, when hippos roamed through swamps, up to the second World War.

Medieval houses and shops in the town

There are 3 ancient churches on this site

Legend tells of the swineherd Eof seeing a vision which led to the founding of a great Abbey around the year 700 A.D.

The Benedictine Abbey of Evesham which was subsequently founded, grew to be one of the largest and wealthiest in England before it's dramatic closure in January 1540 by

Henry VIII

All that remains now is the Bell Tower

I used to be a Campanologist (Bell ringer) so this is me being allowed to ring one of the bells

in this Medieval Tower

Some facts about bells

The clapper hits the bell at around 600mph...

English bell ringing is older than cricket...

1350 First Diatonic bells cast (Doh Re Me Fa Soh La Te Doh)..

1590 Simple "changes" first rung and still rung today..

Full Wheel - the modern way of ringing - the bells are rung from and upside down position at the top of the wheel

This is unique to the UK

A bell quadruples its weight by centrifugal force when rung

A collection of bells being rung is called

a "Ring of Bells"

A "Peal of Bells" must exceed 5,000 changes

The largest bell is at Liverpool cathedral - 82 cwt.

Heaviest bell is always the Tenor

Lightest bell is always the Treble

Total weight of bells in this tower - 8 tons 10 cwt.

MY STORY Chapter 8 - Life on the Ocean - Pt. 4 - Ports of Call

What’s left to relate about my time at sea – some highlights of ports of call I guess. Linden, New Jersey was a particularly good port to visit as it is so close to New York City. I can still remember the excitement of waiting, in sight of the Statue of Liberty, for the pilot to come on board and take us in. Also the enormously thick New York broadsheet newspapers brought onto the ship by the pilot. We visited this port every month and it was always scheduled that we would arrive on Friday as the docks closed so that we would be berthed all weekend, waiting for the unloading of the ship’s cargo to begin on Monday. This always gave us a long weekend ashore. This was particularly beneficial to Alan and me because the second mate had an Aunt and Uncle living in Bronxville, New York State. They had emigrated from Scotland when they were young and as soon as they heard that the Chief had his wife on board, they immediately offered us hospitality in their home for every visit. One would have to experience the basic living conditions on board the ship to appreciate what this meant to me.

As soon as we arrived at the house a beautiful bathroom was put at our disposal complete with stacks of large fluffy white towels, bath essences and lots of hot water. We certainly took our time soaking in this luxury. The food was good too, and the company. Before taking advantage of this wonderful hospitality we would spend time in New York City. A company agent would collect us from the ship in a limousine and we would be given complimentary tickets to Broadway shows. One I remember particularly was ‘My Fair Lady’ with Rex Harrison. So, having spent the day wandering around Macy’s, taking in the sights, and seeing a show, we would head out on a train to Bronxville, just south of White Plains.

On one visit to New York there was so much security and we soon found out that a ship carrying Kruchev, the Russian President, was berthed not too far from us. Another interesting visit, we took in a Broadway show at the end of our visit which meant we needed to find our own way back to the ship late at night. We trawled around Grand Central Station but were unable to get a train near enough to where we wanted to go. As it was so late at night, or possibly early morning, we decided to look for a taxi to get us back. We found one, settled in the back only later to find that the driver refused to cross the state border into New Jersey. He dropped us at a deserted bus station in the early hours of the morning. Neither Alan nor I have any recollection of how we got back to the ship. Isn’t memory strange how it leaves blanks at times. It’s probably worth mentioning our experience in shops in the town of Linden. We were quite a novelty with some people as they asked us things like, “Do you have washing machines in England, Do you have strawberries, is that right you have to be off the streets by 10 pm?” Did they think we had come from another planet!

I don’t overall have good memories of taxi rides in NYC. Many years later in 1988 while staying at the Mayfair Regent (it no longer exists), the concierge hailed me a cab to take me to Newark airport for a flight back to the UK. As I was travelling alone he negotiated a fare with the driver. I think it was $35. When I got to the drop off point at the airport the driver refused to open the boot/trunk to retrieve my luggage until I had paid him double this amount saying I had to pay his fare back to NYC. What could I do, a middle aged woman travelling alone and it was dark.

My first visit to New Orleans was exciting. The long 120 mile steam up the Mississippi River with the sea plane gas stations, coupled with scenes of swamps along the way was particularly interesting. Also the Mississippi river boats. I will always remember my first experience of being very cold in air conditioned shops and the contrast of the steamy hot air outside. It was here that I also experienced my first watermelon. When just one slice arrived, it was so large I hardly knew what to do with it. Alan just laughed his head off when he saw the expression on my face. Alan had been to New Orleans many times before so he enjoyed showing me around the French quarters. He plays the trumpet and on one previous visit he had the pleasure of sitting in with a Jazz band in one of the many Jazz clubs. He is an avid Jazz fan, owning every record that Lois Armstrong had made, even his first one so you can imagine what this meant to him. The downside was that I could not understand the separate drinking taps for whites and blacks and equally the separate toilets and restrooms. This was 1960.

Lake Charles, Louisiana was the port where I was almost detained on board. On my first visit when being asked by immigration if I had ever had contact with the Communist party, not realising how serious this was, I joked and said “Yes, I used to be a member of the party”. A deathly silence all round was broken by the immigration officer telling me he would have me detained on board. He eventually relented after I had received a lecture on how serious this was and showed that I was truly sorry and realised how naive I had been. This was the place we were stopped by the Police when out walking. They wanted to know where we were going and why we were walking. Once we explained we were walking and looking for a shop, they took us in their police car, saying it was far too hot to walk.

We became quite used to the culture in Mexico as we visited every month. We would berth in Coatzacoalcos or Minatitlan on the Gulf of Campeche. The cargo we collected in Mexico was powdered sulphur. It was a truly unpleasant cargo to be carrying. When it was being loaded, in no time at all, the whole ship would be coated in it and our eyes would be sore and streaming. Even face washing did not help very much as the powder would be washed into our eyes. The smell wasn’t nice either. However we would walk into town and be amazed at the contrast of wealth and poverty in such proximity to each other. Smart homes right next to corrugated iron shacks. The opposite side of the river was just villages of straw and mud huts..

Sunday afternoon in the town square we observed the ritual of promenading. All the young men walking around the square in one direction, and all the young ladies in the opposite direction, smiling and giggling and eyeing each other up. Very sweet. Once when visiting the office of the shipping agent I needed to use the loo/bathroom. This was situated in a cupboard with a tiny three foot high door right next to one of the occupied desks. Very embarrassing. There was a silver mine not too far away and the owner visited the ship bringing with him a gift for me, a silver and moonstone bracelet, the silver having been mined and beaten right there.

Coupled with the whole chapter on our time berthed in Nova Scotia, these are some of the highlights of the ports visited on this voyage. When we eventually sailed back across the Atlantic, much further south I might add, the ocean was like a millpond, so calm it seemed we were just on a lake. Such a blessing and relief after our voyage over.

It only remains to recall our stops over in Southern Ireland on the way home. Before berthing in Cork we encountered some sudden very severe storms and had to stay outside the harbour for a day until it was safe to make our way in. While berthed in Cork we got to visit the Blarney stone and yes we did do what everyone else did and kissed it, I have no idea why. While berthed in Dublin it was funny to see some of the locals coming out with buckets and shovels to help themselves to the coal that had been loaded on the quayside for the ships boilers. Before leaving for home we armed ourselves with the local bounty, sheepskin lined coats and mittens and Aran sweaters, Southern Ireland being renowned for these.

All that remains to be said is that it was such a wonderful feeling to be on the home stretch as we sailed away from Ireland and north through the Western Isles of Scotland before eventually berthing and disembarking on the North East coast of England. For me that was the end but even though Alan had decided to leave the sea for good he had to stay on the ship a little while longer until a new Chief Engineer was found. I had experienced a wonderful and at times traumatic adventure and was now desiring some stability in my life. Did I find it? All will be revealed as I continue with this story.

The dear couple who gave us such hospitality



The silver and moonstone bracelet
Sorry I did not clean it for the photo!

Mexican suberbs

In the garden at Bronxville

MY SECOND GIVEAWAY

I am soon coming up to my 200th post and as Christmas is coming too

I thought I would do another giveaway

I am giving away this funky scarf made by my own fair hands

I will draw it on Sunday 25th November

So if you wish to be entered then let me know in the comments section

I will continue to publish my story as I am able to get it written and typed

It is encouraging to have such positive comments about it

There is still a long way to go so stay tuned

I should also be able to continue with finishing my posts on the Cotswolds

which seem to have taken a back seat lately

and I have also promised the posts on Winston Churchill's homes

so I appreciate your visits - keep coming back

MY STORY - Chapter 7 - Life on the Ocean Pt 3.

Nova Scotia to the Gulf

On leaving Nova Scotia we did a round trip each month stopping every time in either New Orleans or Lake Charles, Louisiana. From there we would sail to Coatzacolcoz or Minatitlan on the Veracruz River in Southern Mexico and back up to New York, berthing at Linden New Jersey. We visited other ports such as Philadelphia and Hopewell, Virginia on a less regular basis on each direction of the journey.

One of my first impressions of sailing down the American coast was of hearing Billy Graham on the radio. Knowing he had been to England and reading and hearing so much about his ministry, it was amazing to me at the time to be able to listen to him preaching every day on the radio while I was on the ship. I would also listen to Oral Roberts. I actually worked for Oral Roberts Ministries in England when I was 16.

Having this spiritual contact meant so much to me as I began to reconnect with the faith that had been such a sustaining influence in my life. My own relationship with God took on a new dimension as a result and I was becoming spiritually active again. I longed for fellowship with other believers but this wasn’t going to happen for quite some time. It was just me and God which is all any of us really have in the end. I didn’t have the spiritual maturity that would make a noticeable difference in my life, but I was on my way and trusting God.

We also could keep up with the election debates between Kennedy and Nixon.

As the ship plodded through the waves, there was always a heavy swell down the East coast which caused the ship to roll heavily, I settled again into the routine of a less traumatic life on the ocean than had been my experience crossing the Atlantic. Sea life certainly had its ups and downs and I don’t want to give the impression that it was all excitement and activity. Not so, some days were totally boring and repetitive when time hung heavy and dragged.

Interspersed with the monotony, moments of interest and excitement arose. Apart from visiting ports which I will tell you about later, at this point I am trying to project a picture of my daily life at sea. As mentioned in the last chapter there was always my daily visit to the bridge, meals in the salon, afternoon siestas, sunbathing, reading, knitting, embroidery and Scrabble, but now that the weather was mostly good I would spend quite a lot of time on deck.

I enjoyed leaning over the front bow, not quite as dramatically as Kate Winslet in the film Titanic, watching the dolphins jump and play as they followed the ship. A school of dolphins can stay with a ship for days. It was also quite something to see flying fish landing on deck. We had an Indian 4th engineer and he used to cook them.

Then there was the day when the great liner of the time, the Queen Mary passed us. Not to be forgotten were the times when we needed to dodge hurricanes. Nor the time when we were actually directly in the path of a hurricane and had to shelter behind Cuba until it passed over. Being in the eye of a hurricane was spectacular, absolute calm and quiet with nothing but birds and insects flying around, but with a great sense of foreboding for what was to come. There was also the time we saw the beginning of a storm in the form of a large waterspout in the Mexican gulf.

A rather unpleasant and recurring non-natural event was the presence on the ship of an alcoholic seaman. When his supply of alcohol ran out and further supplies were prohibited by the Captain, he would sneak into guy’s cabins and steal their shave lotion to drink. This was a serious problem and it ended up with cabins and cupboards having to be locked. The resulting cold turkey that this guy suffered was not pleasant for those around him. His first trip ashore after that ended with him being so drunk that he lay on the deck all night and by morning was a very sorry sight when he was found absolutely covered in mosquito bites. I guess there would have been more than a few tipsy mosquitoes that night.

Another serious and unpleasant episode was when the second mate put his fingers into the gears of the steering cogs, something he never should have done. When Alan was called to investigate why the steering had jammed up, he found the second mate on the floor and the steering cogs jammed up with bits of bone and flesh. We were passing Florida at the time and had to sail towards to Key West where a pilot boat came out to take the casualty to hospital. It was very hard for us to understand why the pilot insisted on knowing who was paying before he would take the injured man on board his boat. This would never have happened in England.

Looking back, the trip couldn’t have been easy for Alan. He was the only one on board with a wife to take care of and there were so many extra things he needed to do to make life at sea, on such a small ship, more comfortable for me. Away from the galley which was at the other end of the ship, the only drinking water available was from a tap some distance away. As this water came from a storage tank I was not at ease just drinking it so he would go to the galley and have it boiled for me. It was not so easy for me to do this as it entailed negotiating a ladder between decks which might be rolling and pitching with the seas coming right over the side. I was only 21 and at times quite nervous of being left alone and I sometimes got fearful and weepy when I realised how long I was going to be on the ship. During Alan’s previous years at sea he had been used to the companionship of the other guys and with nowhere to go and nothing to do; leisure time at sea was usually spent drinking. After one episode early on in the trip when I had to put Alan to bed fully clothed as he was so drunk, he began to realise that he was now married and even more that his new bride was on the ship with him. From that time on he made every effort to be with me and limit his drinking, so it must have been somewhat lonely for him too at times. We were still getting to know each other having only met about five months before we embarked on this voyage, not an easy start to any marriage in many people’s eyes but it became normal to us and by God’s Grace we did survive it. At the time of writing we have clocked up 48 years in a few weeks.

I guess overall for me it was a roller coaster of romance, trauma, fun, excitement, fear and panic and learning. Also an experience I would never want to have missed and probably would never wanted to have repeated. In the next chapter we will be revisiting the various ports as we continue on the voyage.

Alan - The Chief
Sunbathing in a lifeboat

Dolphins

The Queen Mary

Taking a sight of the sun

Mississippi River boat

Mexican Beach

Where are we going

Bahamas in the background

Spectacular Autumn colours in Epping Forest

This week we went walking in Epping Forest

It is just 20 minutes ride from our home and is the largest public open space in the London area

It covers 6,000 acres

The colours are spectacular this year due to a wet Summer and mild Autumn without winds

I would love for you to come with me into this enchanted forest

I didn't want to leave

I took 70 photographs but we will make do with 25 here

Let's leave the road, park the car and come on in

Happy Birthday Alan

Only 30 years old here

Today he is young and fit and celebrating his 76th

Happy Birthday to my dear husband Alan

What do you buy for the man who always says he does not need anything

I guess I will end up buying him something computer related

if only he will tell me what

At least I could make him a funky card

different to any he has had before

Tuesday I took photos of the most spectacular Autumn colours I have ever seen

I will post them tomorrow

so do come back and enjoy

London Colney Lakes

London Colney lies just off the M25 London Orbital Motorway, the junction we use when we visit Janie. We get onto the M25 at junction 28 so we only have to travel 6 exits

and if the traffic is good the journey can be done in 50 minutes

If the traffic is bad - well anyone's guess

So Friday, being our last full day at Janie's we decided to explore this area a little

instead of always passing it by

It was late afternoon and quite misty

Jane's cleaning lady was on holiday so we came here after spending the day taking care of the household chores

The mist actually gave an artistic atmosphere

Gosh! We didn't bring any bread!



This lady did

We found a mixture of inter locking lakes and footpaths

The mistiness and reflections seem to merge

As we continue we pass this red carpeted bank We are looking back behind us here

We have now retraced our steps having walked as far as the fishing lakes

and are about to walk underneath the arches of the road bridge

We have come under the bridge and here is a place for refreshment

We don't stop

Further along from the other side of the bridge

the River Colne that will take us to a quite extensive set of lakes
This was the wild side of the road

Kingfishers, Herons and an Otter have been seen here

We just saw Water Voles

We did not continue any further as we needed to get home and start dinner so we turned around and made our way back to the car.

One never knows what one is passing when sitting in the car

Stowe Landscape Gardens,Buckingham

Let’s get back to my recent week at Janie’s. It is now Tuesday and as you know, I have already posted on that day. The day I met my blogging friend Linds of Rocking Chair Reflections.

Wednesday I visited some of my favourite charity/thrift shops but I will post on that later.

It is now Thursday when we decided to drive to Stowe Landscape Gardens in Buckingham. It was quite a damp, drizzly day but we decided to go all the same.

In the 1700’s Sir Richard Temple, known as Lord Cobham, employed many of the 18th century’s finest architects and garden designers to begin to create the spectacular garden that can be seen today. Over several generations, the Temple family used the garden to display their love of art, literature and architecture and gardens themselves, to display their political beliefs. This was achieved by using different building styles and decorations and by carefully selecting the locations of the temples and monuments. There are 42 in all dotted around the garden and often in ‘hidden’ places. I photographed just a few of them .

The impressive Stowe house is now a boarding school. Visitors can also explore the vast Deer park.

Although interesting, I have to say that it was not really

my type of garden

How many temples and monuments does one need to look at

I did enjoy the landscaping though and the Autumn colours were beginning to come through

November 5th Guy Fawkes Night

http://www.bonefire.org/guy/gunpowder.php

November 5th, the day that celebrates the foiling of the plot by Guy Fawkes to blow up Parliament in 1605 in a secret plan to overthrow the King. Read the whole story in the above link.

As a child we looked forward to this celebration with great anticipation. Friends or other children in the street would get together and build an effigy of the guy. This was made with a set of old clothes, stuffed with whatever was to hand, and straw for the hair. It would then be taken round the street or sat in a cart on the street corner with children asking for “a penny for the guy”. These pennies were used to buy fireworks.

We would have a bonfire in the middle of the road and as hardly anybody had a car in those days traffic was not a problem. The only problem that I remember is making sure the fire did not crack the windows of the nearest house. Fireworks were quite small, maybe a Pinwheel, a couple of Rockets and a few small Bangers, but mostly we would have sparklers that children could hold themselves. A lot of the fun was roasting potatoes in the fire, and staying out after dark.
Now of course fireworks are much more spectacular and very loud. Public organised firework displays can be nothing less than stunning but today many people set off fireworks for every conceivable celebration in their back gardens and usually around midnight. At this time of year and through to New Year celebrations they can be heard almost every night. Apart from the nuisance and disturbance more is not always best. The fun and expectations of one single evening of excitement has now been dulled by the regular sounds and sights of peoples back garden antics often into the early hours of the morning. This year’s celebration being on a Monday, the displays lasted all Saturday and Sunday evening. All we had to do was look out of our bedroom windows to see displays in every direction one looked. Tonight is the real Guy Fawkes night so there will be many again, but I wonder how many children these days know just what the celebration is meant to be about. I read an article in my Newspaper today saying that it is possible that in another decade November 5th celebrations will probably have faded out and be overtaken by Halloween.

Thank you so much everyone for all your good wishes and birthday greetings. Wish I could thank you all in person.

It's My Birthday and other things

It's my birthday

They come around far too quickly these days

My husband Alan is buying me a tripod for my camera

The long delay on some of the menu settings cause hand shake so I thought this would be a good idea

My son has bought me an external hard drive for my computer

I will now be able to just hook into any computer and have all my own stuff there as well as back up everything on my computer

I do not want to repeat the scenario I had when my last computer crashed

My daughter Jane bought me my favourite Eden Belgium chocolates plus an enormous sized bottle of Origins Spearmint and Lemon Hand Lotion plus Michael Palin's latest book

The New Europe

I have been watching the series on TV and have copied it onto DVD and now I can read about it and enjoy the photographs

I appreciate all of these gifts plus the chocolates from friends

Everybody seems to know that I am a Belgium Chocoholic

Actually these will probably last until Christmas as I limit myself to two per night

Alan also treated me to a delicious speciality ready meal from Marks and Spencers so that I did not have to cook and at the meeting this morning there was a Belgium chocolate and caramel birthday cake

What more could a girl ask for

Yesterday Jane and Chris came over for the day with dear little Oliver

He is 15 months old now

I made some cake that I thought would suit Oliver

It was very moorish if you have a sweet tooth so I will leave you the recipe

It is a children's recipe where the author likes to make sure that her recipes are not just empty calories but nourishing ingredients too

Everyone enjoyed it including me whose hand of course was on the camera

I'm sure you can easily guess whose hand belongs to who

Rice Krispie Squares

100g white chocolate 75g unsalted butter
75g golden syrup 60 g Rice Krispies
60g porridge oats 50g chopped dried apricots
30g pecans, finely chopped

Melt together chocolate, butter and syrup.
In a large bowl mix together rice krispies, oats, apricots and pecans
Stir in melted chocolate mixture

Line a fairly shallow 8 inch square baking tin
Spoon mixture into tin and level surface
Place in fridge to set and cut into squares

Store in fridge. Makes 9 squares

Having been asked by "Midlife Cycler" if I could convert to American Cups, here is the nearest I can manage. Fortunately I do have an American cup measure.

Apricots 8 Pecans 1/2 cup Chocolate 3 3/4ozs Butter 2 3/4ozs

Syrup 1/4 cup Krispies 2 1/2 cups Oats 2/3rds cup

I was so excited last night, I was able to get Page Elements up

Not only that but it uploaded more photos to my sidebar

I have been having problems with this for months

I would be lucky if I could get it to load once in a week

Getting the sidebar picture download was almost impossible

I don't know if this is an issue that blogger has fixed or that being Saturday night it was a quiet time

especially as it was the nearest Saturday to Guy Fawkes

(more of that tomorrow)

Anyhow I was reluctant to close it down in case I could not get it again

So I used it some more and loaded some Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter photos

I was determined to get some use of it!

Back to the park for the Autumn Colours

When we visited South Weald park 2 weeks ago the Autumn colours were only just beginning

Gave me a great excuse to go again 2 weeks later and have another walk there

and yes what a difference

Isn't God a brilliant artist

Chipperfield and the Two Brewers

Our second full day at Janie's we drove over to Chipperfield for lunch

Walking across the village green with The Two Brewers Pub in the background

See the Chef and Brewer on the Pub sign

It really is a worthwhile place to go for lunch as the menu is so varied with a great choice in both food and price

They also have speciality weeks where they celebrate a particular type of food on top of their regular menu

This week was their home made pies

Probably the best pie I have ever tasted (and I am not a pie person)

Alan had beef and I had chicken and leek

The pastry was melt in the mouth and the meat plentiful and in a delicious sauce and so deep

all accompaniments were good too

Their desserts were delicious also but neither of us had any room left, in fact I could not finish all that I had on my plate

Next weeks speciality was Game pies

This is the entrance - you can take a book to read while waiting



Our seat by a window


Atmosphere and ambiance were good too






Time to make our way back



Passing the church



And the tearooms but no stopping this time

Instead we drove to an area near home where we could have a good walk over fields before

going to a large Marks and Spencers and buying some new clothes that I did not actually need

Nice to have a change though