Chapter 7: An English Tour
We went home on leave in September 1928. The voyage did us good, and I felt much better when I got home. We had sold our little home while we were out in Nigeria. It was too much bother; what with frozen pipes, the garden going to pieces, and the agent's fees, there was no pleasure to be got out of it. We bought an old car (a Rover 14 horsepower) and wandered all over the country. I had always thought that England was so small that in a few days one could see it all. We have been motoring on average about ten thousand miles every time we go on leave (every other summer), and England is still full of delightful places that we have not visited. We did not make any plans for our leave; we stopped where we liked; we ate when we were hungry.
One day we were on our way to London from the Midlands when I said, "I wonder what Bristol is like; have you been there?"
My husband said, "No, shall we go and see it?"
I replied, "Yes," and we went.
Upon arrival in the evening, we found the big hotels were too expensive for us. We tried the smaller ones, but they were full up. In the end we found one; it was part of a house split up into funny-shaped rooms. The back part of the house had fallen to pieces, and when we looked out of our bedroom window in the morning, we saw that the garden was full of quite respectable ruins — crumbling walls and piles of bricks. It must have been a huge house. Our bedroom felt like it would be next to go. It was extremely dilapidated, and we walked very carefully over the shaky, uneven floor.
In the morning, I went to see Helen in her little bedroom. She was on the floor playing with a rabbit, and some hens were sitting on her bed. I asked her where she had found them, and she said they had come in because the door was open. When we went down to the kitchen, I found out that rabbits and poultry were all over the house. There were other invisible things too, as we discovered in the following days. We packed up quickly and left, and had breakfast in another place.
We looked round Bristol, and we liked it. So we went to look for rooms. It took us all day, and after tea we had given up hope of finding anything suitable. I suggested that before we left Bristol we should try the first place we went to in the morning, where the landlady was out. It was on the way to Avonmouth near the golf course and looked very pretty. When we got there, the landlady was at home, and we liked the rooms and the landlady. They had a hairdresser's and beauty parlour. After her husband closed his door, he would beautify his wife's face with mud packs and hot towels. Helen and their little girl used to go and watch the husband treating his wife. I thought it was a real test of husbandly devotion. I am afraid mine would not pass the test. He may have in the first year of marriage, when I once made him steal an orange from someone's picnic basket when we went to Babylon one Sunday. But this loving husband smoothed her wrinkles as carefully as he did his clients all day long.
It was a new housing estate where we were living, and the tenants of these houses went to dances on Saturday evenings in the village hall. Our host and hostess used to take us with them. It was a very serious affair; every husband danced with his own wife, and each boy with his girl. There was a slipper dance that was meant to mix the dancers a little. While the lights were switched off, all the ladies put one slipper in the middle of the floor. When the lights went up, all the men picked one slipper each and went to find the owner of it. If he did not like the lady, he dropped the slipper in the pile and picked another. It went on a long time until all the pretty girls were chosen. The less fortunate girls had to sit blushing all through the dance with one stockinged foot while their slippers were kicked about by the dancers. My poor husband had to dance with me. He had purchased my shoes and did not want one kicked about the room.
We stayed for two weeks in Bristol and then saw an advert for a nice furnished house with central heating in Ringwood. It was getting cold in October; central heating sounded very attractive, and I wanted to see the New Forest. When we got there, the house was let, so we went to Beaulieu and found a farmhouse to let. It was too big for us, but we took it because it looked lovely and was covered with red creeper. We were very happy there and had lovely walks and rides. Helen was six and was very excited when she saw the ponies roaming in the forest.
Our landlord had a cottage very close to our house, and they were the only Scottish people I have met who behaved like the Scotsmen of music-hall jokes. We did not lock the house when we went out, so they used to slip in and have hot baths in our absence. They used to keep the fires burning for us and do all their cooking in our kitchen, using nearly all our hot water. They charged us top prices for dairy produce and vegetables but supplied their rejects. We were rather surprised that they left a piece of soap in the kitchen for us to use. I tried it one day. It looked like soap and smelt like soap, but although I rubbed very hard, I could not get a bubble of lather from it. I should say it is still there now. We decided it was Scots soap. They did let us play on the field, knocking a golf ball about. They suggested it themselves and never charged us for it. There must have been a catch, but we never learned it. When we went out anywhere, they always asked us to come back in time to meet the train that brought their children home from school. They used to take them on the lorry with the milk in the morning.
After a while, if we were a little late returning from our day out or told them we would not be back in time, they were very hurt. They asked us if they could put up some of their friends in our spare bedroom; in the end, we were reduced to one room downstairs and two bedrooms, and their friends used the rest of the house. When we left, we gave them money for a broken glass on a lamp; they said they would let us know if it cost more. They did: it was a very expensive glass! However, it amused us, and the New Forest is lovely. The autumn colouring is magnificent, and it was beautiful weather.