July 2021 – derrickjknight

Not As Punishing As Expected

This is the second delicately wind-chiming owl that Jackie has found smashed to smithereens by gale force winds. She wasn’t about to buy another so she carefully super-glued the pieces together late yesterday. She has since managed to prise her fingers apart.

Much of the day has been spent tying up or removing fallen plants. The white climber, Créme de la Créme was bent, at right angles, to breaking point, but seems to have revived. The Summer statue seems amenable to being tied to a verbena bonariensis, and the Head Gardener applied a green thumb to stake up prone tomato plants. We have been wondering what to do with the two wrought iron gates salvaged from the dump a few years ago.

The broken borage stems resting on the back of a dragon were about to be snipped.

Many of the hanging baskets placed on the ground were tipped over and lost their trailing elements. Some, happily, survived – others are in the process of being refilled.

Dahlias and clematises are among the many survivors.

Here Jackie makes apparent her feelings about those that were not so fortunate, although she did raise a smile when she realised that this phlox stem has a root and she will be able to make a cutting from it.

A few more images demonstrate that the efforts of Hurricane Evert were not as punishing as expected.

Light showers fell this afternoon, when I embarked upon research for the great aunts’ section of A Knight’s Tale. There is far too much material for a blog, so it will need to be well condensed.

This evening we dined on roast chicken; roast potatoes; crisp Yorkshire pudding; sage and onion stuffing; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; and a melange od fried onions, mushrooms, and peppers, with which Jackie drank Terre Siciliane Carricante 2019 and I drank Vendemmia Barolo 2016, a rather fine birthday present from Danni and Andy.

74 Miles Per Hour

The title represents the fastest speed of the hurricane force winds gusting through The Needles this morning. With our garden in direct line about two miles from these there was no point in going out to investigate the damage, so we drove to Barton on Sea to have a look at them.

Jackie photographed the wind filling my jacket as I stood as near the cliff edge as I dared (not very) to photograph the waves; and this sequence of a Union flag wrapped and unwrapped round the pole by the gusts. Even the crows and gulls kept away.

I managed just a couple of decent shots among the wobbly ones before descending the slope to the promenade below.

Like me, this couple had reached the bottom. I hadn’t tried it for at least two years since my knee surgery.

Flora on the hillsides must have found it difficult to remain rooted.

I had hoped to descend to the rocks below, but this would have meant sliding down the grassy slopes beneath the gravelled path along which others walked. I wasn’t about to risk that.

Choppy waves threw up spray as they battered the sturdy breakwaters and smashed into steadfast rocks. Salty vapour shrouded hazy horizons.

This afternoon I posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/30/a-knights-tale-7-world-war-i/

Even by dinner time the winds had not totally subsided, so we decided that tying up plants and removing broken stems would have to wait until tomorrow. Similarly, we have let the garden furniture lie.

Jackie, however completed her project on clearing the stepping stones through the Palm Bed, and photographed it along with

the sunflower, which has survived.

This evening we dined on plump roast chicken; sage and onion stuffing; crisp Yorkshire pudding; roast and boiled potatoes; crunchy carrots and cauliflower; fried chestnut mushrooms; and tasty, meaty, gravy, with which Jackie finished the Rosé and I finished the Recital.

A Knight’s Tale (7: World War I)

From my brother, Chris’s, research, I have learned that my potential great uncle, Fred Evans, brother of great uncle John (Jack Riskit) and Grandma Hunter, née Evans, was killed on the Somme in 1916. A first class cricketer and footballer, Fred was expected to play cricket for Lancashire until the war put a stop to it. From his home in Sydney, a member of the 53rd Bn., Australian Infantry, he set out for France on 8th March, 1916, and was, according to a comrade, George Stone, one of the first over the parapet and shot “about half-way across to” the German line, on 19th July. He has no known grave and is commemorated at V.C. Corner Australian Cemetery Memorial, Fromelles.

My Grandparents, John Francis Cecil (Jack) Knight, wearing Army uniform in 1917; and George Henry Hunter, clad in Merchant Navy uniform, were both fortunate enough to – at least physically – to have survived WWI, the first time the world went mad.

All I know about Jack’s war service is that he taught airmen to fly. His qualification for this was

The Norwood School for the Sons of Gentlemen, which was a family run business of the Knights for several generations, although not always in West Norwood. He may not have known how to fly, but he did know how to teach. Male members ran the school, whilst the women became governesses when they served all over Europe. Central to the photograph, probably taken in 1913, are my paternal grandparents Beatrice and Jack (John Francis Cecil) Knight.

The woman on the far left we knew in later years as Auntie Evelyn. It was her sister, Mabel, who bequeathed our father 18 Bernard Gardens. When the family moved into this large house in Wimbledon, among Mabel’s effects were all the gramophone records of Julie Andrews. Mabel had no record player, but had clearly taken pride in her former charge. The colourful careers of our three great aunts will feature further on in the story.

Here, our late brother, Chris, on a visit to Tangmere, occupies a replica of the SE 5a Scout from 1918, which our grandfather taught airmen to fly. From the museum web page we read:

‘SE5A COCKPIT REPLICA

The Royal Aircraft Factory SE 5a scout was one of the most successful British fighter aircraft of the First World War and was one of the first aircraft to fly from the newly created RAF Tangmere in 1918 when No 92 Squadron trained here before leaving for the Western Front. The Museum’s replica was built to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and constructed by a small team drawn from our engineering staff using original drawings and employing the same techniques that were used for the original aircraft’.

Jack, after 1914, was never to work in the school again. Returning from the First World War he no longer had the heart to work inside or in education, and bought a removal firm.

Grandpa Hunter was a land based engineer, almost certainly using his skills as a turner. He served on Victory 2, a training depot for RN divisions at Crystal Palace.

After The Storm?

Yesterday’s winds had in fact reached gale proportions.

This morning I joined Jackie in the garden and carried out a dead heading operation.

Roses New Dawn, Alan Titchmarsh, Créme de la Créme, For Your Eyes Only, and Winchester Cathedral were among those that received my attention.

Taking a break for lunch and cutting my hair, Jackie continued until early evening. Among her achievements were

the creation of a new bed opposite the greenhouse door; bringing one of her dragons further into view by providing him with a pedestal; and progressing the clearance of the stepping stones through the Palm Bed.

This latter project could be seen from the decking on which we took our pre-dinner drinks in gathering gloom, as could

the tall sunflower, and these two garden views.

My afternoon was spent producing https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/29/a-knights-tale-6-spanish-flu/

This evening we dined on pork chops coated with mustard; new potatoes, crunchy carrots, and firm broccoli, with which Jackie drank more of the Rosé and I repeated the Recital.

Immediately afterwards, having now learned that tomorrow’s gentle breeze and light showers has transmogrified into the end of Hurricane Evert, we set about once more laying down the garden furniture raised this morning.

A Knight’s Tale (6: Spanish Flu)

John Richard Evans was the brother of Annie Hunter, nee Evans, my maternal grandmother. He was therefore my great uncle, and the grandfather of Audrey and Roy, who appear in the street party image featured in “A Knight’s Tale” (5: That Heady, Optimistic, Summer)

As a high wire and trapeze artist, John adopted the stage name Jack Riskit. Among the countries graced by his presence was Australia, where he met and married a young woman who was to join his act. This was Holly King, my great aunt by marriage. Taking the stage name The Dental Riskits, they were famous throughout the Antipodes for a particular line in daredevilry. I am not sure to which part of Holly’s anatomy the strong wire from which she hung was attached, but the other end was firmly held in Jack’s teeth high above the ring. Given that her husband suspended Holly from his teeth, their stage name was most apt. The views of Jack’s dentists are not recorded

This image from the 20th February 1915 issue of The New Zealand Free Lance newspaper, shows a flyer advertising The Dental Riskits appearing at His Majesty’s Theatre. From the addresses of other advertisers on page 31 I believe this to be the one now termed St James Theatre, Wellington.

Shortly before the end of World War I, the couple came to England. Before then Holly had borne 2 children both of whom died. Their daughter, Ivy, named after Holly’s twin sister was born here but, not long after, Holly succumbed to the dreadful Spanish flu of 1918 – 1920. Following the devastation of World War I, this killer wiped out 100,000,000 more lives across the globe. The great aunt I never knew was then aged 28 years and 9 months. The disease was contracted while performing at Rotherham in Yorkshire and she is buried at Harrogate cemetery. Ivy, brought up by her grandmother, married Jim. They were the parents of the aforementioned Audrey and Roy.

September 1925: Trapeze artists Jack and Betty Riskit perform a gymnastic feat. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

Having lost a wife and two children, John later married Betty, seen here performing a different act. Perhaps his dentist had had a word.

These photographs were e-mailed to me by my cousin Yvonne, who knew Jack and Betty well. Performances came to an end when the couple fell 20′ when equipment failed in 1925 at London’s Victoria Palace, resulting in serious injuries. Jack went into theatre management and died in 1955.

The Gruffalo

Jackie spent this pleasantly sunny morning completing a line of granite setts edging the lawn. I carried a few down from the back drive, so I know how heavy they were.

Here is the work in progress;

and here, the completed job, and finally the semi-circle around the gazebo planted up. The penultimate image offers Where’s Jackie? (9)

Danni and Ella came to lunch, which, as the wind was becoming furious, we ate inside. This included a birthday cake Danni had brought for me along with a good bottle of Barolo, and a card containing drawings of monsters by Ella. Because Danni had been pinged by Track and Trace they had been isolating on the actual date.

As usual, Ella made a beeline for her toys and was soon

reading a book with sound effects on the sofa with her mother.

Then, phone in hand, she demonstrated that she has begun to pose when a camera is trained on her.

After lunch we watched

on BBC iPlayer.

Our great-niece has reached the bossy stage, so adults in turn were led off “to school” in the library. She has a few older friends who are already attending school and would like to join them. This is perhaps the next best thing.

Elizabeth had joined us after lunch and was given a tour of the garden by her granddaughter. GeeMa, as the grandmother is known, and I were in turn sent off to replenish the duck irrigator as Ella watered flowers and replenished the fountain standing in the Rose Garden beside rose Twice in a Blue Moon which had been given to us by Becky for the Anniversary of our second wedding. Lady Emma Hamilton rose and very tall sweetly scented lilies are also blooming well.

Neither Ella nor GeeMa was permitted a peaceful rest because they were being chased around by “a big pile of poo”.

Eventually the windspeed escalated enough to start blowing things over and smashing them, so we were forced to take the normal battening down the hatches precautions – somewhat late.

Our visitors left at about 4.30 and Ella, who had refused to say goodbye, was asleep before reaching Pennington.

This evening we dined on our second helpings of Red Chilli takeaway food with which Jackie drank more of the rosé and I drank Recital Languedoc Montpéroux 2018

Battered, Bedraggled, Bejewelled

I began a thoroughly wet morning by posting: https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/27/a-knights-tale-5-that-heady-optimistic-summer/

During the afternoon the rain eased off and I wandered round the garden with my camera, photographing

battered, bedraggled, and bejewelled blooms, each of which is separately titled in the gallery.

Later, I read more of Charles Dickens’s ‘David Copperfield’ and scanned four more of Charles Keeping’s inimitable illustrations.

‘The younger sister appeared to be the manager of the conference, inasmuch as she had my letter in her hand’

‘The whole of his lank cheek was invitingly before me, and I struck it with my open hand’

‘Kneeling down together, side by side’

‘Jip lay blinking in the doorway of the Chinese House, even too lazy to be teased’

This evening we dined on an excellent takeaway meal from Red Chilli with which Jackie drank more of the Rosé and I drank more of the Shiraz. Mrs Knight enjoyed her sag triple: namely bhaji, paneer, and chicken; as I did my Naga Chilli Lamb, special fried rice, and plain paratha. There is enough left over for tomorrow.

A Knight’s Tale (5: That Heady, Optimistic, Summer)

VE Day was just two months before my third birthday. In fact I have no memory of the original event, but I do have photographic evidence that Chris and I were there.

This photograph depicts a street party celebrating Victory in Europe at the end of that sphere of World War Two. For anyone below the age of about 75 to imagine the jubilation of that heady, optimistic, summer is virtually impossible.

Chris and I are in the centre of the front row. My chubby little brother, then not yet two, looks, as would any other toddler, as if he had no idea what was going on or why he was there. I, on the other hand, seem to be harbouring particularly pleasant thoughts that I am not sure I ought to have had. A little girl proudly holds my hand. She smiles broadly. I try to suppress my glee.

Mum, as she always did, would have made our outfits from scratch. She continued to do this until she could afford not to. Our first Wimbledon College blazer badges were embroidered by her own hand.

It wasn’t until secondary school that most boys in those days gravitated to long trousers. (I proudly wore my first pair up to the common and ripped them whilst climbing a fence. That must have been a pecuniary disaster.) Shorts worn with long grey socks were the norm. The hose were held up by elasticated garters. One or two of those in the picture have slipped a bit. The older members of the group could probably share their parents immense relief that they were able to celebrate the end of six long years of war. That the people were able to dress up at all, albeit in a sometimes strangely fitting assortment of clothes, is a tribute to their fortitude. Garments continued to be rationed until well into the 1950s. As can be clearly seen here, designer clothes and trainers were a thing of the far distant future. But look at the shine on the boots and shoes.

This party took place in Carshalton, then in Surrey but now part of Greater London, in the street of Mum’s cousin Ivy Wilson, whose two children, Audrey, third from left in the back row, and Roy, second from left of the middle row, were present. These two are the link with the first Holly in our extended family who will feature later in the story.

What Had The Child Found?

Early this morning, Jackie took a walk round the garden with her camera.

She photographed the sunflower recently photographed in bud, now winking at a ceramic owl, then viewed from the Palm Bed and the iron urn.

Two of her prize creations are the petunia-and-verbena-planted hanging basket, one of several whose contents have survived the winter, and the Japanese maple taken as a twig from a gravel path.

Current views of the Pond Bed include her earlier redesigned patch; the first Japanese anemone against the backcloth of such a maple; and another featuring towering verbena bonariensis, now ubiquitous in the garden.

The next three images show a garden view including the grey eryngiums; the black eyed Susans planted in a chimney pot fronting a New Zealand hebe; and the Head Gardener’s beautifully trimmed lawn.

Later, after a trip to Otter Nurseries to buy rose feed, we took a drive into the forest.

Lymington River is tidal. This morning a group of kayakers were leaving it as Jackie drove over the railway level crossing and road bridge, swinging past the algae laden shallows, into Undershore Road. Perhaps they knew their tide tables.

Attracted by the hay bale patterns alongside Shotts Lane, I decamped and photographed more of the verges and an opposite field.

A hazy, layered, view of the Isle of Wight was visible from the shingled beach at the end of Tanners Lane, where skin tones perhaps betrayed who were the visitors, and who the locals having hung their equipment on the barbed wire fence. I wondered what the child had found.

I have decided, for ease of access, from now on to separate the instalments of my autobiography from my normal daily diary. Consequently I later posted https://derrickjknight.com/2021/07/26/a-knights-tale-4-shrapnel-and-air-raid-precautions/

This evening we dined on succulent baked gammon; boiled new potatoes and carrots; moist ratatouille; fried leeks and cabbage, with which Jackie drank more of the Rosé and I drank more of the Shiraz.

A Knight’s Tale (4: Shrapnel? And Air Raid Precautions)

My brother Chris was born in the October of that year, and, with Dad still in the Army, Mum decided to move herself and her two boys from Leicester to be near her husband’s family in Wimbledon. She then set about finding somewhere to live. 29a Stanton Road, Raynes Park, SW20, was the address of the rented accommodation she found. Posher now, West Wimbledon has, according to Estate Agents, replaced the location. The suburb had no Waitrose in 1944. It was to be our family home for the rest of my childhood.

In this 3-bedroomed first floor maisonette my parents brought up 5 children. I believe my earliest memory is of my mother carrying the two-year-old me into what was to be my small bedroom backing onto the railway lines between Wimbledon and Raynes Park. She removed something from the mantelpiece. Later, she said it had been a piece of shrapnel. Since our street was not actually bombed by the Luftwaffe, I’m not sure how it got there.

The sound of trains running alongside was a regular refrain, punctuated by periodic cries of nocturnal track maintenance workers and the clank of their equipment.

Here are front

and rear views of the building taken in 2012. We never kept a cat, so the flap on our back door was a later addition,

as is demonstrated by this image I produced with my paternal Grandfather’s old Box Brownie in 1957. The face in the window is that of our downstairs neighbour, Fred Downes.

Ours was the upstairs frontage to the large sitting room which would become my teenage bedroom after everyone else had gone to bed.

We often stayed at my paternal grandparents’ home at 18 South Park Road, Wimbledon, SW19. The large, well designed, Victorian house, in common with the rest of the dwellings in that long road parallel with Wimbledon Broadway, has made way for hideous blocks of flats built from the 60s onwards. The grand original properties had a life-span less than mine.

It was there that we would sleep on bunk beds in the cellar when there was fear of an air raid. This was the location of my next memory. The image is of a ceiling such as I would recognise many years later in Lindum House in Newark, when my mother told me that that was an exact copy of the South Park Road House. The Lindum House cellar still bore the huge supporting beams that were fitted in case of such an attack. I can therefore safely assume that the Wimbledon house bore the same.