jutting out under the roof. It made a perfect little theater.
Thus began a period of creativity for us girls—Trisha, Susan, and me. We put on plays for our families, and all their relatives, plus whoever happened to be around, including the farmhands.
Being totally bossy, I always wrote, directed, and starred in the plays, which featured lots of swashbuckling, gypsies, and princesses. I would write furiously for the first hour or so of my visit, then time would run out on us, at which point Sue, Trish, and I would make up the rest of the play as we went along. Our audience was asked to sit on garden chairs on the lawn. We’d put on makeup and costumes from the trunk and act our heads off, hamming it up for all we were worth. Our efforts wererewarded by generous, hearty applause. We’d charge a penny a ticket, thinking we’d donate the proceeds to a nearby camp for German prisoners of war, so that they could buy socks—but we never made enough money to buy even one pair.
The Barkers’ farm was situated between the river and one of the main roads to London, and whenever we passed by, it was a joy to see the orderly fields of fat cabbages, or row upon row of pale green lettuce. One section was always planted with flowers—sometimes nothing but tulips—and they blazed across the fields. Another time it would be a great swath of daffodils, or narcissi.
William had big green vans with “Wm. Barker & Son” printed in gold on the side. They would be carefully packed with boxes of vegetables and flowers, then driven up to London in the middle of the night in order to sell the goods at Covent Garden by five or six A.M . Poor Bill didn’t get much sleep in those days, but the idea of getting up in the middle of the night, loading up, and going in a convoy to London seemed like fun to me.
One day, Mum said with great excitement, “We’ve purchased a new house, and you are going to love it. It has two acres of ground and there’s even an owl in the garden.” The thought of an owl hooting in the middle of the night was a scary one, but Mum’s excitement about the place was palpable. The house was to become what I now think of as the real home of my childhood.
TEN
“T HE OLD MEUSE ,” as the house was called, was at No. 1 West Grove, situated right on the border between Walton and Hersham. The street had a row of run-down, Dickensian-looking almshouses on one side—but about halfway up the other was a long driveway to our house. Next door to us was the Belgrave Recovery Home, a convalescent residence that was once a fine manor. The Old Meuse had been the servants’ quarters to that manor, and the great joy for my mother was that her mother, Granny Julia, had worked as a below-stairs maid there.
It was obvious that this was the house of Mum’s dreams. It was certainly bigger than anything we had occupied before, and was considered very upmarket at the time. I believe it cost all of £11,000 (about $22,000 at today’s exchange rate, although property values have so escalated since then that the value would now be in the millions). For my mother and stepfather, the price was absolutely prohibitive. They had a huge mortgage, and I soon became aware that they were overreaching in getting the place.
The house sat in the middle of the property, which comprised about 2.2 acres. Because it had been the servants’ quarters, the back garden consisted of a vegetable garden, an orchard, a run-down tennis court, a little plot of woodland, and several outbuildings.
On the left of the house was a porte cochere, which led to an inner courtyard at the back with three fairly substantial garages: one single, one triple with a small loft area in it for storage, and next to that, anothersingle. The courtyard also had a potting shed set in a stone wall and a side gate leading to the back garden.
Fir trees and large rhododendrons lined the drive; lilacs divided the front garden from the back. A pretty silver birch tree stood
Thus began a period of creativity for us girls—Trisha, Susan, and me. We put on plays for our families, and all their relatives, plus whoever happened to be around, including the farmhands.
Being totally bossy, I always wrote, directed, and starred in the plays, which featured lots of swashbuckling, gypsies, and princesses. I would write furiously for the first hour or so of my visit, then time would run out on us, at which point Sue, Trish, and I would make up the rest of the play as we went along. Our audience was asked to sit on garden chairs on the lawn. We’d put on makeup and costumes from the trunk and act our heads off, hamming it up for all we were worth. Our efforts wererewarded by generous, hearty applause. We’d charge a penny a ticket, thinking we’d donate the proceeds to a nearby camp for German prisoners of war, so that they could buy socks—but we never made enough money to buy even one pair.
The Barkers’ farm was situated between the river and one of the main roads to London, and whenever we passed by, it was a joy to see the orderly fields of fat cabbages, or row upon row of pale green lettuce. One section was always planted with flowers—sometimes nothing but tulips—and they blazed across the fields. Another time it would be a great swath of daffodils, or narcissi.
William had big green vans with “Wm. Barker & Son” printed in gold on the side. They would be carefully packed with boxes of vegetables and flowers, then driven up to London in the middle of the night in order to sell the goods at Covent Garden by five or six A.M . Poor Bill didn’t get much sleep in those days, but the idea of getting up in the middle of the night, loading up, and going in a convoy to London seemed like fun to me.
One day, Mum said with great excitement, “We’ve purchased a new house, and you are going to love it. It has two acres of ground and there’s even an owl in the garden.” The thought of an owl hooting in the middle of the night was a scary one, but Mum’s excitement about the place was palpable. The house was to become what I now think of as the real home of my childhood.
TEN
“T HE OLD MEUSE ,” as the house was called, was at No. 1 West Grove, situated right on the border between Walton and Hersham. The street had a row of run-down, Dickensian-looking almshouses on one side—but about halfway up the other was a long driveway to our house. Next door to us was the Belgrave Recovery Home, a convalescent residence that was once a fine manor. The Old Meuse had been the servants’ quarters to that manor, and the great joy for my mother was that her mother, Granny Julia, had worked as a below-stairs maid there.
It was obvious that this was the house of Mum’s dreams. It was certainly bigger than anything we had occupied before, and was considered very upmarket at the time. I believe it cost all of £11,000 (about $22,000 at today’s exchange rate, although property values have so escalated since then that the value would now be in the millions). For my mother and stepfather, the price was absolutely prohibitive. They had a huge mortgage, and I soon became aware that they were overreaching in getting the place.
The house sat in the middle of the property, which comprised about 2.2 acres. Because it had been the servants’ quarters, the back garden consisted of a vegetable garden, an orchard, a run-down tennis court, a little plot of woodland, and several outbuildings.
On the left of the house was a porte cochere, which led to an inner courtyard at the back with three fairly substantial garages: one single, one triple with a small loft area in it for storage, and next to that, anothersingle. The courtyard also had a potting shed set in a stone wall and a side gate leading to the back garden.
Fir trees and large rhododendrons lined the drive; lilacs divided the front garden from the back. A pretty silver birch tree stood
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