The other chapters of my story were all to do with Jill & our young life. It was the time when one was active and creative, full of excitement as part of a World War and the postwar optimistic explosion....But suddenly one is in one’s seventies, and now we are octagenarians and so this last chapter is just a brief resume of the past twenty years. Janet had two more children Annabel and James and finally purchased their home in Winfrith, Dorset. Peter married Jenny and went back to work as a geologist first in South Africa and finally for a few months in New Zealand. It was a time first of acute shortage of coal & oil....then there was a glut and a slow down in exploration. We went and visited the young couple and baby Sarah for a month in Johannesburg and at the same time toured into Etosha in Namibia then down to Cape Town and drove via Bloemfontein through to Durban . At that time Namibia was very militarised with a cross border war between Communist backed Namibia and Apartheid South Africa which added to the excitement. Sarah had been born to the delight of both parents but somehow the marriage never really took off, and then to complicate matters Peter lost his job and was having a struggle to try and set up a business with Apartheid sanctions.
Meantime back in England in 1985 Mother was getting weaker and weaker and I was having with Hugh’s sterling kind and considerate help, having to spend a lot of time each week visiting her. Paul had settled well into his machinery and power tool side of the business which was rapidly growing, and we were constantly having to do exhibitions in London at Earls Court, Alexandra Palace etc. It was at one of these late evening shows that feeling utterly exhausted I said that we must get in another executive into the business to share the load and suggested Peter who was at a loose end. Paul immediately agreed, although his share would be diluted and I telephoned Pete and he jumped at the suggestion. He flew immediately with Jenny to follow a few weeks later as she was completing a computer course. So in November 1985 Peter arrived and stayed with us until he could regain possession of his house that I had purchased and was let in Broadbridge Heath. Once Jenny arrived we departed for 6weeks to Ceylon to leave them the house to themselves and re adjust to England. Hugh stepped in to the breach to look after Mother....He had the patience of Job, as she was particularly cantankerous and difficult in her old age. We were joined in early 1986 with our dear friends Bill & Brenda Jordan for the trip and kept in touch with Hugh regularly, but so sadly the very day before we were due to fly back, Mother suddenly departed this world.
She was a most wonderful, broadly educated and intelligent woman and we had gone through so much together in former times, that her passing left a huge intellectual hole in my life. It was to her that I owe so much, a love of books, history and above all wonderment of this world with her constant admonitions to be a free spirit and not follow others like a sheep, but instead plough ones own furrow and above all be independent, stand squarely on ones own two feet regardless, and don’t whine but get on with life, as it all comes right in the end! She loved Stoneways and the garden and so I placed her ashes in the flower bed opposite the kitchen with an acer to remind us of Japan!
But life moves on and later that year in 1986 Paul announced that he wanted to marry Jane Blundell whom he had known a long time, in the Seychelles for a wedding venue. And very nice it was too....with perfect swimming coral reefs and snorkelling and amazing palm forest on Pralin Island. An amusing event took place on a boat coming back on a trip from a reef. I had just remarked to Jill that although good, the reef was not as exciting as Kuchaveli . A man turned and said :
“How do you know Kuchaveli?”
“I used to live in Ceylon as I was a teaplanter”
“Did you ever know Joan Whittall?”
“Certainly...her husband Herbert learnt work under my Father, and he was a Director of our Agency House”
“Did you ever know Fred Charnaud?”
“ Vaguely....he was my Father”!!! The man in question was Archie Henderson who in the 1930’s , had chased and had proposed to Joan, but instead he had been beaten to the post by Herbert and they were still firm friends!(see Joan Wedding in the War on this web site)! Curiously a couple of years later with Peter & Gill we bumped into him in Sri Lanka whilst walking across the high Horton Plains at 7,000 ft !
Sadly Peter’s marriage to Jenny broke up and she just walked out on him. They never had words, or rumpuses..but she told me she was just plain bored! There was a divorce settlement and luckily Jenny stayed on in England and so Peter could have Sarah for a couple days a week at his home in Wisborough Green.
Then there was another tragedy. Paul’s marriage to Jane had gone well and they bought a nice house near Rusper and were blessed with two boys, Joe & Louis...but sadly Jane who was such a keen and avid tennis player suddenly developed breast cancer. She immediately was treated at the Royal Marsden and about a year later was pronounced clear. But sadly more was to come just 6 months later, in Mid November when she was driving the two toddlers to see a friend in Worthing.
.JPG)
