This is the second chapter of Jane’s memoir to be posted, when she was aged 8 to 9.  If you haven’t read the opening chapter, click here.

   It’s May Day. At school we wear long white gowns and do proper dancing round the Maypole. We sing:

“In and out the dusky bluebells ,

In and out the dusky bluebells ,

In and out the dusky bluebells ,

I am your Master.”

And we weave in and out and make patterns with the ribbons. We carry great bunches of cowslips and forgetmenots, and are allowed to have wall-flowers from Mrs Howden’s own garden at the back of the School. Then we sing old Folk songs like ‘When I survey the Red Saraphan that my Mother saved her sewing ... la-la-la-la-la-la-la -la when April winds are blowing,’ and ‘Three Gypsies stood at the castle gate ‘and ‘Soldier, soldier, will you marry me with your musket, fife and drum’.

Some of these songs are exceedingly old. Our Teacher says some have ‘obscure’ meanings. But I can understand them all:

‘When I survey the Red Saraphan’, is fairly obvious: my Father is a qualified surveyor, so it means you have to measure the Saraphan properly. So, after the red Saraphan has been surveyed,  ‘my Mother saves her sewing’  means that she has to save all her sewing up  ...  which is a bit stupid, because if our Mother saved her sewing, she’d never catch up, as she has far too many things to darn – especially all our school socks and all Daddy’s ones too.

Another really stupid song goes: ‘Twas on a Mondy Morning when I beheld my darling’... and ends ‘dashing away with a smoothing iron she stole my heart away’ If anybody’s darling was stupid enough to dash away with her smoothing iron, she’d probably trip up and burn a huge hole in the carpet, then there’d be what for.

And there is an even stupider song that goes: ‘Mummy’s little baby likes shortening, shortening; Mummy’s little baby likes shortening bread’ – when everybody knows you want bread to be longer, not shorter – so everyone can have some and not be hungry.

Morsie is still interested in God, and has already taught us that we’ve been saying the ‘Our Father’ wrong, and it’s not ‘Harold be thy name’, but ‘Hallowed be thy name’. I say I knew that really all the time. Lynda says she thinks I’m lying.

It’s my Birthday, today, and I’m 8, and a lovely thing has happened to me which I shall tell you about. I looked out of our bedroom window and I saw, further along from the copper beech, a tree that has come out smothered in pinky-cream blossoms in the shrubbery on the West side of the lawn ... exactly on my birthday. So I get out of bed, get dressed, and climb right up into it, pushing through great cloud-puffs of pink, until I am surrounded by blossom. While I’m sitting quietly, I see a blackbird perched level with me, singing softly to itself in a song, so silky and tiny, that it’s not meant for anyone else to hear except him and me. It’s just a whispered secret song, but I understand it completely. And I’m filled with such a happy feeling, that suddenly I feel very special, and begin looking forward to things that might happen in my life ahead. ‘This is going to be my Birthday Tree from now on, I decide, and no-body else will know. When I climb into it every May, I’ll always feel special like today, and my Birthday Wish will be even stronger than all the candles on my Birthday cake.’ 

Mother tells me my Birthday Tree is called a ‘May Tree - a ‘Floribunda Gloriosa,’ which is just the right name for my Birthday Blossom Tree. I think I’m going to become a Botanist and learn wild flowers, because I’m beginning to love flowers and trees – but they have to be really wild ones and never tame ones. Also, there’s a terrific game at school we play using wild flowers, and it goes like this:

First you are taken on a Nature Walk, and pick four of every wild flower we find. At that point, we’re told their names, and have to learn them. After lunch, we get formed into 4 teams, and 4 trestle tables are put up on the lawn. On each table stands a jam-jar full of identical flowers. On the word ‘Go’, the first person in each team rushes flat out to their table, where a teacher holds up one of flowers from the jam-jar. If the flower is correctly named, it’s laid to one side, and the pupil runs to the back of the team. If it’s wrongly named, the next person runs up to have a go - and so on, until the winning team has correctly identified the whole lot, and is first to empty their jam-jar. This is a brilliant game, as not only does it make you learn the flowers, but it’s also a running-race. Lynda and I are brilliant at both running and flowers, so everyone wants us to be in their team. Lynda is going to do Botany as well when she grows up.

Geoffrey has invented quite a strange game to play at home, and you have to wait for an actual fire to happen to play it - as it’s more ‘real’ than an actual game. We’re only able to play it because Ardenham is one of the highest houses around. So, first you have to hope for a house to catch on fire somewhere in Aylesbury. And it goes like this:

We hear the Fire Siren begin to wail, lifting higher and higher, until the sound screams itself over the roof-tops of Aylesbury. Geoffrey yells ‘FIRE! FIRE!   FIRE! FIRE!’  And we all have to stop doing what we’re doing, or pile into the house from wherever we are outside. Mother knows by now that it’s not our house that’s on fire. We race up four flights of stairs, with Geoffrey in the lead, and us following behind. Then we climb the attic stair-case into the loft, past rows of Mother’s quietly-rotting apples all laid out on newspaper. We’re all needed to push open the heavy lead-covered sky-light and up the final wooden steps, ‘till we’re out on the flat roof. 

We scan the horizon for a tell-tale plume of black smoke, rising somewhere below in the Vale of Aylesbury. ‘There it is!’ Lynda shouts, spotting the fire. Moments later, we hear Clang! Clang! as the Fire Engine roars out of its station in New Street with Firemen clinging to the sides, and the chief Fireman clanging the bell ... and with great encouragement from us. We cheer them loudly as they weave across Aylesbury, urging them on towards the burning building, ‘Over There! Over there!’ Geoffrey shrieks, pointing to it, and pumping his arms up and down as if he can make the racing Engine go faster. At last it connects with where we can see flames leaping into the sky, and we cheer again, as great jets of water shoot upwards from the hose. We watch until we’re satisfied that the fire is properly extinguished.

We always love playing Geoffrey’s Fire Game. He says, ‘I’m defnally going to be a Fireman when I grow up.’

‘What will you do if it’s our own house on fire one day?’ Mummy asks.

‘FIRE! FIRE!  HERE!’ Geoffrey answers, as if this is a stupid thing to ask.

Now Edmund has invented a new amazing game for us all to play instead of ‘Servants’ or ‘Fire’, (which he says is ‘boring’). It’s called ‘SEEN’, and is the best game ever invented and, ‘it’s for older people to play,’ he says. Vanessa is still too small to play this yet, so there are 2 people on each side, and 2 Camps: one at each end of the garden. The top one the Summer House, the bottom one, the Coal shed. (The Coal shed is a good Camp, as you can put some of the black onto your face as disguise.) The object of the game is to reach Enemy Camp without being seen, and shout “CAMP!” -  That side has then won. If your enemy spots you creeping towards their Camp, they shout “SEEN!”, and you have to walk openly back and start all over again.

If you practice, you can learn to move really silently along: you can slither, merging into shadows behind things; you can tangle yourself quietly along the ivy in the Shrubberies. You can even climb trees and slide from branch to branch like a Panther onto the next tree; or do clever ‘strategies’, like throwing a stone to make a bush move, then, while they’re distracted, run across an open bit. You can trick people by letting the Enemy go by ... because you don’t want your own place to be discovered, as you’re nearly winning.  Of course, when somebody shouts ‘SEEN!’ they’re not allowed to be ‘Seen’ themselves for up to a count of 100, to make it fair. But you can track them and wait to get back at them later, if you hide nearby, and feel mean. We play this until we’re exhausted, or the Tolling Bell summons us inside. Very soon, we’re the most silent people in the whole world, because we practise indoors not being heard at all as we get from one place to another.  

The Tolling Bell is because it’s lovely weather, and Daddy is doing up the roof of No. 1, Whitehall Street, altering the downpipe from the top of the main roof to go straight down instead of at an angle; and he’s mended the bell in the Cupola. Mummy is thrilled; she loves bells, and can now pull on a new bell-rope Daddy has fixed up. She tolls it when lunch is ready, to bring her children in from all over the grounds. But it’s very embarrassing, because now everybody in Aylesbury knows exactly when the Waller Family is having its lunch.

Miss Alison Grey, our first Lodger, came today. She’s a Nurse from the Royal Bucks Hospital, and she loves her room on the first floor and pleased to just cross over the road to her work. She goes out and in, doing nursing so hard, that we hardly ever see her. I automatically had thought a Lodger meant a man, so am quite relieved to find her rather a nice lady - and her rent does help to run the house.

It’ very funny - Daddy decided to ‘challenge’ Miss Grey on the Nurses’ Tennis Court in the weekend. He said he used to play tennis every evening until the evening War broke out; then he never played again. ‘So this’ll be the first game I’ll be playing since then’.

He puts on his gym shoes and Summer trousers and goes off with her. Then he comes back out of breath saying, ‘it was an awful strain after twenty years’. After that, he tries to change the subject ... ‘Mrs Amelia Jenks wore bloomers for tennis, you know. It was a style of female dress for tennis then’ ... So we gather that he might have lost...

The new Queen is to be crowned tomorrow on June 2nd. She’s going to be called Queen Elizabeth 2nd.  We all love everything about the Royal Family, and Mummy, Ursula and Morsie have gone up the day before, to see the ‘Coronation Way’ with the special Mall Arches overhead, as well as meeting Edmund off the train. So that, on Coronation Day itself, we’re all together again at home, listening to the Crowning of the new Queen on the big main radio Daddy got from Percy Black’s.

I’m a bit scared of this big radio inside its cabinet which takes up far too much room. It shrieks and whistles from outer space when you turn the knobs. Urgent voices come from places called Hilvershum on the dial in strange languages. Geoffrey says ‘all these voices are from Abroad’ – so I’m not going there if I can possibly help it. I wish we could have one of the new Television Sets instead, then you wouldn’t have any Abroad happening.  The Mauds and the Poopards at school have got one, but Daddy says ‘a Radio is perfectly adequate’. And it is adequate when you find the ‘Home Service’, because you can hear David Davis reading stories in ‘Children’s Hour’. Best of all are ‘Norman and Henry Bones’, who go back to the ‘Stone Age’ or the ‘Roman Times’ ... and they make the proper back-ground noises from the ‘Stone-Age’ or ‘Roman Times’.

We’re slowly painting our way upstairs now. We’ve got to the First Landing window. Edmund is painting wooden banister-railings one after another behind us. Vanessa has fallen asleep on the bottom step, watching Edmund. ‘I suppose painting one banister after another is enough to make anyone go to sleep,’ Mummy remarks. And she has already started to lament: ‘My lungs are getting full of paint fumes!’

There are so many flights and landings ahead, she’ll be lamenting for ages yet.

When any visitor decides to call, you can easily overhear everything by leaning over the stairs on the First Floor landing.  One day, while Mummy is painting, Lynda spots the Vicar of St Mary’s coming down the drive. What’s he doing here? We all stare out of the Landing window. It’s raining, and he’s gone past the Mounting-block for the horse, then politely uses the metal boot-scraper with its hedgehog scrubbing-brush attachment, then knocks on the front door. We rush to the lower banisters to listen. We can’t tell whether he’s also wiped his feet on the sunken doormat, or crossed himself quickly, after seeing the Knight and Great Grandmother, but we hear his request – and it’s very strange:

‘Mrs Waller, I wonder, could you possibly see your way to letting me have 2 of your brass stair-rods for our new altar carpet?’

Mum thinks this an odd request; rather difficult and a bit unfair; the Vicar must realize she can’t possibly refuse such a Holy Request. So she has to oblige, and the Vicar goes away, smiling.

Daddy is furious. ‘Doesn’t the dratted man realize that there’s bound to be two short for our own staircase, when we get a stair carpet, if we give him two for his altar? He obviously wanted to buy them at the Auction like us – but wasn’t prepared to pay for the whole lot, only needing two – luckily for us.’

‘How could I refuse him?’ Mother argues. ‘It would’ve been most unchristian of me.’

I try to stop them quarrelling by saying, ‘Our two stair rods have been chosen for a Really Holy Position, and will be more Blesséd than all other stair rods in the whole of Aylesbury’.

It’s Sports Day. The sun is shining, and Lynda wins at High Jump. I only tie first with Charles Copperthwaite in my class. He’s always trying to beat me. Geoffrey wins his high jump, too. Daddy says it’s because we’re all so slim, and have knobbly knees with springs in them.

Going to school is much nicer now, because I’ve invented my very own game to play under the chestnut trees in Break, which Edmund named ‘Tigger’s Wood’ when he was there. And it’s one that uses our Team Bands. You play it as follows:

First choose your partner:  one is the horse, the other its rider. I always choose to be horse, as I don’t mind being put through my paces, whereas other girls want to be in charge. The rider takes hold of your rein, (which is the back of your school band), and we go through all kinds of steps and jumps and Advanced Dressage. The best horse and rider wins. Everything has to be done very neatly and is properly judged – though sometimes the horses buck and prance and go completely out of control. So you’re allowed to pat them when they’re good, or hit them a bit with a branch if they don’t obey. It’s a really good game. Mary James and I nearly always win a rosette, which we make out of daisies and dandelions.

We go to the Cox Twins’ party. Mummy finishes making Lynda’s party dress only just in time. Hers is red tartan in a shiny material, mine blue tartan. Lynda and I are a bit envious, as the Cox Twins live in a grand Farmhouse which is all warm and Farmhousey – and finished. We had wonderful food, but I find it quite hard being ‘sociable’ unless we play games – then it’s alright.

Oh Dear! Instead of starting on a new bathroom, Daddy decides to cement the floor of the ‘Twyford’ Loo. He’s dotted it with small left-over white pieces of marble from a broken slab he found in the Coach House. It looks very pretty – but he’s completely forgotten that his white marble pieces are ... as cold as marble, so you hate going in there even more.

Oh dear! One of our two remaining geese has died of an egg going the wrong way. I suppose she tried to lay it upwards instead of downwards, which is very silly. She’s obviously slightly stupid, because she’s been laying eggs in the Coal-shed instead of the Goose shed. I’m surprised the eggs didn’t come out black, but they stayed white as snow, so you could easily see where they were and take them away for omlettes. Mummy rang Uncle Peter, who said “she’s probably got Peritonitis.”  Afterwards, the poor gander got so sad, that Daddy had to go out and get another goose for him. She immediately laid 4 eggs to prove herself.

Vanessa is 5 now and, as it was a lovely day, we went to visit Freda, (who’s now married an older Farmer) ...  and there were little pink piglets rushing about all over her Farm, snuffling and squealing.  ‘Can we have little pigs instead of geese, please Mummy, please,’ we implore. They were the best animals we’d ever seen.

‘They could rush around the shrubberies,’ said Vanessa

...  ‘and snortle and squeal,’ I add.

... ‘Yes, and they’d snortle up all my flowers, and all my vegetables in the Kitchen garden. I’m afraid it’s no. Definitely no...’

And that was that. We are ‘considerably disappointed’. But Mummy has grown a bit nervous about our request ... and we soon find out why.