Xandra Bingley - Bertie, May and Mrs Fish

Country Memories of Wartime

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2006

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Copyright © Xandra Bingley 2005

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Source ISBN: 9780007149513

Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007370917

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For my grandparents Elizabeth and Noel Bingley Eva and Hubert Lenox-Conyngham

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Introductions

1 HOMEFIELD

2 WARTIME

3 MRS FISH

4 COWS

5 YARD

6 PATRICK

7 NIGHT

8 BLESSINGS

9 HUNTING

10 KISS-ME-QUICK

11 HORSE

12 CHRISTMAS

13 GALLOP AWAY

P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features …

About the Author

Q and A with Xandra Bingley

Life at a Glance

Top Ten Favourite Books

About the Book

How My Memory Works

Read On

If You Loved This, You Might Like …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

About the Publisher

It never harms to exaggerate in the direction of truth.

Henri Matisse, to an art student

Across the snowy hills some galloping horsemen are chasing a single horseman. He is beating his horse and racing away downhill to escape. He reaches flat white land and gallops on and on, looking over his shoulder, beating his horse. The others do not follow him away from the hills.

At last he arrives at a village exhausted and people crowd around him and exclaim, ‘You are safe … it is wonderful … we never believed you would get here.’ He says, ‘I can tell you I was afraid, they got close to me up in the hills.’

The people say, ‘No – no – you do not understand … it is a miracle … you have ridden across the lake … underneath the ice is water a mile deep.’

Then he dies. From fear of a danger he did not know he was in.

German fable

After wartime my father sends home bales of midnight-blue and plum-red velvet for downstairs curtains, a cinecamera and roll-down screen, two black bearskin coats, a touring Bentley and a dinner service for twelve of creamy rippling Copenhagen china hand-painted with wildflowers.

He writes to my mother … Now we’ll have some damned good fun.

And that’s what he says when he is home on leave and a thousand daffodil and narcissus bulbs arrive from Holland in plywood boxes. He spills whitewash from a blue speckled tin bucket in a half-moon arc from the coal shed oak to the damson tree by the bridge on the Rushy Brook stream and marks off half an acre of Homefield and shouts … Mind out of the way you bloody child … as I run over his white line. I am four years old and not afraid.

A post and rails goes up along the marker line. Joe Rummings slams the iron crowbar in the ground. Griff drops spiked ash stakes in the holes and swings an oak mallet. The Ayrshire milking herd chew cud in Homefield and watch nails hammered into split ash rails.

My father walks about with a box. He swings up one arm and throws a handful of bulbs that spray the pale blue autumn sky. Then he is gone.

My mother kneels for days in the grass and jabs a trowel where each bulb fell. Turf splits and she drops one in and smacks the trowel down once twice three times and shuts each grass lid.

Daffodils grow and flower and lean and break in the winds that blow across our farm in the Cotswold hills. In springtime I snap off stalks and my father arrives home and shouts … Pick the broken buggers first old girl … must experiment using your brain one of these fine days … bloody east wind.

Fifty years later I am by Juno beach on the French Normandy coast where his Inns of Court invasion troops landed in the Second World War. Dune grass blows east and my father’s wartime padre, code name Sunray, strides past in white cassock flapping in the breeze and a Hans Holbein black hat. Soldiers hold up embroidered flags on polished wooden poles tipped by fluted steel knives. The Union Jack and the French flag lie over a carved memorial stone beside a country road. War veterans wear medals and hold flags embroidered combatants . Four hundred of us stand with French families in the sun and the Inns of Court regimental band plays tunes from Cavalleria Rusticana .

An Inns of Court officer steps up to the dais and speaks. ‘For the sake of freedom – a suicidal mission – our men never gave up – covered a wider area than any other military unit – with this act of dedication we bridge the gap between this world and the next.’

Down go the flowers. Wreath after wreath. Poppies, marigolds, daisies, phlox, poppies, daisies.

A soldier at attention by the memorial stone falls forward on his face on the grass. Two others drag his body behind the loudspeaker van. From the ranks another steps forward to take his place. The regimental band play my father’s favourite hymn: ‘Praise My Soul the King of Heaven’ … and the padre reads, ‘We meet in the presence of Almighty God to commemorate this day.’

Nearly all of us weep. I remember my father, with his white hair round his bald head and wearing green corduroys and a navy-blue jersey, coming past the corner of top barn, arms held open wide saying … Fancy our meeting … when times are so fleeting … to what do I owe the great honour of your presence on this perfect summer morning … what say a small celebration is in order … a cup of Mr Bournville’s famous chocolate lightly stirred into fresh milk … agree … and I can hear my mother’s voice call … Any shopping wanted from Cheltenham … I’m taking a broken bridle down … I’ll be home by lunchtime.

The dedication of the Normandy landing regimental memorial stone is over. Soldiers march to a farm courtyard in the village of Graye-sur-Mer. Champagne and chocolate biscuits are handed out. Chocolate melts in my fingers and a French lady says to me, ‘I remember the war very well, madame, we were very hungry, oui ça c’est certain, mais …’ She shrugs and smiles. We look into each other’s eyes and down at the melting chocolate she offers me and we laugh and she says, ‘ Il faut rire , madame, we must laugh savez-vous .’