Chapter 4 - The Wedding and Chorley

Jane and Eric are married and move to their first home.

Plans for The Big Day went on apace, and Jane of course gave her parents a detailed description of the process:

 

Eric came down from Chorley late on Thursday night, and on Friday we really started to do something about this marriage business, and went to see the Parish Clerk about the banns.  These are supposed to have been read for the first time on Christmas Day, but as the Clerk was out when we called his mother had to conduct his business for him, and said maybe the banns wouldn’t be read until next Sunday.  If they were read on Christmas Day, we are to be married on Saturday the 14th of January, but if they aren’t read until next Sunday we shall not get married until the following Saturday, the 21st.  We are going to church next Sunday and will know definitely then, and we are able to see the Parish Clerk again directly after the New Year in order to fix everything up quite definitely.  When we know all about our plans I will send you a small cable saying what’s what.  At present we are going to do all these things, if possible, though some plans may be altered a bit.  The wedding is to be at noon, so that we return here for lunch and then leave by about three o’clock, by car, for Chorley, stopping halfway and spending the night at 'The Pig and Whistle' or somewhere (I forget the name) then going on to Chorley next day arriving shortly after lunch. 

Next week we are going to look at flats so that we can move into one directly we are married.  Eric may be in Chorley until June now, so that we are going to live in a furnished flat in either Preston or Chorley according to which has the nicest to offer us.

 

Eric’s job demands his whole attention now that it is nearly completed, so he can’t take a long holiday for a honeymoon at present, though he will be able to manage a few days off.  I suggested that we should spend those few days in Chorley because there will be plenty for us to do to our new home and it will be just as much fun playing about with it as it would be staying in some cold old hotel where there isn’t anything to do except walk.  Actually more, I think.  Also Eric will be able to keep an eye on his men and go to the office for an hour or so every day if he wants to.  Besides, honeymoons are an expensive luxury in this country in the winter, and we would rather save the money for our permanent home when we get it.

The actual wedding is going to be very quiet and only small, and I have decided against veils and orange blossom, because it seems to be a waste of money when there are only going to be a dozen people there, and it’s a morning wedding  anyway and only lasts about half an hour, so why worry.  Veils and blossoms would have been very nice if had been having a very large and festive wedding, with  a vast concourse of Robinsons in attendance, but I don’t feel justified in buying a frock I don’t need, as well as shoes and veils and accessories of every kind, and the same for Vera, just for a handful of decrepit aunts and uncles that I have never seen and Eric doesn’t like.  Vera and I are very happy planning things to wear. I am giving her a little grey-blue suit in fine wool, and she has a very exciting navy-blue hat and bright little flowery blouse to wear with it.  She is very excited about being my 'attendant', and I shall love having her practically as much as having my own sisters.  It is miraculous how happily we get on together, and both of us are very happy about it.

I shall wear my little brown suit, and I am going to buy a new and very saucy hat with a little veil, also some exciting shoes and a very superior blouse  and some little embroidered kid gloves because they are what I fancy.  Eric is going to give me gardenias to wear, and Vera will have violets, and I think we will look very nice indeed, thankyou.  I tell you all these details so that you can imagine what we all look like on the day, and I will have a good old 'wedding group' photograph and send you copies as soon as may be.

On Saturday morning we finished our Christmas shopping and Mr. Allberry took us out to 'coffee' at a dear little shop with Mrs. Allberry, and it was rather fun. In the afternoon we went to tea  at 'Dorchester Court', an enormous, very modern, very expensive, very new, and very centrally heated block of flats, where lives Eric’s rich Aunt May, Mrs. Marshall.  She is Mrs. Allberry’s only sister and Eric’s godmother, rather a dear, and is a little old-fashioned in some ways.  She drew Eric aside while I was putting my coat on and told him that she liked his little sweetheart very much indeed, and thought we were an ideal couple!

We spent the evening quietly at home because Teddy arrived, and he is still our favourite brother, and rather a pet.  He is almost as nice as Richard, but of course he hasn’t got blue eyes or curly hair, so he is heavily handicapped.

Christmas day was marvellous. We all got up early and went off through the snow to the 8 o’clock service at the local church �" pardon me, the Parish Church.  It is incredibly old in parts, and the prettiest church I have seen.  The wall around it is very old but has been repaired here and there with new stone.  Inside the porch is a long list of rectors of the Bromley Parish, starting with Robert de Wendover in 1226.  The service was very good and I loved it, especially the way everyone sang so happily and everything was done as if they had all been doing it for thousands of years.  The collection was taken up not in plates, but in very ancient little white satin bags, heavily and beautifully embroidered with gold and hanging from a little carved wooden stick forming a handle each side of the bag.

Tomorrow Eric and I are leaving for Chorley directly after breakfast, by car, in order to do some flat-hunting.  I will be staying at the 'Pheasant' in Preston, where we want to find a flat if possible, and Eric will go on to Chorley and attend to his job.  We return again on Friday. 

I am being chivvied to bed and my pen has run dry, so I must come to an abrupt finish and tell you the rest in my next letter.  I am afraid individual letters to everyone must wait for a few days yet, because I am really terribly busy and Eric keeps bullying me about.  I love all of you still, and am terribly happy and very well and hope you are all as happy and well as I am.  Jane.

 

Then Jane and Eric went off to Chorley to do some house-hunting as promised, but evidently changed their minds about where Jane was going to stay �" either that or the 'Pheasant' at Preston did not suit, because this letter is written from The Royal Oak Hotel, Chorley on Royal Oak stationery.  Maybe she just wanted to be closer to Eric -- or maybe the feeling was mutual.  There was no mention about where Eric was staying….

 

I am up in these parts doing a little house-hunting while Eric does a little bit of work and we return to Bromley tomorrow for the New Year celebrations.  Eric has a clear week’s holiday after that and we will spend the time buzzing around the London shops buying house-linen and such things.

We may be living up here until June, so we are in search of a furnished flat or something of that nature, because we consider it would be foolish to furnish a place up here and then have the expense of moving everything to Wales.  Unfurnished flats and houses are quite easy to get, but furnished ones are terribly scarce and our search has been almost fruitless.  However, we have at last found somewhere that would do, and are quite pleased about it.  We haven’t definitely taken the place yet, because there are two flats that we haven’t looked at yet which might be even better, and are going to see them this afternoon.  I am rather keen about the one we have seen, because it is the most exciting old place in very beautiful country about two miles out of Chorley.

 

The house was in fact in the village of Heath Charnock, but is no longer there. My wife and I visited the place in late 1997, and were told by the current occupants of Nightingale Farm as it is now known, that the old house in which Jane and Eric lived fell into disrepair some forty years after they were there,  in the late 60's and was demolished. A lot of the stone from that house was used to re-build the old barn at the rear of the house, and that building is now a quite beautiful and luxurious two-storey dwelling and extremely comfortable. I have shown here the photo that Jane took in 1939 of the old barn, as well as one I took in 1997, 58 years later!  All that remains of the old house is a small pile of unusable stone. The drive of which Jane writes is still there, Rawlinson Lane and the canal are doubtless unchanged from her days there, with the possible exception of the addition of a bitumen surface to the roadway and the farm is now a working farm again.

Jane goes on to describe the area in which the house at Heath Charnock is situated.  This description is quite accurate, and was readily recognisable when we went there.

Rawlinson lane is the horizontal one below the house, and the little humpy bridge at the left hand end is Rawlinson Bridge.  The river turned out to be the Leeds & Liverpool canal. This drawing was in Jane’s letter.  The bridge is still there and this photo is taken from the canal:

 

Rawlinson Bridge over the Leeds/Liverpool canal, Heath Charnock.

There is a river with an old stone bridge right alongside the house, and the loveliest trees and fields all around.  The house itself dates back to about 1600 and something, and is lovely inside, though a trifle battered.  All the rooms are either up or down a few steps, but none of them are so large that we couldn’t make them cosy and warm, and the windows are huge and look out on to the lovely trees and the river.  The bathroom has all mod. cons., but the bath is like a vast coffin and just the same shape.  The throne (or pedestal, as the plumbers call it) is bedecked with the most enchanting blue flowers and is up two steps, which is all very regal.  I rather expected to find a tasselled rope hanging beside it, but there is only a common or garden chain.  Most disappointing.  There is an electric stove in the kitchen, which is fairly convenient, and has about a hundred different cupboards, all full of spiders, no doubt, and very dark.  It all wants thoroughly cleaning because a rather untidy man has been batching there, but that doesn’t worry me in the least.  In fact I shall rather enjoy it.  The furniture is all old and large and comfortable -- except the bed!!

We would have to buy a new one, because although it would doubtless be very romantic to sleep in a bed that Queen Elizabeth may possibly have slept in, I would feel more secure in one that I knew would stand up on its own four legs and never let me down.  This ancient couch is a four-poster and has a lovely mattress, but it quivers like a jelly if one dares to touch it.  What it would do if one was to lie on it, only heaven and the previous occupant know.

I wasn’t game to find out myself.

The house has a hot-water system and heating plant, which is all very nice, and electric light and wiring for radio, so everything seems fine and grand. Rent for all this (including light and so on) is only twenty-five shillings a  week, and coal will be about 5/- a week, and that seems rather inexpensive to me.  It isn’t a very flash modern place, and it’s miles from anywhere, and only just a small corner of a very large and empty house, but it seems to me that for so short a time as we will be there it will be quite all right.  I can make a very comfortable home out of it and be perfectly happy even if I am all by myself. It will be a great thing to be able to live so cheaply at first and save up for a really nice home when we settle down somewhere.  Both of us are young enough to enjoy living in such a place, and personally I shall love being surrounded by such ancient walls.  Eric likes it too, which is the main thing, but he insists on giving me a dog to keep me company through the day.  I shall love that and there is such a lovely garden for a dog to play in and many lovely places for me to take him for little walks.  I have already become infected with this passion for 'going for a walk' that everyone here seems to have and feel that it won’t be long now before I am even more English than the English. 

All this is such tremendous fun, and we are both as happy as a pair of schoolchildren.  I do wish you could meet Eric, he is such a dear person, and makes me feel so secure and happy, and cherishes me so carefully that I wonder what I have done to deserve all this.  I do hope that I can make him feel as do, because it certainly is a wonderful way to be.

These days everything and everybody is conspiring to makes things so happy for me that I am very sorry none of my family is here to share it. I wish I could write it all down, but it looks silly on paper because I can’t find any of the right words. Anyway I can at least thank you and Mummy for making all this possible, and I feel that the nicest thing I can wish you is that you will be as happy as I am.  I miss you both terribly much and think of you a great deal all the time, and luvsha both a whole lot.

It is long past lunch time, so I must hurry off and eat, or I will be still at it when Eric calls for me, and that would probably be regarded as grounds for divorce.  Love to Mummy, and best wishes to all of you for the New Year.  Fondest love, Daddy darling, from your Jane.

 

All in all, it could be said that 1938 was a good year for Jane �" and Eric, too, of course. They continued to make their plans, and went forward to 1939 with buoyant spirits, as if nothing could ever happen to mar their happiness. 

Mr. Hitler had other ideas….

But time marched on and Jane and Eric were married on 14^th January 1939.  As Jane said, it was only a small affair, and attended by only a few close friends and family, including a very close friend of Jane’s mother, Mrs Gladys Harvie-Bennett, who wrote her a letter after the event, describing the events on the Big Day:

 

I expect you have had a cable from ‘the children’ telling you that they were safely married on Saturday.  Jane and Eric having been over here the week before, they left me the route, and I found the way quite comfortably and arrived at the house at about 12. Met all the family, mostly males. Had a glass of sherry then I was allowed to go up and kiss Jane and see her. She looked a perfect queen in her new outfit. She had a chic little new hat and veil and her suit was very becoming. What a clever child she must be to have tailored that so beautifully. She was most composed. Thought it nonsense that she couldn’t see Eric (they kept her in bed to breakfast) Perhaps it was he who was kicking at the convention. I must say they were a big solid united family and Eric will get on with Jane’s support. He has the keenness and ability too I should think, and Jane will probably supply the extra little bit of recklessness, although she doesn’t strike one as being at all reckless at the moment. Most stable and sound. I was given a seat of honour in the church, being as you might say her only ‘relation’. I signed the register as a witness and kissed the bridegroom and told them how long we had known each other and what a wonderful family yours is - dear little Jane.  She looked radiantly happy and at the reception at the hotel nearby mingled with all the guests and had a word for every one. Mr and Mrs Allberry are charming and had thought of everything, and it was all beautifully done. The nephew by marriage who married them is a splendid chap and spoke so nicely at the luncheon and at the church too. Vera, Eric’s sister, is a dear little girl and so thrilled at having a sister and Jane seems to have won all their hearts.

 

Vera had only her four brothers, so as Eric was the first to marry, Jane was the first female of her own age to come in to the Allberry family. They got on extremely well right from the very start, a friendship which endured all their lives.

 

When the best man read out the telegrams the one from you was first of course, and it was the first glimpse of sadness that came over Jane. But she was soon smiling again - so like you Ruth, to look at. Ridiculously like you in fact. They went off in their car shortly before three. The brothers all seem so proud of Eric. I heard one of them say ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for worlds’. Deborah Makgill was the only other friend of the bride - Jane has probably told you of how they travelled over on the boat together. She is an Auckland girl. I took her and some of the other relations to the station to catch their train and then came home early because I was afraid of the fog coming down again as it took me an hour and a half to get over there. I believe Eric starts work again today.   The family say the house they have at Chorley is very convenient and extremely nice, and that they were very lucky to get it. I hope that Jane will bring Eric to stay when they come down south again, and I told her she could always come to us with any worries at all. Frank of course would help her in any way he possibly could professionally, and would love to do it. [Frank, Gladys’s husband was a doctor with a surgery in London.] He wanted to hear all about her and how she looked and what they did. Mrs Allberry had obviously given a lot of time and thought to the arrangements which were perfect.  Eric thanked his parents very nicely for all they had done to give them such a happy wedding and send off.  So he’s obviously got his heart in the right place, you know the moderns we seem to see around here take all these things as a matter of course, but our neighbourhood is rather to blame, the children are so utterly spoilt. Jane is a slip of a thing isn’t she, hardly any flesh on her at all. Not that she looks too thin, but it always amazes me that she hasn’t felt the cold.

You can rest happily in your minds about Jane, Eric is a really good chap, and will be a good husband to Jane. Tons of love to you all .... Gladys.

 

It is now a week after the wedding, Jane and Eric have moved in to their new home at Chorley and all is right with the world. As promised, Jane writes to her mother to Tell All. She is obviously still moving as if in a pink cloud, but this is thoroughly understandable under the circumstances;

 

“The Nightingales” Rawlinson Lane,

Heath Charnock, Nr Chorley, Lancs.

20th January, 1939

Darling Mummy, I suppose that all this is really true, but I find it very hard to believe. Here I am, a staid old married woman with a house full of lovely possessions and a rather remarkable husband, and such a content of heart and mind as I have never known before. To say that I am happy only says half of it, it’s something so much deeper than being just plain ‘happy’ and I feel that if everything got swept away in some cataclysm, tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind very much because I have had this much. I don’t feel that I really deserve any more, but hope that it continues, just the same!  The only fly in this very superior ointment is that none of my family is here to see what fun I am having, and to share it with me. Eric’s family is so very sweet to me that it makes up for not having any of you to talk to, but Oh how I wish you could come and see me playing house, and be as thrilled as I am over all the lovely things I have. If you could see me so happy and getting along so well with everything I have to do, I am sure you would know for certain that none of your hard work has been wasted. Every time I stop to think about how happy I am I think of you as well, because without your help and encouragement I would never has achieved any of this. No doubt you will know just what I mean, and be able to think of all the things I haven’t said, so I won’t try to say any more. I can think of such a lot I want to tell you, but I get so involved if I try to write down all these things, and anyway, you, being you, will know all about it as soon as I do myself because you are so magic.

I have been so terribly busy ever since we came up here, and the only letters I have written have been to thank people for things. We were given some really lovely presents, and I am the proud possessor of two silver teapots now.  Eric’s men at the site gave him a silver tea set, consisting of sugar, milk, tea and hot-water pots in a round squat shape, very plain except for a tiny running design of leaves engraved around  the shoulders of each vessel. We have quite an array of silver, including a very posh hot-water entree dish, or whatever, with a swivelled lid, and two dishes inside, one of them filigreed so that the fat can drip off  the fish or chops or what ever it may be.

Like this, maybe:

Aunt Ida gave us whisky, water and wine glasses, all matching, in a nice plain shape without too much design cut on them. Aunt Alexa gave us a cream coloured coffee set with gold edges and a narrow green band about half way down each cup etc. All these things look very posh spread out on my shelves, along with heavenly dinner service and the odds and ends of rather nice cut glass that I acquired. The maid gave me a cut-glass cheese dish, and Deb gave me a lovely salad bowl with four little legs and it stands in a shallow matching glass dish. The bowl has a hole in the bottom to let the water drain off the lettuce.  We seem to have everything we could wish for, and are going to Manchester next week to buy our cutlery with some of Mr Allberry’s cheque. Charles gave us a cheque for £25 which was wonderfully generous of him. He arrived for the wedding, in a fine humour, and took to me at once. I like him very much indeed, and he was much nicer to Eric than he ever has been before. That was very cheering for both of us, and everything in the garden was lovely.

It has been a terrific job cleaning this house, but the end is nearly in sight, thank goodness. The kitchen has umpty two cupboards, all of which wanted scrubbing out and airing before I could use them and all the paintwork was filthy and had to be kerosened. The floor still wants doing, but it must wait until I have finished all the big jobs. I tried to get a woman to help me, but wasn’t successful, so am stiff and sore through almost a week of continuous scrubbing and cleaning. I did the sitting room yesterday, and am doing the bedroom on Sunday, when Eric can help me move the furniture. After that everything will be thoroughly clean and will only want trimming up a bit. I simply love this place. Every window frames a different and more enchanting picture, and at present I am sitting at my writing desk under the sitting-room window and can see out over the little lawn to the laurel hedge curving one way and the drive curving the other, and great tall beautiful trees marching down the drive and around behind the hedge.      Little fields slope up on the other side of the drive, and a lane wanders away round a hill. I suspect someone of having arranged it all for my benefit. Out of my kitchen window there are more tall trees, and the garden slopes up to the old wall and the lane beyond, and a few old stone cottages. I can walk out of my back door, cross the cobbled courtyard and out through a heavy beamed and bolted gate into the side drive. There I can sit on the low wall and watch the barges going under the bridge. It is all so lovely, and I look forward to walking along the river bank with my wee hound next week. Same hound is distinctly blackish coloured, and has immense potholders where his ears should be, and is, at present, only small with enormous fringed front hands. He is only four months old and terribly sweet, and a really beautiful specimen with a most imposing pedigree. Darling Richard is appointed Godfather-in-chief and we have named the puppy Richard of Charnock, to be known as Richard, and no nonsense. I have heard Eric calling him “Tooksey”, but he didn’t know I was anywhere about at the time! As soon as the weather clears a little we shall get very busy with the camera and send you lots of pictures of everything.

There are millions of things to tell you, but I haven’t time this week. We are going shopping this afternoon, and Eric has just come home, so I must see about some lunch in a minute.

Mrs Allberry and Mrs Harvie-Bennett said they would write and tell you about the wedding, so I won’t say much about it except that I enjoyed it very much and thought it was the nicest wedding I could possibly have had under the circumstances. Everything went very well and neither of us were nervous or fluttery, and every one was terribly sweet to us. Fog delayed us on the road after we left Bromley, and we couldn’t reach the inn we were making for, and stayed at a very cold pub in Dunstable, leaving directly after breakfast the next day and arriving here at four thirty. I had ordered groceries and firewood previously, so we had everything we wanted for the time being, and have been acquiring everything else since. We had a lovely shopping in Woolworth’s and got everything we wanted for the kitchen, including 3 saucepans, and a frying pan, 4 basins, some kitchen china, a jug, an earthenware jar and lid for the kitchen salt, all the egg-lifters and spoons and things, 2 mugs, a colander and sink strainer, and some lovely thin glass grapefruit dishes - all this for 14/6d, which struck me as being extraordinarily cheap. Eric revels in all these domestic matters, and we have great fun together. He is going to write to you soon, but is terribly busy at present at the works. Both of us are busy, actually, but hope to be more leisured next week. I am sorry about this letter, it doesn’t seem to tell you much, and I am finishing in a hurry because lunch is over and I am about to dash off and put on my hat and Richard’s collar and go shopping. Three tradesmen interrupted me, one after the other, and then it was lunchtime, so I was well and truly thwarted. It seems ages since I heard anything about any of you, and I want to know where Gerry and the girls are, so could you tell me please? Eric sends his very best love to all of you and says I am being quite a good girl, considering. He keeps my riding crop close at hand always, but his threats at violence haven’t come to anything yet. Ha Ha. He doesn’t like being tickled I find. ‘Nuff said, Treasure, and I must fly. Love to darling Poppa and Richard and of course lots for you because I luvsha. Your little Jane.

 

Poor Jane! She was so lonely for news from her family, and the next two letters show how desperately homesick she was for news from any of her family back home in Australia. It was to be the end of January before she received any mail from them, so in the meantime she was a little lonely. No doubt her formidable intestinal fortitude carried her through this lonely time. The Stiff Upper Lip was the trademark of her life, and she always approached trials or tribulation with a resolve that things were only temporarily so and that they would get better. They invariably did.