Time to Be in Earnest (17 page)

Today was the blessing of grandson Tom and Mary’s marriage, the civil ceremony of which took place last month in a restaurant in Cambridge. I went to Southwold in great hopes that the day would be everything the young people and the family, in particular Clare, needed; for her it was the blessing rather than the civil ceremony which was important.

All went perfectly and there was great happiness. My eldest grandchild Katie had interrupted her solo sponsored walk round the British Isles and had taken a train to be with us. Katie had set out on 2nd April 1997 on a six-month hike over 2,500 miles round Britain in aid of the Calvert Trust Exmoor and the Chernobyl Children’s Project. She will just rest for the night and then go back and continue the walk. The weather today was perfect, the sky blue with a few drifting clouds, the light marvellous as it always is in East Anglia, and Blythburgh church, like a great ship moored in the marshes, took one’s breath away. Mary and Tom had gone to a great deal of trouble. Mary looked beautiful in a simple sheath dress in bright orange which was good with her skin and large dark eyes. She carried a small posy of marigolds and green foliage and had made similar posies to decorate the ends of the pews.

On my father’s knee, aged two and a half, with my mother and sister Monica

Babes in the Wood
at Ludlow. My brother as a babe and my sister and me as gnomes. I think this was a pantomime in aid of Ludford church.

My mother with her Sunday school dancers. Wearing improvised costumes, we pranced uncertainly across the stage in highly inauthentic country dances with Mother at the piano.

As Leontes in
The Winter’s Tale
. Cambridge High School for Girls, 1934

With my mother, Monica and Edward. Cambridge, 1931. This was probably taken to be sent to relations and friends at Christmas. I don’t know why my father wasn’t included.

With my first-born, Clare, in 1942

OPPOSITE TOP
: With Connor, on leave from the RAMC, and Jane at Chigwell Row, Essex

OPPOSITE BOTTOM
: With Connor at Clare’s wedding, 27th April 1963

Clare and Jane in the garden at White Hall, Chigwell Row, 1945

Publicity photo for
Cover Her Face
, with the dust jacket by Charles Mozley, 1962

(Publicity photograph courtesy Elliott and Fry)