11 Years on

Since I posted "Till Death us do part" on 4th January 2006 it is now 11 years since my soul mate passed away just after christmas 2001. People still wish me a happy christmas but for me it is not, the grief would get easier they said, but it doesn't. As we finished the 2000 christmas lunch that I had cooked she said to me, I think that is the last christmas I shall see, I didn't want to believe that, she had been very poorly for months and five weeks later her words rung true, I was devastated, no-one will ever take her place and I treasure the 53 years that we spent together.

As time goes by

1926 seems so long ago and I am wondering how I have made it this far when many of my best friends have long since departed. The nicest people always seem to go first, so where does that leave me, form your own opinion.
I was a weakly kid who almost, ( I was told by my mother,) was about to die of pueumonia at the age of three, it was touch and go as the saying goes.
The family doctor came in every day, it must have been go so far as he was concerned. One day I apparently told him to bugger off. I must have been feeling better. I had all the illnesses that were available during the next few years. I suppose I should be grateful for having made it so far.
40 years ago, an elderly gentleman gave me his card, on the back was written. Do not regret growing old, many are denied the privilege.
As a youngster in the 1930's I was very patriotic to my country, that was when we had an Empire. King George V had his silver jubilee. King George VI did me the honour of having his coronation on my birthday. It was at this point that I demanded to be called by my second name, I didn't like my first name anyway, but only one kid at school, Gordon Finch, still insisted on calling me Sid, I could have killed him.
Will I make another decade? As long as I continue to feel like a fifty year old who knows, but how much more borrowed time do I have?

A day (or two) in the life of a chrysanthemum grower

Fridays, Sundays,Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the busiest days.All day Friday was spent cutting the flowers, taking them into the packing shed, putting them into buckets of water, a pre determined number in each bucket so that at the end of the day, we knew how many boxes there would be to pack on Sunday for the Monday morning market, usually the best market of the week. With a bit of luck and a fair wind, we could have a bit of free time on Saturday.



An early start would be made on Sunday to get packing, a very satisfying job. It was a requirement if you worked for us, you had to come to work on Sunday mornings when there were flowers to pack. We had to be finished by lunchtime and usually were. Each box had been labeled with the contents, Variety name and number, the most popular being 24 blooms per box and were ready to be picked up by the lorry taking them to Covent Garden Market.

One Sunday we excelled ourselves by having a lorry load of 220 boxes, our best ever day. More flowers would have to be cut to send on Monday for the Tuesday morning market.
The whole day on Tuesday was spent cutting and filling up the packing shed ready for another big consignment to pack on wednesday for Thursdays market, the next best morning for sales. We then had to make sure that we had enough flowers cut for packing on Thursday for Friday's market.
Now we are back to Friday again and the whole procedure would begin again.
Hard tiring work but very satisfying, especially when the cheque came through the letterbox, but that's another story.

Sunshine

Today is a beautiful sunny day with clean crisp air with which to fill your lungs.
Why the masses have to flock to smelly Spain I cannot understand.
A short time ago my day was made when a young woman who once worked for us on the nursery some 30 years ago, phoned to ask if I had heard of the demise of Shrubland Park. It was a delight to hear her voice again. Angela was mentioned in my book and I had managed to track her down to tell her that. She was delighted and ended up buying four books as well as the one that I gave her for old times sake. She was a lovely hard working girl aged 20 when she came to work for us and I was very fond of her, she was a pleasure to work with and I know that she enjoyed working with us. If only we could rewind our lives. Now, she and her husband come to Felixstowe to see me and we remenisce, well lets face it, I have more to look back on that to look forward to.

Loves of my life

There has not been that many. Being a shy person seems to hamper ones love life. However, I made an early start in the love stakes at the age of four. It was after Rosie and I had been cast as Bride and Bridegroom in a school play. Rosie lived a few doors away from me and after our performance in the mock wedding, we became playmates, not exactly lovers. Shortly after that my family moved to the next village and it fizzled out. At the age of seven I was besotted with Cynthia, this was love and I was sure she felt the same way to me by the loving looks she gave me, but we never seemed to be able to be alone together. Alas it petered out during the long school summer holidays. I wonder what happened to Cynthia? I have even forgotten what she looked like.
Nine years passed before my next encounter with the fairer sex. Peggy was a kitchen maid at the gentlemans estate where I worked in my first job after leaving school. The usual practice in those days was to take a girl to the cinama for a cuddle in the back row, in the dark, never mind what the film was about, that didn't matter. Peggy left her job as kitchen maid and went to work as a conductress with a local bus company. That was the end of that.
Not too long after that I was called up into the army. There were a few casual flings with ATS girls, nothing serious. While on leave in 1946 I went sick and ended up in the East Suffolk Hospital, Anglesey road Ipswich. After a few days I was transferred to The Bartlett in Felixstowe where I spent a month recuperating. Now the night nurse and I became very friendly. When all the other patients were safely asleep she would come and lay beside me on my bed, I had no problems in staying awake.I didn't want to leave the Bartlett and made excuses to the doctors that I did not feel fit enough to go back to my unit but I could only pull the wool over their eyes for so long. I did see her a few times after that, but it fizzled out as well.
Back to my unit, my mate Jimmy Bond, was Mess serjeant in the officers mess of our battallion. He wanted a barman, was I interested. I jumped at the chance. Now Mary was a cook and I quite liked her and she liked me, but she also had another follower and couldn't quite make her mind up. I had my own room in a nissen hut and Mary would bring me an early morning mug of tea when she was on the early morning duty. I had only been in that job a few months when I was posted to Colchester. the end of another romance.
My sister was getting married in June 1945. I had the job of giving her away as dad was an invalid confined to a wheelchair. During the festivities after the ceremony my next encounter was with Margaret, a land army friend of my sister, she was the only young woman there as far as I could see. I saw her every weekend as I was only a few miles away in Colchester but after a few weeks she left the land army and went back home to Bradford, I was not too worried as soon after I met Clare. On our first meeting we both realised that we would spend the rest of our lives together. My life carries on, but hers ended after we had spent 53 years together. It's no fun living on one's own but no-one could take her place.

Till death us do part

When I uttered those words in 1948, they didn't get another thought, it was so far in the distant future and I probably had other things on my mind. After 53 years, those words came home to roost. My soul mate passed away, severing me from the happiest years of my life. Many people said the pain and grief would ease with time, for me, after five years it is still there and always will be.
Life has to go on, so what do I do now? I decided to put those 53 happy years down on paper, I had made my mind up way back in 1963 that I would write about our lives together. I was re-living those years all over again, making new friends along the way. After a few lessons with a newly aquired P C, Bob came to my aid showing me some of the things that I didn't understand. You should read his book if you like walking, 100 walks in Suffolk, compiled by Robert H Stoner.
Robert and Serena helped me with my not so good grammer. Trevor put the icing on the cake when he thought that my story was worth publishing. Finding a publisher was, I thought going to be the biggest hurdle. It turned out to be the easiest and now we are good friends.
So that was how my book, (the first ?) "Cats and Chrysanthemums" was born, available to order at all good book shops, ISBN 1 898 030 85 5
It has given me a great deal of satisfaction, but the pain and grief remain.

Cats and Chrysanthemums

My book is Cats and Chrysanthemums ISBN: 1 898030 85 5 from all bookshops.

With my wife Clare I ran a flower nursery at Shrubland Park, Suffolk for many years. Specialising in chrysanthemums our flowers were sent all over the country, through the market at Covent Garden. This book describes our lives, growing flowers and loving cats.

Shrubland Hall became a health centre, attracting many famous people, many of whom came to the nursery in the walled garden at the Park to see and buy our flowers.