One Young Fool in Dorset

by Victoria Twead

  The Hale family lived on the opposite side of Wareham. To reach their huge, beautiful Tudor house, Ivy had to buck and fart her way through woods for quite some distance. Sometimes we glimpsed red squirrels as these woods were one of their last habitats before their bullying cousins, the grey squirrels, chased them off.

  The house had been in the family for generations, and was breathtaking, with long oak-panelled corridors decorated with ancestral paintings. I wasn’t much interested in the interior so I don’t remember much about it, but I do remember being shown an ordinary-looking wardrobe in one of the bedrooms.

  “Well, open it,” Heather Hale said.

  I did. It seemed normal enough to me. She leaned in and touched something, and the back wall slid sideways. I gaped at her.

  “What is it?”

  “A secret passage, of course,” she said airily.

  “Where does it go?”

  “Not sure really.”

  “Have you ever been down it?”

  “Nope. My brother and his friends did once, but it’s all spidery and some of it’s fallen in. Mummy says it’s dangerous.”

  A secret passage! I was just discovering Enid Blyton and her Famous Five books, and The Mystery of series. I’d also read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardobe. I was in raptures.

  Being Tudor, the house must have been built between 1485 and 1603, but I confess my knowledge of history is too poor to explain the purpose of the secret passage. If I was to hazard a guess, I’d say it was built for smugglers to hide their contraband, or escape from the law, as Dorset has a rich history of smuggling. Even more likely, it might have been a ‘priest hole’, a hiding place for priests, built into many English Catholic houses when Catholics were persecuted by law in England, from the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.

  But pirates, priest holes and secret passages were the last things on my mind that day. Princess Snowy Twinkletoes the First was on her leash and I led the way to the rabbit run where Heather’s Miss Bunny sat on her hind legs daintily washing her face.

  Princess Snowy suddenly saw Miss Bunny and stood stock still, staring, her nose twitching. She tensed, and made a beeline for Miss Bunny, bounding so fast that I had to run to keep up. The signs were good; it looked as though Princess Snowy was keen to play. Miss Bunny hopped to the front of her run and stood on her back legs, nose whiffling, front paws on the wire. Miss Bunny was much smaller than Snowy, but definitely interested in her new playmate. Princess Snowy was almost rigid with excitement as they touched noses through the wire mesh.

  “Look!” I said, clasping my hands under my chin in delight. “Look how excited Snowy is, she can’t wait to go in and play with Miss Bunny.”

  “I think they are going to be best friends,” said Mrs Hale, smiling.

  “Ach, put Snowy into the run and we can watch them play,” said my mother.

  Did we say play? Wrong word, wrong description. The instant that Princess Snowy’s fluffy feet hit the ground, she was galloping after Miss Bunny. Miss Bunny, a rather alarmed expression on her face, lolloped away from her pursuer. But Princess Snowy was on a mission and soon caught up. Miss Bunny froze as Snowy gripped her round the midriff, and pumped. My mouth dropped open.

  “Oh!” said Mrs Hale.

  “Golly!” said Heather.

  “Ach,” said my mother.

  “Oh look,” I said, “Princess Snowy Twinkletoes and Miss Bunny are playing a lovely game together!”

  “Hmm…” said my mother.

  “Oh, look, they’re playing that game again!” I said, as Miss Bunny broke free, chased by Snowy Twinkletoes.

  “I think we may have misunderstood Princess Snowy Twinkletoes,” said Mrs Hale grimly.

  “Ach, I’m terribly sorry...” said my mother as Snowy climbed aboard Miss Bunny again. And again. And again.

  Now there was no denying the fact that Snowy was a lusty buck rabbit, and not a female at all. And if we weren’t willing to accept that, proof came 31 days later when Miss Bunny (now Mrs Bunny) gave birth to eleven kits. Snowy was confined to barracks, apart from walks on his leash, and allowed no more play dates.

  The following winter took everybody by surprise. Many claim that Dorset is the warmest county in England as it is situated so far south and has more than its fair share of sunshine hours. However, even Dorset didn’t escape the winter of 1962 -1963, soon to be called the Big Freeze.

  Temperatures plummeted and were recorded as being the lowest since 1739. Astonishingly, lakes and rivers began to freeze over. Then on 26th December, Boxing Day, the snow arrived. The freezing temperatures and fierce winds created snowdrifts some 20 feet deep. Ordinary, maybe, for some parts of the world, but for England, freakish.

  “Ach, I knew it was worth keeping my skis!” chortled my mother, and ordered my father to fetch them down from the attic.

  Being Austrian, she was very much at home on skis, and I think she was secretly pleased not to drive Ivy for a while. She happily skied into Wareham to pick up bread and other necessities.

  If late December was cold, January was even colder. The sea froze for a mile out from the shore at Herne Bay in Kent, and the upper reaches of the Thames began to freeze over, thick enough for people to skate on.

  To me, Dorset became a fairytale setting of pristine, sparkling snow and silver icicles. Jack Frost painted his patterns on my bedroom window, and the world outside was blindingly white and silent.

  Snowy Twinkletoes was moved into the garage for a while, but not before I’d set him down in the snow to see what he thought of it. Not much. He flicked the snow off his paws at every hop. I was surprised to see that he wasn’t as white as I thought he was; against the virgin snow he looked quite yellow.

  At the end of the Christmas holidays, school started again. Because of the weather, the trains had been cancelled, and a special bus was laid on. The bus set off valiantly but scarcely travelled a mile before it turned back, unable to negotiate the snowdrifts blocking the road. We were forced to stay at home and my happiness was complete.

  That bitter winter dragged on for three long months. We went out very little, but that didn’t bother me. I’ve always been happy in my own company, a dreamer. I was perfectly content in my room, weaving stories in my head, making things or reading. As my reading progressed, I developed an insatiable appetite for Enid Blyton, but I also remember a book called A Tale of Two Horses, and another, Rascal the True Story of a Pet Raccoon. I devoured whatever books I could lay my hands on, and never had enough.

  But that was all about to change. New neighbours moved into the house two doors down from us. I was about to make lifelong friends.

  6 Things That Go Bump

  “Do our new neighbours have any children?” I asked.

  “Ach, I believe they have one girl, two years younger than you.”

  I was walking past their house one day, and being curious, turned my head hoping for a glimpse of the new people. A lady was working in the front garden.

  “Hello!” she said, straightening up from her task. “Aren’t you Victoria from number 24?”

  “Yes, I am,” I answered shyly.

  “Well, Victoria, I’m very pleased to meet you,” she said, shaking my hand. “Come in and meet Annabel. She’s making plaster of Paris models, perhaps you’d like to make some too?”

  I followed her up the drive.

  Plaster of Paris models? Now, that sounded like fun…

  Annabel had curly hair and round, red cheeks and was even shyer than me. But after she’d explained the art of plaster of Paris modelling, and how one mixed the plaster into a paste and poured it into the rubber moulds, we were friends.

  We set the models in rows to dry, then pulled off the moulds and hand-painted the features of the little hedgehogs and mice we’d made. Time flew past and we both forgot to be shy. Annabel’s mother came in and admired our industry.

  “I’ve just a baked a big chocolate cake, would you like to stay to tea?” she asked.


  Chocolate cake? Would I! My mother rarely baked as she was far more interested in the plants in the garden. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  “Well, you’d better pop home and check that it’s okay with your mother,” said Annabel’s mother. “And why don’t you call me Auntie Jean?”

  I did pop home and was back in a trice. We sat down at the big table in the kitchen; Annabel, Auntie Jean, Uncle Frank, and me. The chocolate cake was delicious and we drank cups of tea out of china teacups and saucers decorated with flowers. I was in heaven. This was the first of many, many teas I would be invited to over the years. As Annabel and I grew up, her house became as important to me as my own.

  Annabel’s house was huge, bigger than ours, and the garden was wonderful. The lawn was so big that Uncle Frank would sit on his mower to cut the grass, but the shrubs provided Annabel and me with dens to hide in and read comics like June and School Friend, Bunty and Mandy. Often Tibby, their grey and white cat, would join us, stretching out luxuriously to have his tummy rubbed or his chin scratched.

  The garden had a huge buddleia bush that attracted hundreds of butterflies all summer long. Annabel and I caught them in butterfly nets and trapped them in the sun parlour, only to let them go again, watching them float out of the windows, back to the blue flowers of the buddleia bush.

  Annabel’s house had so many attractions. There were unused rooms to play in, and places to explore. There were huge polished tables, perfect for making dens beneath when the weather was bad. Auntie Jean never interfered, and never scolded us for making a mess, instead bringing us trays of cookies and milk to eat in our dens. I adored her.

  Auntie Jean and Tibby

  I believe it was at Annabel’s house that I saw my first television set. It was big and ugly, and the pictures were in black and white, of course. I remember dreadful shows like The Black and White Minstrel Show and Sunday Night at the London Palladium. For years, my parents refused to have a television in their house, probably rightly so, considering the nonsense that was being aired.

  And the books in Annabel’s house! Shelves and shelves of Enid Blyton books like The Faraway Tree, The Naughtiest Girl series, The Secret Seven, Famous Five, all of them!

  As I grew older, my insatiable appetite for reading was satisfied by Auntie Jean’s pile of Good Housekeeping magazines, and the adult books I found, like the Readers’ Digests. Once I found a book called Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence. Intrigued, I took it home without asking, and read it under my bedcovers, my eyes round with disbelief. I didn’t understand a word of it, but I knew it was very, very rude. I didn’t know that the book had been banned and was only released in 1960 following a sensational trial.

  But best of all, I loved the boarding school stories like Malory Towers. Boarding school life sounded such fun, I thought, little knowing that I would soon experience it for myself.

  In those days, we didn’t use the term ‘sleepover’ but Annabel and I had many. I loved staying the night, and, fired up by our reading of Malory Towers, we planned midnight feasts.

  “What shall we eat?” asked Annabel.

  “Let’s raid the pantry.”

  It was silly really. Auntie Jean would have given us anything we asked for, but it was more fun to secretly make a stash. We found chocolate cookies, cake and a packet of meringue nests. That would do nicely. We hid our stash in the cupboard under the stairs, went to bed giggling, and set the alarm clock for midnight, hiding it under a pillow to muffle it.

  The next morning, we woke as Auntie Jean drew the heavy curtains to allow the new day in.

  “Did you have a nice night?” she asked. “Sleep well?”

  Annabel and I sat up and rubbed our eyes, then looked at each other. Was it morning? Had we forgotten to wake up? Had we missed our own midnight feast? Apparently we had.

  Luckily, I was staying another night, so we tried again. We set the clock, determined not to sleep through it this time.

  At the stroke of midnight the alarm shrilled, and we both woke up. It was tempting to just turn it off and go back to sleep, but that’s not what the girls at Malory Towers would have done. Neither of us felt the slightest bit hungry, but we tumbled out of bed nevertheless.

  “Ssshhh… Watch the third step down, it’s a creaky floorboard,” whispered Annabel.

  Creak!

  Too late, I’d already stood on it.

  We froze, praying that Auntie Jean and Uncle Frank hadn’t woken up. Nothing stirred. Sighing with relief, we tiptoed down the remainder of the stairs, opened the cupboard door, slipped in, and turned on the light.

  Two little girls in a cramped under-stairs cupboard, giggling, scoffing chocolate cookies, and shushing each other, are bound to make a lot of noise. We had no idea what was happening upstairs.

  “Frank? Frank! There’s somebody downstairs!”

  “What?”

  “I think we’ve got burglars!”

  “Burglars?”

  “Yes! I can hear strange noises!”

  “What sort of noises?”

  “Well, listen!”

  Now they were both sitting up in bed.

  “I can hear giggling!”

  “It’s the girls. Whatever are they doing? I’m going to look.”

  Auntie Jean tiptoed to the top of the stairs and looked down before returning to the bedroom.

  “They’re in the cupboard under the stairs,” she whispered. “I can see the light through the cracks. I think they’re having a midnight feast.”

  “Burglars indeed! Don’t you go disturbing them. Let them get on with it, they’ll soon come back to bed.”

  That’s the way they were. Annabel and I finished our midnight feast and tiptoed back to bed, totally unaware that Jean and Frank knew all about it.

  * * *

  My sister, being four years older than I, had already left Mrs Pellow’s Preparatory School and moved on to another school called Talbot Heath. Now it was my turn.

  My sister had sailed through the Common Entrance exam, the test that is needed to be passed before Talbot Heath would accept a pupil. I was 11 years old and needed to take the Common Entrance as well as the 11+ exam along with it.

  The 11+ exam is so called because it was taken by children aged 11 or older. Passing the 11+ meant one could go to a Grammar School, a school for pupils with academic ability. Failing it meant one attended a Secondary Modern school to learn vocational skills such as cooking, typing or car maintenance. This was before the days of the Comprehensive school system. Both the Common Entrance and 11+ exams were administered at Mrs Pellow’s Preparatory School.

  It didn’t help that I was often off school, suffering from frequent sore throats and a stuffy nose.

  “Hmm…” said our family doctor. “It might be a good idea if we arrange to have Victoria’s adenoids removed.”

  Exam day arrived. Instead of our usual teacher, Mrs Pellow herself was going to supervise us. The desks were arranged in straight rows, and we filed in alphabetically. I was terrified.

  “Now, children,” said Mrs Pellow, “you must do your best. I know you are all very nervous, so I’ve brought you something to buck you up.”

  Now we were interested. Mrs Pellow paced up and down the lines of desks.

  “Mrs Pellow’s Pep Pills for Pallid Pupils,” she said, plonking a tube of Smarties in front of every child.

  Suddenly the exams didn’t feel so bad.

  “Eat some and then rub the back of your necks to get the sugar to the brain.”

  Really? Okay!

  “When I tell you, turn over the paper and write today’s date in the box provided. Do it now!”

  With a rustle of paper, we did as instructed.

  “Now write your date of birth in the box below it.”

  We obeyed as Mrs Pellow prowled up and down the line of desks checking that we were doing it correctly. At my desk, she stopped. A large finger stabbed at the two boxes I’d just filled in.

  “You’ve written the same date t
wice,” she said, and my heart raced.

  “Yes, Miss.”

  In the first box I’d written today’s date: 17th February 1966. In the box below I’d written my date of birth: 17th February 1955.

  “It’s my birthday today,” I whispered.

  “Good gracious!” she bellowed. “Then you must have another tube of Mrs Pellow’s Pep Pills for Pallid Pupils!”

  Sadly, despite the double dose of medication, I didn’t pass the Common Entrance exam, although I did pass the 11+. Graciously, Talbot Heath School for Girls, or TH as we soon called it, accepted me anyway. They reasoned that because my sister was so smart, it must have been a fluke that I failed their entrance exam. Little did they know that my sister was far more academically gifted and motivated than I would ever be.

  As with every final year in Primary School, our class was planning to put on a big show for the parents. Ours was going to be a musical, poetry and dance extravaganza, staged at Dorchester Corn Exchange. My poem was part of The Walrus and the Carpenter from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and I knew it by heart. I could recite it with ease in my bedroom and in the bath, and can still remember much of it today.

  “The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  “To talk of many things:

  Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax –

  Of cabbages - and kings –

  And why the sea is boiling hot –

  And whether pigs have wings.”

  A wonderful poem, full of humour and irony, and every word was burned into my brain. The problem was my shyness. As soon as I opened my mouth to recite anything in front of anybody, except Snowy Twinkletoes and Annabel, my mind went blank. My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  “Victoria, you know this poem,” said my exasperated teacher, Miss Gunson. “You need to be able to recite it next week at the Corn Exchange, word perfect. Now come on, try!”

  I did try, but the words remained locked away and hidden. Of course, as soon as Miss Gunson passed to another child, the words came flooding back.