England 1921 - A summer holiday at Staines

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England 1921 - A summer holiday at Staines

Germany 1921

London 1922

London 1923

London 1923, continued

London 1924

London 1924, continued

London 1921

My father had taken a riverside bungalow at Staines during that marvellous summer and college vacation was spent doing nothing very efficiently on the river. In the mornings I usually fished for chub with cherry bait (when in season) by the pillars of Staines railway bridge whilst my pal with all the sporting papers and Ruff's Guide to the Turf picked out the winners for that afternoon's racing. How the bookmaker ever coped with these complicated one shilling accumulators and sixpenny trebles I do not know, but as we consistently lost, I suppose he was grateful for small mercies.

One day, after a particularly disastrous spell, I informed my friend that that morning he could arrange the variations, but I was going to choose the horses without any help from him or his literature. Our treble came home at 880 to 1 ₤44, which proves my consummate skill as a punter. The names of the three horses were ? Fiancee, Double Bed and Lovely Nightie.

London 1921

In that wonderful summer of 1921, when the family had a bungalow on the river at Staines, it did not rain for thirteen weeks and there was scarcely enough water in the river to hold the Waterman's Regatta when the annual event came round in the middle of September. My parents had handed the bungalow over to us for the weekend and we were about eight boys and eight girls. My sister and other girls slept in the bungalow and on the verandah and the boys slept in "the fleet" which consisted of one 30 ft. motor boat, two punts and a dinghy. We had all enjoyed the Regatta thoroughly and had retired for the night as per the above billeting arrangements. At three a.m. the storm broke, the first rain for thirteen weeks and how the heavens opened! At about half past five. I went for a swim downstream towards Penton Hook lock, probably to get warm, there was still almost continuous lightning but after about three hours the rain was stopping.

I swam back to the landing stage, fetched a pruning knife from the garden shed, bailed out the dinghy which was almost sinking (the punts and the motor boat were canvas hooded and the fellows in them quite dry) and I took the dinghy back to where I had gone swimming. There I found the poor dead swans that had been struck by lightning. I cut off their heads and rowed further down stream finding some more that had been carried down by the current from where they had all, nestling under the bank, been struck. Back I rowed for breakfast after I got dried and at 8.15 a.m. left for the Thames Conservancy offices in Norfolk Street, Strand with twenty five heads of the dead swans. I was there when the office opened at 9.00 a.m. and put my sack of heads on the counter. I said, "I have come to notify the death of some of His Majesty's property." That fellow did not bat an eyelid, much to my surprise and disappointment. He just paid me. ₤3.2.6d. and asked me to sign a receipt. I happened to know that good citizens were rewarded with half-a-crown for notifying the death of a swan and I was only twenty minutes late for my lecture. No, I did not massacre those birds, the lightning did it. If you would like to kill even one fully grown swan with a blunt pruning knife, you are at liberty to try.

Staines 1921

During our vacation on the river at Staines I knew two sisters. Muriel, the elder was very pretty and adored me and knitted long wool scarves for me in my club colours, but I adored Sybil, the younger one and I had got it very, very badly. It is a pleasure now even to describe her. She was tall with long chestnut hair, shining pale blue grey eyes and a bewitching smile that set off her lovely pearly white teeth. I was a faithful swain and collected her from the telephone exchange where she worked, whenever she was on late duty to accompany her home. This usually meant along the tow-path, the most deserted but not necessarily the shortest way home.

Well, one evening Sybil and I had a tiff, which necessitated my showing some manly dominance I thought, so there on the tow-path in fading twilight with the waters of Old Father Thames lapping six feet below us, I took her by the shoulders and gave her a gentle but persuasive shake. She did not blaze into a temper, she even seemed to enjoy it but she would not admit that she was wrong, about whatever it was. Perhaps a repeated dose with a little masculine strength might tip the balance, I thought, so I gave her a shaking such as she had never had in her life. Unfortunately, the result was completely unexpected for both her top and bottom plates flew out, leaving poor Sybil without a tooth in her head, moreover in the darkness we could not find them. When I got her home, I regret that I was not gallant enough to kiss her goodnight, but still sufficiently remorseful early next morning to go searching for those pearly white teeth, which I found half way down the bank. I knew that Muriel was the early riser in that family, so passed them to her through the letter-box. I got over the shock quite quickly - I cannot tell you what happened to Sybil.