A Chiltern Conversation
On a day of brilliant early autumn sunshine, we drove through the lanes towards the Chilterns and a small hamlet a few miles from the Thames. I was going to meet Ann Thiam, whose daughter had contacted me because they had been part of Elizabeth Goudge’s life for many years. I was delighted by this chance to meet anyone with personal connections to Elizabeth Goudge, and excepted with alacrity.
The Chilterns are an ancient chalk landscape, a place of beech woods, chalk streams, commons and steep escarpments. It’s villages are chocolate box pretty, made up of flint, brick and timber, some deeply thatched. People were out in force enjoying the surroundings, “just messing about on the river.” Kenneth Graham of Wind in the Willows fame, one of the authors Elizabeth often quoted, lived and died in the village of Pangbourne. It was there that we crossed the Thames on an elegant white painted iron bridge, paying the princely sum of 60p for the privilege.
The lanes wound through thickly wooded slopes and we entered the village as if being popped from a green glass bottle. Wheelers Cottage was one of the only homes not to have under gone extensive renovations. It was set back in a large rambling garden, where fruit bushes and flowers tangled deliciously together. The narrow dirt path was edged with tiny sugar pink and white autumn cyclamen; and a large shrub of woody white and pink salvia stood at the turn of the path. Suddenly, there I was at the door. It was just the sort of place that would have enchanted Elizabeth Goudge, a fairy tale cottage with history, settled into a garden that wrapped arms around its walls.
I was warmly greeted by Liz, Ann’s daughter who congratulated us on finding our way to them. Apparently many a past children’s birthday party had been sparsely attended because people couldn’t find their way. It was as if the cottage made up its mind who it let into the sanctum of the family. Elizabeth always said the same of Rose Cottage, that in the right company it had expanded with warmth and welcome.
The cottage was made up of small rooms, with low ceilings and windows looking out in all directions. It was easy to see one of the many reasons to have drawn Elizabeth here. She would have loved the ambiance, as did I.
Ann, Liz’s mother, was a small woman with white hair pulled back from her face, the slightly anxious smile of the short sighted, and as soon as I saw her I knew we were going to be companiable. I warmed to her at once.
Sitting around the kitchen table, with her daughter and granddaughter, we began to talk about Miss Goudge as the family always referred to her.
It was a totally satisfying conversation, that took unexpected paths, and diversions. But I came away feeling that I had been in the company of a family who had known Elizabeth Goudge, intimately. The conversation had four distinct strands to it, the main one naturally being their connections and interaction with Miss Goudge. Her mother had long been a fan of Miss Goudge’s novels and had passed on her books and her love of them to Ann.
After school, Ann went to London to be trained in nursing. It was a startling change from the semi-rural family life she had been leading, and she was at first, deeply unhappy and felt that she couldn’t manage; not only with the amount of knowledge she was required to learn, but the noise and sheer urbanisation of city life. At one stage all she had wanted to do was come home. But she prevailed with her commitments, in large part thanks to reading an Elizabeth Goudge book. (More of which later)
On her return to Oxfordshire, she enhanced her nursing skills by becoming a midwife. Eventually, Ann became a missionary, joining the Church Missionary Society. She went out to Malaysia to practise her hard won nursing skills. Here was where she met her future husband and from there she began a correspondence with Miss Goudge, as her mother had done before her. I asked her if she had known that Elizabeth had considered nursing as a career, which she hadn’t.
After they moved back to Britain they found a temporary home, in coincidentally, another Rose Cottage, near to where Elizabeth lived. Jessie would bring Elizabeth over to visit a cousin who lived nearby and it was while she was there that she first noticed Ann and her three young children. Ann told me how the house was at that time in a serious state of dilapidation; and with three small children, her life at that time had been full of chaos and love.
They eventually moved to Wheeler’s Cottage. Sometimes there would be a tentative knock on the door, and there would be Miss Goudge come on a visit, taking in her stride all the complicated joys, messes and stresses of a young family. Ann always found Miss Goudge to be in her words” a poppet,” so quiet, wise and shy. She was enthralled by the children, and once when Ann’s daughter, Elizabeth’s older sister Maria, was sitting propped up in a chair by the fire, she looked at her very earnestly and said, “she looks such a wise child!” Elizabeth later became godmother to her namesake, a role she took to with delight and commitment.
Ann told me of a children’s birthday tea she had held in her Rose Cottage and how every surface had been covered with plates of food. They were passing the plates out of the window to the excited children on the lawn. It was just the sort of meal that Elizabeth so often describes in her books., especially perhaps in this instance the special tea party for seven people described in The Little White Horse. Miss Goudge had been delighted with the whole proceedings.
Elizabeth’s doll with “real hair”!
I was shown objects that Miss Goudge had gifted to Liz; one a doll that had belonged to her as a child. Liz was at first very dubious about this as Miss Goudge proudly told her that although her dress was rather faded as the doll was the same age as herself, that she had “real hair” which as a young child she found rather spooky! I wonder whose hair it was? Other gifts of books and ornaments followed over the years, as well as cards and letters. Liz remembers a soft gentle lady, and wishes as we all do looking back, that she had realized the value of the relationship. One of her most treasures gifts was a box with compartments, to put “little things” in. She said that Miss Goudge delighted in bringing magic into their lives, and once brought them a bunch of wild flowers picked in the lanes round about.
Two of Elizabeth’s Gifts
When towards the end of her life, Elizabeth was ill in hospital, Liz had drawn her a picture of a blue dinosaur and Elizabeth responded to the picture as if she had been given a Picasso.
We discussed the empathy and skill with which this childless only child had written about children, and Liz made an astute observation. She commented that the Bronte sisters had lived quiet secluded lives in the Yorkshire moors with a father who was a vicar of the local church and yet had written stories of such passion and drama. Elizabeth, she thought, was emoting her love for the children she never physically had, creating families full of boisterous children to be company in her restricted family life. We wondered if Elizabeth had lost the chance of married life early on while at Ely, but had no firm evidence on which to base this.
We spoke of the books that had had the most influence on Ann’s life, the first of which was the book that got her through the distressing time in London, Gentian Hill. The story of Midshipman Anthony O’Connell, resonated with her dilemma. He too had wanted to run away from a situation he found intolerable; but with the help of the people he met, and the moral and religious codes that they lived by, he had found the courage to face down his demons and return to the battleship he had fled from. He wanted to be a contemporary of the people he admired and loved and knew that he would have to endure his uncongenial situation and the consequences of running away from them, before he could. Ann drew fortitude from this book; it encouraged her, like Anthony, to face up to the unpleasant aspects of her life and gave her the strength and determination to endure and succeed ; which she did admirably.
Cover of 1st Edition of Gentian Hill
Another of Elizabeth’s books that has been a companion to Ann was The Valley of Song, a book that I have always found difficult. But Ann had suffered two miscarriages and one of the books themes is concerned about finding a lost child. Taking down my copy of The Valley of Song from the shelf, I determine to remedy the situation and read it soon. We spoke about how Elizabeth had the ability to reach out and take you by the hand and quietly advise you through her work, without prejudice or criticism.
The last book we spoke about was Green Dolphin Country and unsurprisingly given her resultant missionary work, Samuel and his heroic death still moved her deeply.
Ann had lead a full and fascinating life. Her time in London, learning to be a midwife in the late fifties; then moving out to Malaysia and meeting her husband. During her time there she learnt several differing dialects of Chinese and became fluent enough to give talks in them, a talent she retains
Her time as a young mother bringing up four small children in rural Oxfordshire in the 70’s must have taken a different sort of courage. Rural life in those decades was not the “second home” luxury that it can be today. She was also a practising mid wife and delighted us with tales of riding her motorbike around the county lanes in all weathers to deliver babies.
Another aspect we discussed was the strong complex female characters Miss Goudge wrote into her work. Liz pointed out that a lot of the male characters were rather weak; William in Green Dolphin Country being an example. I thought this interesting, especially as I then pointed to the strength in the Grandfather figures in her work; such as, Captain O’Hara from the same book. Elizabeth seemed to have admired the qualities of older men rather than having empathy for young men still struggling to come to terms with who they were.
I thought this over later. Elizabeth’s shyness probably prevented her from being at ease in the company of young men. But perhaps, too, a surfeit of young under graduates and clerics learning their vocation and taking up so much of her father’s time may have contributed to her feelings about them?
I asked if they thought Elizabeth’s books were still relevant to today’s readers, or if they had become dated? The consensus was that the magic in her books still resonated, and that contemporary writers drew inspiration from her work The Little White Horse is still being quoted as a seminal childhood book by many writers.
Some of the themes in her work might be deemed old fashioned to today’s readers, such as a married couple staying in an unhappy marriage for the sake of the children. But I still believe that the core theme of homes being the focus of family life, places of sanctuary that give refuge from the world and strength to continue their stressful lives holds true in contemporary society.
Peppard Common Church where Elizabeth Goudge worshipped.
What would Elizabeth have made of the world we inhabit today? What would she have felt about the ecological demise of the countryside; its changing work practises, the loss of so many local crafts ? What would she have thought about villages that have become dormitories for urban jobs, second homes for holiday and recreation rather than being vibrant connected communities? What would she have made of the lack of faith and modern morals?
Elizabeth was not judgmental and I think had a wide vision of the multi-faceted ways people practise their faiths. The present King who at one stage wanted to be the “defender of Faiths” and now has updated his official duties to emphasize the protection of “the space for faith within the multi-faith nation,” is a stance she would probably have agreed with. She was someone who was capable of seeing the positive good in those she came into contact with. Perhaps however for her sake it was as well that she passed away before these “unprecedented times.”
I came away from my visit with a heart full of gratitude that I had been privileged enough to meet this remarkable family. Their memories of “Miss Goudge” had deepened and confirmed my understanding of this talented writer. Her love of the countryside, her ties to the community she loved and her kindness to all who had the benefit of her society had shone through the whole day.
