Many people hang on to keepsakes from their childhood. Photographs, letters, drawings, cards and other reminders are special tokens from times past and distant spaces.
My mother grew up in Ross-on-Wye, a small market town in England, and in her early twenties she came to South Africa on a two-year contract as a young teacher in the post-World War II years. On her return to England she lived in London and got a temporary job as an animal keeper at a small zoo while hoping to find work as an actor.
In London she renewed acquaintances with a young man she had met while in South Africa. He was visiting as a post-graduate student working on his PhD at a university in London. One thing led to another and they married in Ross-on-Wye before returning to South Africa.
Recently, following the death of my mother in April last year, I started going through the boxes of personal items, many from England, which my mother had kept and carefully treasured.
Among them I found a tiny sketch pad with pen-and-ink drawings of English wildflowers. My mother had written on the back that they were drawn by her father and I thought they were rather charming – and appropriate to share on naturebackin.
I should think that this drawing labelled Wild Rose by my grandfather is of a Dog rose (Rosa canina), a thorny climber that in England grows wild in hedgerows, woodland edges and on scrubland. It flowers during the months of summer
I guess that my grandfather did these drawings when he was at school, also in Ross-on-Wye. The wildflowers are redolent of old English woodlands, grasslands and of a time gone by. In those days Ross-on-Wye ran seamlessly into the surrounding countryside. When I was a small child on visits from South Africa I can remember walking out into meadows, fields and woodlands, and being entranced by the profusion of wildflowers that I had only seen in illustrations in children’s storybooks.
Wild primroses flower mostly in springtime, growing best in damp spaces in woodlands and adjacent areas. Wild woodland primroses are one of only two larval host plant species of the rare butterfly known as the Duke of Burgandy, the other host plant being cowslips (in grasslands). Because of changes in land use, woodland colonies of wild primroses are dying out and consequently so are the butterflies. For more see https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?species=lucina
This drawing of Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) details ‘Bluebell’ as an alternative name
The blog ‘A Shakespeare Garden’ notes that rather confusingly both names, Harebells and Bluebells, are used for the same species in different parts of the British Isles (https://bardgarden.blogspot.com/2017/03/harebells-and-bluebells.html). It also lists many other names for Campanula rotundifolia, including Witch’s Thimble, Witch’s Bells, Fairy Thimbles, Dead Man’s Bells, Aul Man’s Bells, Lady’s Thimble, Blawort and Milk-Ort. Campanula rotundifolia flowers during the summer months. The spring-flowering woodland plant Hyacinthoidesnon-scripta is also known by the name Bluebell and more specifically as the Common Bluebell or English Bluebell.
The Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) is another spring-flowering plant that is associated with ancient woodlands. The pronounced foxing that stains the paper of my grandfather’s little sketching pad is clearly visible
Venturing into colour in this sketch of a small violet, my grandfather could have been drawing one of the sweet violets or one of the dog-violets; I gather that both kinds of violet might be referred to as wood violets
And here is my grandfather photographed as a choir boy, perhaps only a few years younger than when he did the drawings? He was born in 1900 and I would guess he was about eleven years old when the photograph was taken. He sang in the choir at St Mary’s Parish Church in Ross-on-Wye. The church building is 700 years old and its tall spire is a prominent landmark
Digitised from an old slide photograph taken by my father in 1965, this is a view of Ross-on-Wye. The spire of St Mary’s Church is visible near the horizon on the left of the photograph
Less than three weeks after his fourteenth birthday, my grandfather’s schoolboy world, as for millions of others, was shattered by the outbreak of World War 1. Even though Britain remained unoccupied throughout the war, there was scarcely a village or town that did not lose young men in the carnage on the battlefields of Europe, or at sea or in the air. Ross-on-Wye was no exception. A memorial erected after the war lists 105 local servicemen who fell during World War one. Included in the numbers are an uncle and a brother of my grandfather. The remains of his uncle’s body were never found, and the body of his brother lies in a military graveyard in Belgium.
With childhood firmly behind him, when he was only 16 or 17, my grandfather signed up to take his place in the armed forces during World War 1. In the Royal Navy Air Force (which combined with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force in April 1918), he was an observer aboard British airships involved in reconnaissance, patrols, hunting enemy submarines, detecting mines and escorting naval convoys. The British airships were an effective deterrent to the German U-boats (submarines) that were deployed in large numbers to attack shipping convoys and aircraft in an attempt to blockade Britain.
In the above photo on the left, my grandfather is in the centre, kitted up for going aloft in an airship, wearing a leather overcoat and long fur-lined boots. I would guess that the other two men with him were also crewmen on the airship. Airship crewmen would sit exposed to the elements in a boat-shaped “car” or gondola slung beneath the enormous inflated “envelope” of the airship. Many of the Sea Scout classes of airship had two or three or more crew members. For example, the 3-crew SSZ class airship had the observer/wireless operator/gunner sitting upfront, with the pilot in the middle and the engineer at the back where he could attend to the engine. In addition to a light machine gun these airships also carried three bombs that could be dropped on enemy submarines.
In the above photograph on the right are servicemen belonging, or so I guess, to the Royal Navy Air Service (my grandfather is the man seated on the lower step). With them are two women in uniform who are possibly members of the Women’s Royal Navy Auxiliary Corp. The crews lived at the airbases and the wooden building could well be their barracks. Unfortunately, I do not know at which air base these photographs were taken.
Above is another photo of crewmen at the airbase. My grandfather is standing second from right behind the man who is seated. For more about some of the British airships deployed against submarines in World War 1 see here and here
The relentless British airship patrols contributed significantly to containing German submarine activity and drove them away from the British coast. In addition to their deterrent effect, airships successfully attacked many submarines, and they were also effective for sighting and also destroying mines. The airships were essential to the eventual defeat of the German U-boats and contributed to victory for Great Britain in the sea war.
As in most wars, World War 1 continued to take its toll long after the battlefields fell silent and survivors returned to whatever the war had left them. For instance, a second brother of my grandfather died in 1930 at the age of 36 of pulmonary tuberculosis resulting from being gassed in a mustard gas attack during the war.
When as a boy he drew these poppy blooms, my grandfather was not to know that the poppy would come to be associated with the World War 1 battlefields and vast graveyards of Europe, where the freshly disturbed earth prompted seed germination and subsequent mass flowerings of blood-coloured blooms. The poem In Flanders Fields by John McCrae first brought widespread attention to this association and to this day the poppy is used to commemorate the carnage. The body of my grandfather’s brother, killed at Ypres in the last weeks of the war, lies in a military graveyard in the Flanders Fields region
After the Armistice in November 1918, despite the profound dislocations and losses, gradually peacetime pursuits such as cricket, football and other sports were taken up again, including by returned servicemen.
Above is a local cricket team (my grandfather front left) and below the Ross Town football club (my grandfather front right). The dates written on the football are 1920-21. Many of these men would have seen active service in the armed forces during World War 1
Another popular peacetime pursuit in the years following the war was amateur theatre. Both my grandparents were involved in many local theatre productions and some were entered into national amateur theatre competitions, my grandmother as a producer and my grandfather as an actor.
Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were popular, and these photos are of my grandfather in productions of what I assume to be The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, and H.M.S. Pinafore
A Great Depression and another World War intervened in the 1930s and the 1940s, profoundly altering all of Europe and also irrevocably changing country villages and towns such as Ross-on-Wye. Nevertheless, when my grandfather’s first grandchild, aged only three years old, first visited from South Africa in the early 1960s, she was lucky enough to be able to luxuriate in meadows shining with buttercups and woodlands glowing with bluebells that still remained.
I was one of the children lucky enough to have adults in my life, including grandparents who had endured two world wars, who shared with me a sense of wonder in the natural world about us, and I have been fortunate enough to retain that sense of wonder throughout my life.
It seems appropriate to share again the words of Rachel Carson quoted in a previous post: “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in” (from The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson).
Posted by Carol
April 28, 2019 at 2:42 am
What a wonderful story, and a lovely keepsake!
LikeLiked by 1 person
May 2, 2019 at 7:27 pm
Thank you,, and yes it is a lovely that the drawings were kept and have been passed on.v
LikeLike
April 21, 2019 at 1:28 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this. Your family’s mementos are indeed a treasure. The flowers drawn by your grandfather are ones that I welcome each year in my part of England. The rose certainly looks like a dog rose, which incidentally is also an important food plant for several vertebrates, from migratory birds to dormice. We have various species of violet but they can be hard to tell apart even when you’re sitting in the meadow with a flower key!
There were a number of events in England last year commemorating 100 years since Armistice. My village joined our local town in their memorial service, but we also purchased clay poppies to place outside our village hall. Silhouettes were placed in church pews in a display called ‘There but not there’, a quiet reminder of the men who left but did not come back.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 21, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Thanks Adele. I love the selection of wildflowers that my grandfather chose to draw. Interesting that the dog rose provides food for so many species, and also for you to confirm my difficulties with identifying wild violets!
How good to have clay poppies at your local WW1 commemoration – I was dismayed to find that plastic is being used here these days for the Remembrance Day red poppies sold to raise funds for ex-service men and women. Those silhouettes placed in the church pews are a very moving form of tribute and acknowledgement of loss.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 14, 2019 at 2:46 pm
Poignant and lovely. The juxtaposition of the delicate wildflower sketches with the harshness and casualties of war is brilliantly made whole in the poppy fields. I like this a lot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 14, 2019 at 7:04 pm
Thanks very much Cheryl. It amazed me when I suddenly saw how the poppies brought it all together.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:55 am
Better late than missing this sweet and charming post. First the delightful sketches and the photos of your grandfather. How marvelous to have these bits from the past. They are irreplaceable treasures, I’m sure. You certainly were a cute little blonde. I wonder why so many of us lost the blonde hair as we grew up. Mine did the same.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:22 pm
Thanks very much Gunta. Yes, indeed these mementos are real treasures. Interesting re the change in hair colour. My sister was born with very dark hair, but by about age five we both had the same shade of brown.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 4:21 pm
I am sure your family will enjoy this as much as I did.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:05 pm
Thanks very much Sherry – I am happy to have shared these mementos.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 11:19 am
This is just lovely, Carol. The sketches are spot on, and every wild flower recognisable so Dog Rose it is. Two weeks ago we were in the vicinity of Ross-on-Wye. It’s a lovely part of the world. The photos too are real treasures.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:04 pm
Thanks so much Tish. Nice to know that you have been in the Ross area. I am thinking that perhaps I should plan on visiting the UK and the Wye Valley region before too long. Perhaps though I would need to go in spring so as to see the wildflowers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 14, 2019 at 9:09 am
May-June would be ideal. The Wye is so beatiful and then there’s the bookshop capital at Hay.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 14, 2019 at 6:44 pm
It’s tempting!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 10:08 am
So interesting, Carol! I can now see where your photography talent comes from, as well as your interest in nature. Loved this story and the sensitive drawings of your grandfather.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:01 pm
Thank you Suzette. So glad that you like the drawings!
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 9:59 am
Thank you for sharing in such detail about your past Aunty Carol and especially about your Grandfather, I love it. May going through all those personal boxes bring about a rich heritage, wonderful stories and joy as it all unfolds. 🦋
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 3:28 pm
Thanks very much Debbie. It is an intense experience going through my mum’s personal boxes of memories and it can be most disconcerting, but we are fortunate to have so many mementos and photographs.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 9:16 am
Beautiful post, Carol, so poignant. Your grandfather looks so young in these photographs and with so many talents. The drawings are charming. The region around Ross-on-Wye is still beautiful now. Thank you for sharing this 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 3:25 pm
Thank you Sandra. It is impossible to assimilate the numbers of the war dead in the 1st World War, often with unimaginable losses occurring in such concentrated areas within only a few days. And mostly they were so young – no wonder the millions of war dead were referred to as the flower of Europe. My grandfather’s family is representative of thousands and thousands of others.
Perhaps one day I will revisit the Ross-on-Wye region – although it has changed a lot, its good to know it is still beautiful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 8:00 am
Thank you for the intimate insight into your family history, Carol. The drawings of the wild plants are enchanting. I didn’t know that the poppy would come to be associated with the World War 1 battlefields. I love the plant, but now I guess I’ll see it with different eyes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 3:13 pm
I am pleased that you like the drawings. I had not thought about the fact that poppies are not associated with the battlefields elsewhere in Europe, so thanks for alerting me to that fact! I realise now that it is mostly Britain, some Commonwealth countries and America that have that association. Interestingly, I have discovered that blue cornflowers have been used in France as a symbol of remembrance in part because they too thrived on the disturbed soils of the battlefields.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 4:05 pm
Thanks for the details! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 6:41 am
I was very young being born in 1938 when WWII came along and dad went off to Egypt and later Italy.Too young to be able to read and so Dad used to send me sketches of the area where he was stationed. Not long after the war the family moved from Durban to Johannesburg and all the letters disappeared. 75 years later I still remember some of the sketches and long for the rest.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 3:00 pm
How special for your dad to send you those sketches, but so sad that the letters got lost. I can understand your regret and ongoing sense of loss.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 6:24 am
Terrific post. I love your grandfather’s sketches, simple but quite beautiful. And then the contrast with WWI. Thanks for sharing a little of your family history
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:57 pm
Thanks very much Graham. I am delighted that you like his sketches. When I was compiling the post I was suddenly struck how the sketch of the poppies would pull it all together. I am a little anxious about sharing family stuff, but I thought it was interesting enough to share.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 15, 2019 at 5:05 am
Family stuff is bits of history that aren’t available anywhere else. I think it can give historical events a personal touch.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 5:40 am
A most delightful read! It is a fascinating glimpse into the past.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:47 pm
Thanks very much Anne. I was fascinated by those photos of my grandfather kitted up in his airship gear but I don’t remember that we ever discussed them, which seems odd in retrospect.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 3:56 am
A charming exploration into your roots. I can’t help but wonder how your grandfather would feel about cameras capturing the wonder – and mysteries – of nature if he were still here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:39 pm
Thanks, it was interesting putting together this post. Drawings do capture very different qualities about plants and nature compared to photographs somehow.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 3:54 am
What a wealth of information! My grandparents from that era left only half a dozen photos and very few stories.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:35 pm
I come from a family of hoarders, on both sides of the family. The families of both my grandmothers took a lot of photographs dating right back to the 1920s and 1930s many of which were kept to be passed on, which may be quite unusual as not everyone had cameras or used them quite so abundantly! I expect that you cherish the photos that you do have. I think we all wish we had found out more from our grandparents while they were still alive, but oftentimes it seems that they did not want to share the burdens of grownups with their grandchildren.
LikeLike
April 12, 2019 at 1:48 am
What a beautiful tribute to your Grandfather Carol, how wonderful that your joy in observing nature was nutured at such a young age! I love the sketches. xxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:28 pm
Thanks Christeen. When I put the post together I was not intending it as a tribute but I can see it turned out that way, which is nice. With my parents both being lovers of nature and animals too, I suppose that I have rather taken for granted the understanding that nature is part of everyday life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 1:27 am
Fantastic glimpse into the past – thanks for sharing your beautiful heritage, Carol, and easy to see that artistic talent can be passed from one generation to those following, whether that talent comes to the fore with pencil or camera!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:54 pm
Thanks very much – all we can get are glimpses into the past, but fascinating nevertheless. Thanks for the nice compliment! In fact there were photographers on my dad’s side of the family. My aunt was a professional photographer in the days of the dark room. She used to spend hours in pursuit of the perfect print. I wonder what she would have thought of digital cameras!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 1:35 am
Some film developers are fanatic about their art – “digital” would be equal to heresy!
LikeLike
April 13, 2019 at 7:17 pm
Yes, digital editing is not quite the same as the technique, art and mystery as the darkroom!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 12:27 am
Your grandfather was a remarkable man– artist, thespian, sportsman and I’m sure much more. You have a wonderful record of his life in photos and art. And my, weren’t you the cutest little girl with all those blonde curls!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:22 pm
When I think about it now, my grandfather was more talented than I realised. Children tend to take their relatives and grown-ups for granted I guess, but I was conscious that he had an uncommonly good singing voice. Btw, I wasn’t blonde for long – the curls darkened to brown all too soon!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 7:27 pm
I was a baby blonde, too, turning brown and now gray!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 13, 2019 at 7:06 pm
Yup. Me too 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11, 2019 at 9:21 pm
Your grandfather would have loved this thoughtful post, with his flowers running like a silken thread through it all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:18 pm
Thanks for your lovely comment Susan. Finding the sketches was such a gift. I hope that he would have approved of the post and wouldn’t mind me sharing all that I did in a public space!
LikeLike
April 11, 2019 at 8:56 pm
I love your grandfather’s sketches, Carol. I can picture them on note cards.
It’s always interesting to take a peek back into history through period photos.
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 12, 2019 at 2:15 pm
Thanks Sandy. The sketches on note cards is a lovely idea. I agree, old photos convey such a lot, even family snaps. Sometimes its the incidental background details that are the most diverting!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11, 2019 at 7:54 pm
What a fascinating post. Thank you for sharing your family history, and those charming illustrations. Do you know if your grandfather continued to draw as he reached adulthood?
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11, 2019 at 8:02 pm
Thanks Margaret. As far as I know he did not continue to draw. In his younger years he also did a bit of wood carving. He had the most impeccable and beautiful handwriting – an art in itself!
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11, 2019 at 8:18 pm
I’m old enough to have had handwriting lessons and copybooks. Doesn’t help me now 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
April 11, 2019 at 8:24 pm
Interestingly, his handwriting had a personal style that did not look like conventional copy book writing. Of all my grandfather’s accomplishments one that never failed to impress me as a child was that he could smoothly run his finger down a column of pounds shilling and pence in a ledger, and silently add up as he went probably faster than one could enter the numbers into into a calculator or adding machine or computer, not that they had any of those then. I could never do mental arithmetic that fast even using the metric system!
LikeLike