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Authors: Sara Crowe
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case. He must have had his reasons, though now we will never know them. No, I’m afraid that now this is the only record that I have of the past.’ She was referring to her Commonplace.
Then she pulled her threads back together, opened my window for fresh air and smoothed my appalling hair. She was back to being the strong one.
But it still doesn’t make sense to me of Mum’s decision to die, and most pertinently, of why she didn’t tell me, but Aunt Coral is convinced that we need look no further for a motive.
The Commonplace Book of Coral Garden: Volume 5
Newspaper cutting, ‘Personal Column’, Egham Echo , 23 Feb 1987:
The Commonplace Book of Coral Garden: Volume 1
Green Place, Christmas 1932
(Age ten)
News
Cameo has had a terrible accident. She fell three feet and a ski pole went through her eye. Mother cannot stop weeping. She gave Cameo a doll’s house for Christmas to help aid in her recovery. It is along the lines of the one made for Queen Mary, which set the doll’s house world alight, boasting Louis chairs, Chippendales, and working electric lights.
The surgeons have been measuring the risks of brain damage if they proceed with more surgery, and she is still in great pain. She may end up wearing a false eye. She had to have a big bald patch shaved off the front of her scalp, which she found so thoroughly demoralising, that I shaved a patch of my hair off too for support. Mother offered to do it as well, at which point Father was not very calm. He said it would not be appropriate for a lady.
Cameo is just so stoic, and delights in wearing her sunglasses, joking when she goes upstairs to bed that she’s just off for twenty winks. She has done an amazing drawing of a cat that lives in the dustbin. Here we call him Guido, but next door he is called something else. No one could believe the artist was a little injured girl of five. We are all very proud.
But I’m in the dog house over the doll’s house. I didn’t intend any harm. I merely wanted to see how the lights worked, so on Boxing Day I stripped them all out. I didn’t get the chance to put it back together again before Mother came in and found me. Cameo was understanding, but to be quite honest she couldn’t see what I’d done. Mother’s rage was as bad as when I bent the cutlery to make up a tool kit.
As penance I had to clean out the flies from Father’s collection of Toby Jugs. He’s very passionate about his Jugs, and boasts a Martha Gunn and a Thin Man among his twenty-five pieces, dating from 1760! The original Toby Jugs were modelled on a notorious drinker of the time, Henry Elwes, also known as Toby Fillpot, so sometimes the Jugs are called Fillpots too. Father’s in love with this period in history and knows all the old songs. While I cleaned them he taught me the words of ‘Oh Good Ale thou art my darling’, which I can’t get off the brain. But anyway that means he can’t be that angry with me about the doll’s house, which is a relief. To be shut out of his study is the worst penance I know.
Best Christmas Present
New doll named Karis who says ‘Mama’. Her voice is created by a balloon and two ceramic bars in her torso, which, when squeezed, press on the balloon, forcing the air out and into the sound of ‘Mama’. A slight reshaping and weighting of the bars makes the air come out sounding like ‘pee pee’. I’m going to re-set it for Cameo because it makes her laugh so much.
Local news
Aurthur Longquist, a diminutive local boy, has chanced upon a supply of Liptons and has taken to the marketing and sale of the bags from the premises of his bicycle. Naturally we bought some, in the knowledge of his family’s need. But the irony is not wasted on me, as Father owns half of Ceylon, and that tea probably travelled here on one of our ships. We also turn a blind eye to Longquist door-stepping some of our milk. Father says in whatever way, we must do what we can for the poor, and it will save him from waiting
Then she pulled her threads back together, opened my window for fresh air and smoothed my appalling hair. She was back to being the strong one.
But it still doesn’t make sense to me of Mum’s decision to die, and most pertinently, of why she didn’t tell me, but Aunt Coral is convinced that we need look no further for a motive.
The Commonplace Book of Coral Garden: Volume 5
Newspaper cutting, ‘Personal Column’, Egham Echo , 23 Feb 1987:
The Commonplace Book of Coral Garden: Volume 1
Green Place, Christmas 1932
(Age ten)
News
Cameo has had a terrible accident. She fell three feet and a ski pole went through her eye. Mother cannot stop weeping. She gave Cameo a doll’s house for Christmas to help aid in her recovery. It is along the lines of the one made for Queen Mary, which set the doll’s house world alight, boasting Louis chairs, Chippendales, and working electric lights.
The surgeons have been measuring the risks of brain damage if they proceed with more surgery, and she is still in great pain. She may end up wearing a false eye. She had to have a big bald patch shaved off the front of her scalp, which she found so thoroughly demoralising, that I shaved a patch of my hair off too for support. Mother offered to do it as well, at which point Father was not very calm. He said it would not be appropriate for a lady.
Cameo is just so stoic, and delights in wearing her sunglasses, joking when she goes upstairs to bed that she’s just off for twenty winks. She has done an amazing drawing of a cat that lives in the dustbin. Here we call him Guido, but next door he is called something else. No one could believe the artist was a little injured girl of five. We are all very proud.
But I’m in the dog house over the doll’s house. I didn’t intend any harm. I merely wanted to see how the lights worked, so on Boxing Day I stripped them all out. I didn’t get the chance to put it back together again before Mother came in and found me. Cameo was understanding, but to be quite honest she couldn’t see what I’d done. Mother’s rage was as bad as when I bent the cutlery to make up a tool kit.
As penance I had to clean out the flies from Father’s collection of Toby Jugs. He’s very passionate about his Jugs, and boasts a Martha Gunn and a Thin Man among his twenty-five pieces, dating from 1760! The original Toby Jugs were modelled on a notorious drinker of the time, Henry Elwes, also known as Toby Fillpot, so sometimes the Jugs are called Fillpots too. Father’s in love with this period in history and knows all the old songs. While I cleaned them he taught me the words of ‘Oh Good Ale thou art my darling’, which I can’t get off the brain. But anyway that means he can’t be that angry with me about the doll’s house, which is a relief. To be shut out of his study is the worst penance I know.
Best Christmas Present
New doll named Karis who says ‘Mama’. Her voice is created by a balloon and two ceramic bars in her torso, which, when squeezed, press on the balloon, forcing the air out and into the sound of ‘Mama’. A slight reshaping and weighting of the bars makes the air come out sounding like ‘pee pee’. I’m going to re-set it for Cameo because it makes her laugh so much.
Local news
Aurthur Longquist, a diminutive local boy, has chanced upon a supply of Liptons and has taken to the marketing and sale of the bags from the premises of his bicycle. Naturally we bought some, in the knowledge of his family’s need. But the irony is not wasted on me, as Father owns half of Ceylon, and that tea probably travelled here on one of our ships. We also turn a blind eye to Longquist door-stepping some of our milk. Father says in whatever way, we must do what we can for the poor, and it will save him from waiting
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