THE WORLD OF
ROSAMUNDE
PILCHER
EDITED BY SIV BUBLITZ
picture research by Lieva Reunes
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A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK.
AN IMPRINT OF ST. MARTIN’S PRESS.
THE WORLD OF ROSAMUNDE PILCHER. TEXT COPYRIGHT © 1967, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1978, 1985, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992 BY ROSAMUNDE PILCHER; 1990 BY ROBIN PILCHER, FIONA WYNN-WILLIAMS, MARK PILCHER AND PHILIPPA IMRIE; 1995 BY ROBIN PILCHER, FIONA PILCHER, MARK PILCHER, AND THE TRUSTEES OF ROSAMUNDE PILCHER’S 1988 TRUST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE USED OR REPRODUCED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION EXCEPT IN THE CASE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS EMBODIED IN CRITICAL ARTICLES OR REVIEWS. FOR INFORMATION, ADDRESS ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, 175 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10010.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
PILCHER, ROSAMUNDE.
THE WORLD OF ROSAMUNDE PILCHER / BY ROSAMUNDE
PILCHER.
P. CM.
“A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK.”
ISBN 0-312-14771-6 (HARDCOVER)
1. PILCHER, ROSAMUNDE—HOMES AND HAUNTS—GREAT BRITAIN—PICTORIAL WORKS. 2. CORNWALL (ENGLAND : COUNTY)—PICTORIAL WORKS. 3. HIGHLANDS (SCOTLAND)— PICTORIAL WORKS. 4. LONDON (ENGLAND)—PICTORIAL WORKS. 5. PILCHER, ROSAMUNDE—QUOTATIONS. I. TITLE.
PR6066.I38Z474 1996
823’.914—DC20
[B] 96-20046
CIP
FIRST PUBLISHED IN GERMANY BY ROWOHLT VERLAG GMBH, EINBEK, HAMBURG
FIRST U.S. EDITION: OCTOBER 1996
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
SUTHERLAND ON THE EAST COAST OF SCOTLAND
CONTENTS
My Second Home
Cornwall
London
Scotland
Acknowledgements
MY SECOND HOME
The past is another country. Dornoch, Sutherland. A village, a town, a city? With less than a thousand inhabitants, yet the proud possessor of an eleventh-century Cathedral, which stands, with its ancient graveyard, in the middle of the main square. To the south lie the Bishop’s Palace (now a hotel), the County Hall and the old Town Jail. To the north, runs the High Street, with small shops, and cleft by narrow lanes, brimming with flower-gardens. Once, the Cathedral was Roman Catholic. After the Reformation, it became Episcopalian. Now, it is the Church of Scotland parish church, and filled every Sunday morning.
The village lies on the sea. So far north, the shores are blessed by the Gulf Stream, and the climate is similar to that of Eastbourne. Gardens burgeon with roses, and waves that break onto the beaches are clear as glass, the sands white and clean, unpolluted by plastic or over-spilled oil, and littered only by shells. The golf links run alongside the turfy dunes. Inland, the hills rise, and fold away to the west. Cloud shadows move slowly across their gentle summits and in August they are cloaked in purple heather. The air is pure and sweet as wine, and the skies are a painter’s skies, laid on with a wet brush, banks of cumulus revealing glimpses of the still blue of the upper air.
I went first, reluctantly. I did not want to travel to the North of Scotland for a summer holiday, because I wanted to spend the time in Cornwall, where I had been a child, and where my heart still lay. But I had a new baby, and the journey was too long an ordeal for this tiny infant. As well, my husband wanted to play golf. So the entire household, parents, two children, the baby, a Nanny and three dogs, decamped and drove to Dornoch.
The journey took eight hours, (nowadays, it takes three) and it was raining. It rained for two weeks. My husband, golfing, returned each day dripping wet, rosy-cheeked, and entirely happy. Meanwhile I, the children, the Nanny and the dogs, crouched on the sand in the freezing wind, went for sodden walks, took drives into hills which we could not see for mist, and ate our picnics in the car.
At the end of the two weeks, I thankfully packed the suitcases, and resolved never, ever to return. But fate took a hand. My son, who had been three years old at the time of that first, disastrous visit, grew up and married a girl who came from Brora, a few miles north of Dornoch. Her parents were sheep-farmers, and the wedding took place in the local church, with a marquee reception in the garden of the farmhouse. For the occasion, we stayed in Dornoch, at the same hotel.
CORNWALL: ST IVES BAY
The weather was beautiful, and for the first time, I actually was able to see the place, and was puzzled by a sense of déjà vu, until I realised that it was very nearly a twin of the Cornish village in which I had been brought up. So much was similar. The golf links and the beach; the smell of flowering privet and wild thyme; the profusion of wild flowers which carpeted the sand dunes; the slow pace of life. The past is another country. But it was like going back in time, to days before Cornwall was invaded by tourists and fast-food bars, before the fields around my mother’s house were sold for building, and crammed with bijou bungalows.
SCOTLAND: ROSAMUNDE PILCHER AT DORNOCH IN SUTHERLAND
The years passed. From time to time, we returned to Sutherland, to stay with our daughter-in-law’s parents, to fish and walk, and inevitably, for my husband to play golf. We found another hotel, smaller and family-run, perched on the hill above Dornoch, and we filled it with friends. It was much the same as being part of an old-fashioned houseparty, with a severe shortage of bathrooms, and a great deal of delicious, home-cooked food. My bedroom window, curtained in faded chintz, looked out over the first smoking chimneys of Autumn, and the air was sweet with the reek of burning peat. At darkness, the Cathedral became floodlit, like a stage set, and the ancient weathered stone of its walls stood gold against the sapphire sky.
I explored, came to know the little town. The whole place reeked of history, yet everything one needed was within the space of a few hundred yards. A small supermarket, an antique shop, a shop which sold tartans and tweeds; a butcher, a baker, a bookshop, and a useful undertaker with urns in the window, and a discreet notice to say that, as well, he ran a taxi-service. But the best was never having to get into a car, but just to walk across the golf course and down onto the sands, to stroll for miles along the empty shell-strewn beaches.
Gradually, we came to recognise faces, to make new friends, discover old ones. We were entertained, asked for tea, or drinks with the local inhabitants, often driving fifteen or twenty miles for the pleasure of eating hot scones spread with raspberry jam, or downing a dram of pure Malt whisky in the company of the charming folk who have lived in Sutherland forever.
My seduction had begun. A girlfriend had a holiday cottage on the lands of her brother’s farm. Visiting her, I expressed a certain envy. To own. To possess. To be able to escape to this empty and peaceful environment. To stop working, stop typing, stop racing around in circles, trying to catch my tail, like a manic dog …
She was a practical girl. “I shall,” she said, “keep my eyes open. I shall make enquiries. I shall find somewhere for you to buy.”
She was as good as her word. Home again, through the letter box came Estate Agents’ circulars, filled with the particulars of suitable properties. A croft at the head of a glen. Two rooms, kitchen and bathroom. Beautiful vistas. Needs renovation.
Not for me. Not a five mile drive every time I needed to buy a pint of milk. Not long wet days, imprisoned in a small, dark sitting room, staring out at the driving rain and the hidden hills and suffering from raging claustrophobia. A cottage in the town, then. Bang on the main street, facing north, and with a yard for a
garden. But the blurred photograph was not propitious, so that went into the waste paper basket as well.
After a bit, I became discouraged. Perhaps I didn’t want a house, after all. Perhaps I didn’t want the responsibility of property, the anxiety of leaving it in wintertime, to the nightmare of hard frosts, bursting pipes, and floors ruined by flood. Who would take care of it for me? And how would I manage, returning after months away, to find jackdaws nesting in the chimney and the blankets and cushions eaten to shreds by mice? I became realistic. It had all been a pipe-dream, and perhaps, had better stay that way. But the decision saddened me, because more and more I felt that I belonged in Dornoch. I needed, like some hungry plant, to put down roots, to be part of the soil.
“I have given up the idea of a holiday house,” I told my husband, and he looked relieved and went off to play golf. It was the last day of our Autumn holiday and he wanted to waste not a minute of his time. One by one, our friends had already packed their bags and departed, and we were the last to leave. The next day, while my husband settled the bill, I took the dog for a final walk. Across the hotel garden, down the steep lane, and so into the street. Here the faces of the terraced houses were smothered in late roses, and narrow flowerbeds, alongside the pavements, stood crammed with dahlias, in all the garish colours of the Russian Ballet. The leaves on the trees were turning yellow, beginning to drift and flutter down from spreading branches. Around the square I went, past the chemists, the bookshop, the Bank …
Outside the Bank I paused, because the dog had disappeared, to chase some exciting smell up an alley. It was a still day. The Autumn sunshine washed the Cathedral with gold. Jackdaws flew around the tower, and a single gull screamed from the roof of the Bank. The Bank was familiar, because it was here that I was in the habit of cashing my cheques. But this was the first occasion that I had taken the time to stand and look at it. I found it pleasing. Set back from the street behind a neat lawn, it had a square and solid and substantial feel to it, a Victorian building without pretensions. It had clearly been designed, not just for the banking business but, as well, a residence for the Bank Manager and his family. I have always liked Bank Houses. As a child I had enjoyed visiting them, for Christmas parties, or, in the company of my mother, for afternoon tea. Even if situated in the middle of some town, the interiors were invariably charming, with wide staircases and large and beautifully proportioned rooms.
The seagull continued to scream. I looked up to watch it, and saw the sign in the upstairs bay window: FLAT FOR SALE.
Two thoughts instantly occurred to me. That flat would always be warm and dry, because Banks are notoriously over-heated. And no bandit would dare to break in, for fear of every alarm in the place going off.
The dog returned to me. Together we went up the narrow lane alongside the Auto-Teller. There was a gate in the tall drystone wall. I looked over this, and saw the concrete yard, the gimcrack porch set at the back of the house. I saw the spacious walled garden, rising up the slope in terraces. It was overgrown and the lawns were like hayfields.
My garden, I told myself. My front door. My house.
I wanted it. I was terrified that someone else would buy it. Home again, the first thing I did was to telephone the Bank Offices in Edinburgh and ask for particulars. They sent them. The flat was in two storeys, had been newly decorated and newly carpeted. Central heating had recently been installed throughout. There were five bedrooms, a huge sitting room, a fitted kitchen. The asking price was incredibly low. I could scarcely believe my good fortune. But, fearful of disappointment, I insisted to my husband: “There has to be a snag.”
“Such as?”
“The decoration will be dreadful. Flowery wallpaper and swirly carpets.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“We must go and look at it.”
“When?”
“Now.”
We went. Two days after returning from our holiday we were back in Dornoch with the key to the Bank House. In some trepidation, we opened the front door, and went up the first flight of stairs to the main hall. Shallow stairs, carved pine banisters, pale green carpet, pale walls, lots of white paint, everything clean and new and scrubbed and shining. On the first floor, curved archways led to rooms on the left and the right, and there was sunlight everywhere, flooding in through long sash windows. The sitting room had beautiful mouldings around the ceiling, and the bay window looked straight out, across the street to the Cathedral.
“I shall build a windowseat,” I said.
On upstairs again, we found two airy attics, white painted and spacious.
“The grandchildren can sleep here.” I knew already where the beds would go, how those children would lie and look out at the Cathedral tower, would hear the gulls crying in the mornings, and the soft thunder of surf, breaking on the beach at flood tide.
So we bought the house, built another bathroom, collected furniture, took possession. The rooms, built for large families, enfolded us, welcomed us, warmed us. In sunlight, we sat in the bay window, at intervals, hanging out, to converse with friends spied on the pavement, to invite them in for a quick cup of coffee or a drink. On cold evenings we lit a fire in the fireplace, dry logs and lumps of peat, and sat in the flamelight with undrawn curtains, because the floodlit walls of the Cathedral were too spectacular to be shut away.
We filled the house with guests and grandchildren. The latter needed no chasing to be out and about, buying sweets at the newsagent, collecting hot rolls from the baker for breakfast, bicycling down to the sands without fear of traffic. My husband, with no trouble at all, became a member of the Golf Club, with its Championship links, and was able to happily entertain all his similarly-addicted friends. I gardened.
ROSAMUNDE PILCHER IN FRONT OF THE BANK HOUSE IN DORNOCH
And went on gardening. A lot to be seen to, a lot to do. But even the vexing question of help magically resolved itself. Shopping, I met in the supermarket a sweet-faced girl.
“Mrs Pilcher?” A Sutherland voice, soft and gentle as the lands which bred it. “I remember you when you stayed at the hotel. I used to work there.”
She was called Ailie. She no longer worked in the hotel, but cleaned the Bank in the evenings.
“Would you look after the Bank House for me?” I asked.
“No trouble at all,” she replied, and the next day came with a bundle of pansy plants for my flowerbed.
GRAHAM PILCHER (SECOND LEFT) PLAYING GOLF AT ROYAL DORNOCH
The gardener took a little longer to find, but word went round that I was in need of assistance. Eventually, a young man appeared, to offer his services. He had a lot of wild hair and wore a tee shirt with ‘Save The Rain Forest’ writ large across his chest.
“Can you start tomorrow?” I asked.
He said no, he couldn’t come tomorrow because he was going to Switzerland. Switzerland? He didn’t look like a dedicated skier.
He explained. It seemed that he played lead guitar and mandolin in a folk group, and that they sometimes gave concerts in Switzerland and Germany. They were a good group and highly thought of. They won prizes for their performances. A musical gardener. I said, faintly, “Well, would you come back from Switzerland and cut my grass?
He said that he would. So I gave him some money in advance, and we said goodbye. I felt that I had done a good day’s work. But when he came back from Switzerland, he went on a bender and was drunk for a week. When my son took his family north for a spell, the garden was in a worse condition than ever, and he and the gardener had a flaming row over the telephone which threatened not only the tenuous relationship but also my property. Finally I rang him up myself. He was charming.
“I want you to cut my grass,” I told him.
“Yes, yes,” he told me soothingly. “It will be done next week.”
“But I’m coming up next week and I want it done by then. And my husband can’t do it, because he’s playing golf and I can’t do it because I’ve got a sore leg.” (Which was sort of
true.)
He was devastated. “And what is wrong with your leg?” he enquired.
So, finally, the grass was cut and the shrubs pruned. The ivy torn from walls and sundry rubbish consigned to a mammoth bonfire. And then, at the very top of the garden, he set up a washing line for me, strung between three sturdy posts.
The sight of this homely contraption, viewed from my kitchen window, filled me with satisfaction. And, on a bright Spring morning, I used it for the first time, unloading the washing machine into a wicker basket, and making my way downstairs, and out into the garden. It was cold, but the first daffodils were beginning to push up through the rough grass; there was the smell of flowering currant and newly turned earth, and somewhere somebody had lighted a bonfire.
Bearing my load, I climbed to the top of the garden, and there paused for a moment to look back. Saw the street, and two shopping ladies pausing to chat; my neighbour was gardening, thinning out his cabbages. I could hear the distant sea, a dog bark, a car start up. From within the Cathedral, the clock struck the hour of eleven, and all the gulls perched upon the tower took off to swoop and glide and scream into the clear air.
I took the first shirt from the basket, shook it free of creases, and pegged it by the tail, on my new washing line. I thought of my mother, teaching me the correct way to do this homely chore. The wind stirred, caught the garment and sent it ballooning.
The past is another country.
Somehow, I had found the way back.
CORNWALL
1928: Charles Scott and his two daughters, five-year-old Rosamunde (left) and ten-year-old Lalage (right). Rosamunde Pilcher’s father was stationed as an Officer of the Royal Navy in Hong Kong and then in Burma. It was recommended that officers should not raise their children in the colonies and Mrs Scott therefore returned together with the young Lalage back to her home to rent a cottage in Cornwall. If she had to bring up her children by herself she wanted to live at least in pleasant surroundings.
The World of Rosamunde Pilcher Page 1