SMALL TALK
AT WREYLAND
DOWN here, when any of the older natives die, I hear people lamenting that so much local knowledge has died with them, and saying that they should have written things down. Fearing that this might soon be said of me, I got a book last Christmas—1916—and began to write things down. I meant to keep to local matters, but have gone much further than I meant.
My memory is perhaps a little above the average; but my brother had a memory that was quite abnormal, and sometimes rather inconvenient. One day, in talking to a lady of uncertain age, he reminded her of something she had said at the Great Exhibition of 1851. She hastily replied:—“Yes, yes, you mean 1862.” But he missed the point of the reply, and went minutely into details showing that it must have been in 1851.
I can remember the interior of a house that I have not seen since I attained the age of three. I am quite clear about the drawing-room, its carpet, chandeliers and mirrors, and a good deal of the furniture; less clear about the dining-room; but very clear indeed about the outlook from the windows in the front—a drive, a lawn, and then a road with houses on the other side. Of course, I can remember many other things that I saw before I was three; but I cannot be quite certain that my recollection of them dates from then, as I have seen them since. Here, however, I am certain. The family left that house at Michaelmas, 1860, and I was not three until October.
I remember being taken by my father to call upon a very old man, who gave me an account of the beheading of King Charles the First, as he heard it from somebody, who heard it from an eye-witness. Unluckily, I am uncertain of the details, as I cannot separate what he told me then from what I may have heard or read about it since.
Some years afterwards my father took me to call upon an old Mr Woodin; and from him I had an account of the Fire of London, as he heard it from a great-aunt of his; and she heard it from an old lady, who was about ten years old at the time of the fire. But it was only a child’s account, dwelling on such things as the quantities of raisins that she ate, while they were being salved.
My father kept a diary from 1833 to 1878. When he was abroad or at any place of interest, he kept a diary upon a larger scale, and sent it round to aunts and other relatives, instead of writing to them separately; and I have gone through these diaries, and made some extracts from them. He kept all letters that he thought worth keeping, and sorted them according to writer, date or subject; and I have made extracts from the letters that his father wrote to him from here. The rest of my people seem to have destroyed their letters: at any rate, there are not many letters of theirs among my papers here.
My mother’s parents died before I was born; but I remember my father’s parents very well indeed. I used to come down here to stay with them; and I see that my first visit was in 1861. My grandmother lived from 1781 till 1866, and my grandfather from 1789 till 1870. As a boy, he used to stay here with his mother’s parents; and he has told me of many things he did here then, such as helping his grandfather to plant the great walnut-tree, when he was seven years old—which is now 120 years ago.
His grandmother, Honor Gribble, died here in 1799; and his grandfather, Nelson Beveridge Gribble, left the place in 1800. The property passed from Nelson Beveridge Gribble to his eldest son, John Gribble. After John’s death in 1837, his widow let the house to my grandfather; and in this quiet place he dreamed away the last thirty years of his life.