PETERSHAM: THE “FOX AND DUCK,” OLD LOCK-UP AND VILLAGE POUND.
It should be said that we in Petersham, who live quietly and engage in delightful pursuits—such as writing books, flower-growing, and criticising our neighbours—do by no means endorse this opinion of our surroundings. As we are of the elect, so also are we exceptionally sane, even among the level-headed. But there is a reason to be found in most things, even in the remarks above quoted. That reason is sought and discovered in the fact that our village is unique: the only place within its easy radius from London in which the surroundings are unspoiled, the air pure, and the means of communication with the great neighbouring roaring world primitive and not readily at command. The nearest railway station is a mile and a quarter away, and such services of omnibuses as have run between Kingston and Richmond, through Petersham, have ever been fugitive and evanescent, and have generally run at intervals of not less than twenty minutes. The peculiar humour or the peculiar tragedy—according to point of view—of these omnibus services is that in fine weather every one wants to walk, and in rain all want to ride; so that in the first case the omnibuses are empty, and in the second cannot cope with the sudden and unlooked-for demand, and one has perforce to walk home and get wet through, or alternatively to wait until the rain ceases.
And during the last remarkable summers there have been occasions when it has rained in torrents, without ceasing, for four days!
My pen, entered upon the woes of the would-be passenger by omnibus, has run away with me, and I must at once disclaim the dawning conclusion that the alleged “balminess” of Petersham is due to rain and the lack of conveyances other than the comparatively expensive flys. Those are not the reasons. Petersham, being entirely rural, even though surrounded by great populations, and yet being near London, it is found by the medical profession to be a convenient district for recommending to patients to whom, for a variety of reasons, it would be inconvenient to go remotely into the provinces. Here, then, qualified somewhat of late years by fleeting irruptions of motor-cars, and by brake-loads of mischievous and bell-ringing children who are brought down from London in summer for school-treats in Petersham Park, invalids may hope to obtain a happy recovery, even though the air, instead of being sharp and bracing, is steamy and languorous. Thus the expression “balmy Petersham,” whether used in the literate sense, or in the regular way of slang, if duly analysed, is found to be essentially a proud title to consideration, instead of a term of reproach. The neighbouring village of Ham is a co-partner in these things, perhaps even in a greater degree, for it is equally distant from a railway station, and fringes a wide common whose remotest corners are at all times extremely secluded.
I spoke just now of mischievous and bell-ringing children, but there are others not intentionally mischievous, who are yet, perhaps, apt to be a little wearing to the nerves of quiet folk who live within gardens behind tall wooden fences overhung by flowering shrubs, such as lilac and syringa. These are a great temptation in their flowering season to all kinds of persons who ought to be able to enjoy the sight of them without tearing off branches; but the Goth and the Vandal we have always with us on Bank Holidays and fine Sundays and Saturday afternoons. We expect them, and our expectations are commonly realised. But sorrow’s crown of sorrow is reached when, hearing a crash of boards, you rush out and find a dismayed child standing among the ruins of a part of your fence, and explaining that she “didn’t mean it, and was only reaching up to pick a bit of syringa for nyture study.” And to this the modern attempt to inculcate the study and the love of Nature brings us!
