9
WHERE ARE THEY NOW? - RON AND WARY ALLEN
From the summit of Butser Hill high on the South Downs
you can look across the small fields of the western Weald
to the steeply sloping hangars of the North Downs. In the
westernmost extremity of the horseshoe lies the scattered
village of Stroud and in particular a small terrace of
four houses, one of which is ours.
We moved here in the frost and rain of early January 1980
foresaking Essex only because the Soil Survey of England
and Wales was turning its attention to Hampshire. Our bare
100 ft. garden we had already planted with a variety of trees
and shrubs and laid out its design with pegs and string
rather in the manner of an archaeological site.
An empty house we found was a cold house and our first step
in comfort-making was to install a 'Stanley' cooking stove
that burns wood or solid fuel (or peat, being Irish in
manufacture). This now keeps our living room at 70-80 F,
keeps Caroline's room immediately above lovely and warm and
heats the radiator in our room. It also supplies ample
hot water and does all cooking with a large oven and takes
up to seven pots at a time on top. The way to recognise
our house, we tell people, is to look for the pile of wood
in the front garden. So efficient is this stove that we
have to run off hot water each night to prevent overheating.
Our firewood we cut from Furzefield Copse using billhooks
and bow saws in the traditional way - fine winter outings
for the family. The wood has responded by producing some
60 species of flowering plants. Our garden we have extended
30 ft. into an adjoining overgrown sand digging with its
willow warblers and here our 16 hens and 2 ducks keep us
amply supplied with eggs. Part of our garden and that of
a neighbour provides some of our vegetables and we now have
a milch goat and kid (Flossy and Jeanie) to provide our milk,
these living in a neighbours paddock in exchange for weekly
eggs. Caroline's rabbits also live in the garden and Softy's
recent five rabbit kittens were saved from the pot by being
sold as pets. Even the weakest of the litter with snuffles
and outgrown teeth was sold (much to the amusement of our
vet) to a doctor with a dentist wife.