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Rosemary Sutcliff Diary | March 14th 1992

Posted in Diary, tagged on March 14, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

… Everything in the garden bursting while you look at it …

Small Rosemary Sutcliff Diary Picture

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… able to poke my nose out for a sniff of the garden at bed-time … (Rosemary Sutcliff Diary, 7/6/88)

Posted in Sutcliff Discovery of the Day, tagged on June 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

June 7th Tuesday. Quite a nice day in a sultry sort of way & this evening was able for only the second time this year to poke my nose out for a sniff of the scents of the garden at bed-time.

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… white lilac in the hall, smelling of pure essence of nostalgia … (Diary, 17/5/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged , on May 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

May 17th Tuesday. Into Chichester to have my eyes tested and see about new glasses; and in to the Shopwyck Nursery on the way home, to get a couple of shrubs and two more of the Busy Lizzies for the garden (courtyard). So hot! Really high summer; and the whole countryside white with may. Have white lilac in the hall, smelling of pure essence of nostalgia.

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… the soft ‘Growingrain’ will be good for the gardens … (Diary, 29/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged on April 29, 2012 | 4 Comments »

April 29th Friday. Jeremy rang up last night and is coming to see us on Sunday. Very grey and dreary day such as we haven’t had in quite a while, but the soft “Growingrain” will be good for the gardens. Feeling very dozy all day and swimmingheaded. But have had a couple of good ideas for Catraeth, and got a bit of work done.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

(Revised 30/4/2012, replacing my ?Catharts with suggested-in-comments Catraeth)

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… heard the first cuckoo of the year … (Diary, 23/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged , on April 23, 2012 | 1 Comment »

April 23rd Saturday. The most lovely day. Joan and I wearing our red roses for St George went for a run and the first picinetea (?) of the year under Amberley Castle, heard the first cuckoo of the year. Walked around the garden after we got back.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

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Barny (the dog) not well (Diary, 17/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged , on April 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

April 17th, Sunday. Ray has put in an enormous day’s work in the garden aided and abetted by Sheila. Barny not terribly well.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

Barny was one of Rosemary Sutcliff’s two chihuahuas. (The other was Sophie).

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The garden must be wondering what’s hit it … (Diary, 15/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged , on April 15, 2012 | 5 Comments »

April 15th Friday. Sheila bought some seeds from the ironmonger, and this evening Ray has gone off to Shopwyck to get a couple of clematis for the new fence. The garden must be wondering what’s hit it. Lovely show of tulips, the golden ones turning apricot under the dining room and bedsit window, but of course the cream and wine ones I got last autumn have been trampled out of existence when the fence was done.

© Anthony Lawton 2012

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… The chiffchaff busy in the garden all morning … (Diary, 11/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged , on April 11, 2012 | 1 Comment »

April 11th, Monday. Ray gave the lawn its first cut this afternoon, without the box on. So now, the fumes of petrol having gone, there’s a nice smell of cut grass. The chiffchaff busy in the garden all morning.

© Anthony Lawton 2012 

Rosemary knew the colouring, shape, flight and song of numerous birds, part of her deep knowledge of the natural world. I, on the other hand am most ignorant. So it is the RSPB site that helps me explain (complete with recording of its song) that a chiffchaff is small olive-brown warbler which actively flits through trees and shrubs, with a distinctive tail-wagging movement. It is readily recognised by its song, from where it gets its name. It picks insects from trees, and flies out to snap them up in flight. All this evoked for her diary  and herself, perhaps, by Rosemary’s reference to the bird being ‘busy’. (An intriguing curiosity is that in her diary she writes chiffchaff, but the copy-editor in the OUP version of Dawn Wind has chiff-chaff!)

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Rosemary Sutcliff’s garden and dovecote

Posted in Autobiography & Biography, tagged on April 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Rosemary Sutcliff’s diary has many references to her carefully-tended garden. Neighbours visit for tea, fans and other writers come to talk and be photographed with her, and housekeepers come and go. Last year photographer Stephen Walby wrote to this blog with a photo of the garden, which stretches out behind the room that was her study where she would work all day, and the sitting room with french windows where she spent the evenings.

We live in Rosemary’s old house in the lovely Sussex village of Walberton. Rosemary lived here until she died in 1992. She is very fondly remembered here, having been an active member of village life. Our next door neighbours daughter remembers coming to the house to help out and many other villagers have stories to tell, we have heard how Rosemary would welcome groups of children from the village school for talks.  

The cover photograph for Blue Remembered Hills was taken in the garden, last year we replaced the dovecote in her memory. The property includes a flint cottage which I think was once a barn/pigsty. In Rosemary’s day her housekeeper lived here.

In fact, as I noted at the time ” … her handyman-driver lived in the flint cottage … The housekeepers always lived in the house …  so there was someone around if Rosemary (who was severely disabled) needed help.”

Rosemary Sutcliff's garden in 2011 (She died in 1992)

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Lawn blitz (Diary, 6/4/88)

Posted in Diary, tagged on April 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

April 6th Wednesday. Ray beginning all out blitz on the lawn, raking up  moss etc

© Anthony Lawton 2012

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