Page 94 - Exile-ebook

94 AN EXILE OF THE MIND TIDDLERS IN A JAM JAR 95

her series of Adrian Mole books.
One of our favourite haunts when
the novelty of udder milk drinking
wore off was to play along the banks
of the Grand Union Canal where I had
tried to release my swan.
The canal snaked along south of
our road from the west and carved
a quiet, meandering course through
rolling hills and unspoilt countryside
until it became polluted on its journey
to London.
I was 12 years old when tragedy
struck the village. A girl, my age, was
murdered when she was out walking
her dog in Blue Bank spinney close to
the canal. Sue Townsend had actually Winifred Spooner arriving home. Wokingham mayor, Albert Ebenezer Priest, welcoming the famous aviatrix.
witnessed the gruesome scene. She
was only eight years old at the time. My grandfather’s second wife
On long summer holidays I took was Ivy, my strict no-nonsense step-
a train to my grandparents’ house grandmother. She raised my father
in the oldest town in the area, the and his sister together with her five
historic market town of Wokingham sons that followed. Their house was
in Berkshire. The Priests are an old nestled comfortably in a semi-rural
Wokingham family. Degory Priest, patch of town.
who sailed on the Mayflower in My grandmother and I would walk
1620, may have been a relative. for hours along bridle paths. To hop
I never knew Mabel, my grand- over stiles into the rural landscape,
mother. She tragically died from criss-crossed by grey dry stone walls
pneumonia after being caught out and hawthorn hedgerows.
in the pouring rain at the age of 24, My fondness for the country must
not long after giving birth to my have shown. I was given the job of
Aunt Constance. My father, Percy, crawling through chook poo to collect
was six years old. the daily eggs from the hen house. My grandparents, Sidney and Ivy Priest.