Ernest’s Diary
Transcribed 7.95 Ottawa, Canada
[These are the first of many pages written by Ernest Waymark, of Charlton, Sussex - father of Gary and Marion. He covers his life, his family and Sussex....and much more]:
1990
My last visit to my old Sussex Village
So many times I had wanted to go back and visit my birthplace, and at last, after nearly 50 years, I found myself there. It was a beautiful summer’s day; the sun was warm and high in the heavens; little clouds, like cotton wool, drifted across the lovely blue sky; peace and silence everywhere - apart from the song of a skylark as it soared higher and higher towards the heavens. A black bird warbled out a welcome, which I felt was just for me. It gave me a great feeling of nostalgia, as I stood here, the place where I first saw the light of day many years ago...
I must say, I had a bit of a shock! I had pictured the old village to be just the same as it was some 50 years ago. I had forgotten how things change over the span of time. In my memory I heard the happy sounds of children’s laughter and their cries of joy as they played around the little narrow roads through the village. But today those sounds were all gone and yet with the songs of the birds, and the rich smell of new mown hay, the village was just the same. As I looked out across the green meadows, alive with golden buttercups, red poppies, and a host of wild country flowers... which swayed in the gentle breeze just like the ripples on the sea - my mind went back...
to the time when I was a young boy and how I used to run across those meadows... on my way to school about a mile away... along the valley... or as we used to walk to church on Sunday mornings, where I sang in the choir for five years... until my voice broke and my singing sounded like the frogs croaking at night.
My thoughts then turned to my old playmates, and the people who used to live here when I was a boy.
Life in our village was so friendly in those days... everyone knew each other... each house had an open door... happiness and sorrow was shared by everyone...just like the cup of sugar or tea that one borrowed... until the grocer man called. Our little village was our island... everyone ready to defend it against any intruder who wanted to interfere or change our happy way of life. I guess we were all proud to be Sussex folk.
As I stand and look at the tiny village houses, with their red tiled roofs, and flint stone walls - I notice that the once lovely vegetable gardens are almost gone... and now there are concrete driveways...with garages...and each roof has its TV aerial.
How things have changed! ... I remember the first telephone... and the first radio in the village ... and how things started to change after this. The village was never quite the same again, I thought as I walked around the little twisted roads through the village. I also thought of the changes in my own life in the years between:
I met
a beautiful Austrian girl
Mitzi...
at a dance
the next village
we fell in love
six months
we married
caused a sensation
throughout the village...
not to marry
a local girl!
and from
a foreign country...
that was terrible!
the old ladies
used to give us
side looks
as we walked
hand in hand
together
they had to wait
six years
for our first child
then they realized
what we had found...
real love
By this time everyone had taken Mitzi to their hearts. We called our little boy Gary...and when he was about a year old, I changed my job... and we moved about four miles away...into a flat at Goodwood House...Gary soon became a good friend of the Duchess... when he attended her Sunday School.. that she used to run.
After about a year at Goodwood, we had our second child a daughter, who we called Marion. We were very happy; but after four years, I began to want to move on again... I guess I always had this feeling since I was a boy...always looking for new adventures... from the time when, at the age of fourteen, I left school...ran away from home... and had to crawl back home about three days later half starved... but I had my pride. I got myself a job (they were hard to get in those days).
I felt that I had done it my way, and so it has been throughout my life...always looking beyond the horizon to new adventures and places far away. I always wanted to see as much of the world as I could, and so far I haven’t done too badly.
As I stood looking at the lovely hills and valleys of the beautiful Sussex countryside, I thought of Austria....
Twelve times I had visited this beautiful land of lakes and mountains... lovely Vienna with its coffee houses... Apfel strudel... and Vienna Schnitzel... and ice cold beer... down to Saltzburg, with its beautiful lakes.
Yes, I love this country of England too - and when I was high up in the mountains, I still thought of my old Sussex village.
I had visited South Africa twice... six weeks each time...
I was amazed at the beauty of this vast country... we stayed in the Kruger Park, a game park as big as Wales... we slept in tin huts called ‘Rondarvils’... surrounded by a high wire fence, to keep the wild animals out... we saw it all: lions, elephants, vultures, snakes, all kinds of deer, buffaloes and.... those very exciting jungle sounds at night - they will never be forgotten! In South Africa we had gone by car from Joburge to about 100 miles south of Durban... we stayed in a very old kind of bungalow... a few yards from the Indian Ocean... the sea churned over the rocks like creamy milk... it was so hot that your feet got burnt if you walked on the rocks... big sharks were waiting a few hundred feet out in the water - so no one went into the sea. We cooked our breakfast high in the mighty Drakensbury Mountains... one could see for what must have been hundreds of acres... and there was no one to be seen... we seemed to be the only ones alive... such memory I will keep until I die.
And then the trip to Cape Town...
What a beautiful place this is. I took photos from the top of Table Mountain... after a hair raising journey in a cable car... 3000 feet tot the top... but the climax of the journey must be the trip to Cape Point, the most southern point of the continent of Africa... here as one looks ahead... the Indian Ocean meets the South Atlantic Ocean... and there is only water between you and the South Pole. All around you beautiful flowers grow... right down to the Sea... which is hundreds of feet below... I thank God that I was able to see this sight... something never to be forgotten.
All this had flashed through the mental pictures in my mind as I stood here in beautiful Sussex... and still I had seen no one, whom I knew from long ago. I walked on, and high above a big airliner passed overhead towards the west... I guessed it would be on its way to America...
Yes I had been there four times, three to Florida and once to Montana in the Rocky Mountains. Twice I’ve been to Disney World, Epcot once and Sea World... and the never-to-be-forgotten Space Centre...
A that moment I thought about my old Grandma...
She saw a lot in her 97 years... but I wondered what she would have said about man landing on the moon... I loved my gran very much... I spent a lot of time with her when I was a child:
I shed a silent tear
as I walked
along
alone
with my memories
In 1982, I lost my lovely Austrian wife. She had a bad heart attack in 1979, and for 3 years I watched her grow ever weaker and then she was gone. Forty three years we spent together and then I was alone:
life must go on
tried to be brave
did my best
never gave up
went to America
stayed 8 months
with Marion
came home
to face a life
alone
Five years went by. Then out of the blue, I met Dorothy just by chance. I think we fell in love almost at once. We were so happy. In 1988 we were married. We had a wonderful wedding. We spent a lifetime in two short years. Dorothy was so kind and caring. Her faith in God was so great. I used to admire her for it. But alas Dorothy had a heart attack and left me in May 1990. It was a bitter blow. I’m sure she will be in Heaven doing her bit for everyone she meets... like she did on Earth.
My Tears were falling as the end of the village came in sight... that’s why I’ve come home for the last time to recall some of the ghosts of the bygone days. Yes I found most of my old friends and school mates in the church yard..
stones with their names on in every corner...
I stood for a few moments and thanked God for their friendship in the past... wished them a last farewell... and then left them to sleep in peace...
good-bye old village with all your memories... your laughter, joy and tears. I don’t expect to see you again... I will always think of you as you were... where ever my path will take me... and then all that will remain of us all will be our footprints where our ancestors trod in the sands of time.
1991
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