.
My happiest times as a child were spent with elderly relations in the middle
of nowhere, not far from Norwich. You’d need to go a lot further from
Norwich these days to find the middle of nowhere – and you could never
find Waddenham Hall as it has long since been pulled down.
My grandfather, Arthur Flax Battle, was the only one of seven brothers and sisters to marry and leave home. After his death, communication lapsed until, for some reason, my parents took us on a visit. My great uncle and aunts pressed us to spend the summer holidays with them. My brothers and sisters refused to go but I, aged, seven, insisted.
From the moment I alighted at Norwich station and searched among the waiting cars for my uncle – only to see him sitting bolt upright in a pony cart with an old blanket about his shoulders – I was in heaven. He let me hold the reins and we held up all the traffic. I stayed a glorious fortnight and then returned every year after that, sometimes staying the full six weeks of my school holiday.
I loved the crumbling house
with its countless dank rooms that hadn’t been decorated this century,
and corridors that seemed to go on for ever. There were staircases so rotten
they’d been roped off and whole areas of the house were abandoned to the
spiders and dust. All the land around had once belonged to the family but, by
this time,
only the Hall and immediate gardens remained. Here, the surviving Flax Battles
lived in independent harmony. Great Uncle Vere, out in the woods with his dogs,
shooting crows, Betsy, reclining on a sofa reading novels and Charlotte, my
namesake, keeping the family purse - and pantry - with fearsome vigour.
For
a child from grey suburbia, the fresh air and freedom at Waddenham were intoxicating.
I was never in trouble – there were no rules to break. No one mentioned
homework. Or housework. There were meals if I wanted them, but I could help
myself to leftovers from the pantry if I preferred. I spent my days exploring,
both outside and in. There was no real distinction. The pony often wandered
indoors. Dogs, cats, hens and geese took up residence at will. Doors were never
locked, many of the windows had no glass. One year I watched, fascinated, as
convolvulus wrapped itself round my bedroom window and then worked its way steadily
across the ceiling.
Two
of the Flax Battle siblings, Flora Dora and Harry Martin, had died of diphtheria
in infancy and were buried in the garden, beneath a great urn at the centre
of the overgrown maze. I became very adept at navigating through the maze. This
proved useful. One day the woman who came from the village to cook and clean
brought her nephew, a snivelling lad called Horace Gedge. He pestered me to
play with him until I had no choice. I led Master Gedge into the middle of the
maze and left him there with the ghosts of Flora Dora and Harry Martin. At the
end of the day I fetched him out and he ran back to the village and never came
near Waddenham (or me) again.
One
of my grandfather’s other brothers had fallen in the Great War. Shortly
before enlisting, George Herbertson Flax Battle had been photographed at a fancy
dress party dressed as a cow. His picture, with “Moo” penned across
it, stood (rather irreverently, I thought) on the kitchen mantelpiece alongside
King George V’s black-edged letter of condolence. One of my aunts told
me once that her mother (who would have been my great grandmother) did not speak
one single word for two years after receiving that letter. She lay in bed wasting
away. Then one morning she rose early and went out to milk the cows after which
she carried on as if nothing at all had happened.
The surviving brother, Vere, my great uncle, kept Airedales
– great teddy bear-like terriers. 
The
leader of the pack, Bracer, took a liking to me and every year when I returned
he leapt from the pony cart at the station, knocking me over in his excitement.
He stayed at my side throughout my visit and whenever I went off on my aunt’s
rickety bicycle he bounded along the country lanes, darting into the hedgerows
after imaginary rabbits, then guiding me home again safely in the evenings.
When I was 16, I refused to go back. They had written to tell
me Bracer had died and I did not want (could not bear) to see Waddenham again
without him. Perhaps it was just a convenient excuse.
In truth, I had a life of my own to lead. The last three Flax Battles died themselves
while I was away at college. Everything was left to me but it all had to be
sold off to pay debts. The house was pulled down and built over. At the time
I did not particularly care. Now, though, I look back on my country childhood
and see it for what it was. Fantastical, magical, unreal. Precious beyond belief.
Everyone should have a Flax Battle family to visit in childhood and revisit
in memory - and in a few faded photographs - ever after.
Charlotte
Cory’s novel, The Guest, is published by Faber and Faber (£15.99)
She has an Airedale terrier called Mr Chicken (pictured together, right).