We were invited up to the house, but my mother stayed with my grandmother by the car as she was wobbly on her pins. As we approached up the brick driveway I noticed a very small stooped figure leaning to feed the bantams that clucked and strutted round her ankles. They, in fact roamed the grounds and even in the house, laying eggs on the stairs! This dark shadowy figure was the mother, with grey hair and black formless dress in slippers; she was the archetypal matriarch and ruler of all she surveyed. The house was a wooden affair that was clapboarded and creosoted, deemed to be a wedding present to a member of the Guinness family. This has been called into question now, but it gave the old place a rather quirky, beach hut, but mystical fairy tale air.
On stepping into this sanctum, I could smell a scent of warm creosote and my eyes had to get accustomed to the dark panelled hall way. As we walked down I remember seeing a large Chinese vase and a wizened looking cactus growing out from the rim. I discovered later that it occasionally bloomed with magnificent crimson flowers.
We were invited to step into the large wood panelled room, that brought the summer light back. It filtered through the 1930’s metal panes of glass and dappled the furniture with shadow and light, like tiger stripes. The atmosphere was green, soft, and liquid, partly due to the close proximity of the tall cherries looming over us and threatening to engulf the room. Dusty particles were suspended over the cluttered surfaces. I marvelled at the sheer untidiness with Listener magazines piled high on the floor, low tables laden with art books, pamphlets and ashtrays. It appeared so remarkable because my father, who was so strictly tidy and always waiting to throw things away. It wasn’t unheard of to find my mother rummaging through the dustbins trying to find an article that my father had sentenced to an untimely abandonment.
Gradually my eyes began to rove around the room and I began to notice the paintings. One, I remember stood out for me. It was of a blue glass vase with bright Chinese lanterns and quite clearly painted in this room. On another wall there were watercolours, very accomplished, of landscapes in broad blocks of earthy colours. They were paintings of a friend of Greendene, Gordon Randall. Later I got to know him and his work more intimately and visited him and his very talented wife Barbara at Frimley. Their house was very ordinary and comfortable. Whereas Greendene on the other hand was really like an “artist’s” place should be and I felt an instant rapport and love for its ramshackle nature.
While my father talked chemistry and geology I wandered amidst this treasured chaos. I was in a daze. This was my “Garden of Earthly Delights” my “Shang RI La”
Continuing my ambling around the room, I noticed the large logs piled on the hearth of a beautiful art deco brick fireplace blackened and charred evidence of it being in constant use. On the other side of the room there was baby grand piano with music manuscripts and music memorabilia Then, I turned and focused on the long old wooden bench immediately below the windows. This was covered with wonderful bight red and purple bowls all different and of various sizes like the ones on the stall by the road. Rich copper, deep vibrant chocolate black and along side these, other exotic nature- like shapes that appeared to have grown out of the soil. At that time, I knew nothing, of Zen and Taoist beliefs, of Chinese culture, its obsession with the natural world and the undercurrents that govern laws of the earth, how these were translated by artists, poets and thinkers, into the arts and crafts of many past dynasties.
To be continued:
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