Return To Blankney - Part 3

In Return to Blankney Part 3, Reginald Williams discusses Blankney Post Office, fruit pies and the sunken gardens.

Return to Blankney by Reginald Williams

So died Blankney Hall. Now nature has taken over. In the crannies of the walls, in between the paving stones and along the footings of the walls tufts of grasses and flowers had rooted themselves. The magnolia tree still blossomed on the front of the building and a carved figure over the main doorway looked out rather wistfully from the desolation within. Before occupation by the RAF, glittering social occasions would have echoed to the same rafters that now lay charred and sodden in the grass and flower-beds where they had fallen or been thrown on the night of the fire. There was something uncanny and strangely disturbing about these charred reminders of the past: of my own past.
I discovered that the Blankney Estate was being administered by agents who had an office up a lane near the crossroads. The two clerks there were interested to hear my first hand story about the events on the night of the fire. They gave me permission to wander round the site and take photographs. But before returning to the ruins, I called at the village post-office which also served as a general store. Hundreds of small items fastened to cards hung round the walls: tinctures for one thing, pills for another, ointments for this and mixtures for that. Cakes chocolates and cooked meats met in an ill-assorted display on the counter, while the more bulky items such as buckets, clothes-lines, fire lighters, cases of minerals and paraffin oil were gathered into convenient heaps on the floor. A dark, middle aged woman wearing an old slouch hat waited to attend me. I wanted two things: information about the Hall and a fruit pie. (Why a fruit pie you will learn later). She recalled how many people were engaged on the Estate during the First World War, and spoke of some of the famous people who had stayed at the Hall, such as King Edward V11 then Prince of Wales.
On the ground floor back at the Hall there was a bay window on the east side of a large room where we worked when on duty. It was possible to look through the window over the sunken garden and lawns, past the pool to the fields beyond. I retraced my steps through the sunken garden and found that the two sculptured children were still disporting themselves in the pool although the grass now almost obscured them.
The building we used during the war as a NAAFI was an old barn-like place covered with lichen situated at the opposite end of the drive. The windows had been broken, and I was able to look inside and see the old serving hatch where we bought tea, coffee, cakes and (if available) chocolate. One regular item on sale was a well-known make of fruit pie: we must have consumed thousands, but at a price less than half what I paid at the village post-office. So back again in my old eating haunt I enjoyed my fruit pie while leaning on the window-sill of the now deserted former NAAFI.

Don't miss Part 4, the final episode, of this fascinating story in the Journal tomorrow.