Researching and writing Little Paxton history in Huntingdon on a mainly wet and windy day that cleared up later as an aid to getting the garden back to some type of normality after my very successful bonfire party. News still mainly about the North Sea helicopter crash and the US Iranian ‘Arms for hostages’ controversy, of cricket stars leaving Somerset and of whether Thatcher will call the next election in Spring or Summer
A late night, after a busy and worrying day yesterday, but glad that we took the trouble to organise the bonfire party. Up this morning and showered & washed my hair, to try to get most of the smell of the smoke and gunpowder off of my body. I must have let off a couple of hundred fireworks last night! Dressed in my sports jacket and trousers for our trip to Huntingdon this morning, for, as the wind and rain lashed the riverside gardens, there was not much prospect of clearing up the riverside mess after yesterday. The night had seen another torrential downpour and storm, but the river level is staying stubbornly down, after the drier autumn that we had. Breakfast of wheat flakes and then a scramble to get the girls ready to go. Daniel had failed to find the bus from Little Paxton to St Neots (the school bus does not run to Little Paxton on Saturday mornings and the public bus seems to have a mind of its own) and we had to drop him off at the school on the way. Arrived early at Huntingdon, which certainly aided parking and, after coffee, left the girls to go shopping, whilst I did some more research at the local reference library.
Consultations with the Librarian, and a search of the indexes, confirmed my view that very little had been written and researched on Little Paxton, but I did find photocopies of an 1878 sale catalogue for Paxton Park, with a good estate plan that showed the old fishing lodge and boat shed on the site of The Hayling View. Rendezvoused back at the car park with the girls for 12.00am and we then drove back to St Neots to pick up Daniel from his school bus. I took the opportunity to buy a couple of new bottles of fountain pen ink and chose to get ‘Parker super quink permanent blue-black,’ instead of the washable royal blue’ that I had been using. I am not sure that it will make that much difference, but if this entry is the first that is legible in 300 years’ time, you will know the reason why! Off then together to our Happy Eater lunch and the choice of Croxton is now a forgone conclusion. Convenient this week also, as Daniel had been invited to spend the weekend with Gary Skinner and it was on the way for us to take him. Home quite late in the afternoon, but by this time, the weather had made a marked change to being dry and sunny, but cold, and so the bonfire area had recovered a little from the soaking it took last night. I went out in some old clothes and easily revived it by collecting the half-burnt materials together. The fresh wind did the rest, but I shall have to stop gardener Pete from shooting the leaves onto it, as it is difficult for them to burn. I am sure he composted them in previous years. Then to remove all of the coloured light bulbs and gather up and dismantle the lengths of decorative lighting cord, before it was time to feed and put away the ducks and doves in the failing light. In to a tea of red salmon and salad, with a banana and milk to follow (a meal fit for an upper-class hedgehog(!), but both Diana and I are now resolved to our diets). Then the entire evening writing up my notes on Paxton Park, correlating facts from conveyance deeds, directories of the times, and other sources that I had accumulated in notes over my period of study. Then the long task of typing in the material, checking it and trying to arrange it in a readable and understandable manner and form. By midnight, I was quite pleased with the result and had printed out the file and pinned the text to several maps and copies of photographs of the Mansion at the time. During my discussions with the Huntingdon Librarian, she had expressed an interest in my work and said that they do publish materials from local authors, if suitable. It seems that new ‘A’ level courses seek the students participation in local history research, even of geography students as well as history. Not much time for the outside world today, but they have found the North Sea helicopter’s voice recorder and most of the wreckage and bodies, and are trying to find out why it happened. The rotar gearboxes are still the prime cause of suspicion and criticism is mounting of the effectiveness of safety standards for the harsh North Sea environment, after what has become the world’s worst helicopter crash. There is some disarray in the US Presidential camp, as details leak out of US/Iran negotiations, offering arms sales in return for hostage release and the administration seems very embarrassed at the media’s attempts to flush out the news. Secretary of State, Shultz, can only say in public that, ‘I think the policy of not negotiating is right’. The Somerset cricket club members have voted 2 to 1 to support the Chairman and Committee to let Richards and Gower go and now Ian Botham confesses that he will be going too. The Tories have been marginally ahead in the opinion polls, fuelling further the speculation that an election is in the offing early next year, but Thatcher seems to not favour a spring election and June seems favourite at the moment.