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At last, Daphne tells her untold story
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| Musical memories - Daphne Wilkinson with her accordion |
WOULD-BE authors go to great lengths to get their works published, but it's not often their efforts can be called life-threatening.
Daphne Wilkinson, though, took great physical risks in a determined but forlorn attempt to see her first book in print.
"The doodlebugs and rockets were coming down, there was destruction everywhere," she recalls.
"And me, I was out there in the streets, taking my manuscript from one publisher to another."
That was in the early 1940s, not a great time either to trek through the London streets or to try to launch a career as a novelist.
Quite apart from bombs, war shortages meant that paper and printing ink were in short supply. Daphne had to wait another six decades before she was able finally to open her first published book.
But now the dream at last has a real life set of covers.
"It was worth the wait," says Daphne, with the pride always shown by first-time authors, even at 85.
The years may have passed, but the tale remains the same.
The book is a fictional family saga, stretching across two generations.
The real central character of Country Air and Breathing Space, though, isn't a person but a house, named Meadowside.
The abode is the hub for all the strands of the story. This is no Brideshead, but a country bungalow from the plotlands era.
Meadowside isn't an invention of fiction at all. It is simply Daphne's family home in Benfleet, described in the story exactly as it was.
Daphne's father and mother moved out from Walthamstow to what was then peaceful countryside in 1924.
Like thousands of other East Londoners, they had found a little patch of Essex countryside where they could create their own version of paradise.
Here they built their bungalow, Meadow Lodge. The name wasn't fanciful, but an exact description of the location. Benfleet was still a place of green meadows.
It was here that Daphne grew up, in a world of wild flowers, birdsong and animals. Her book, published at last, is a tribute and a gesture of thanks for that upbringing.
Meadow Lodge and its land occupied the site of what is now Felsted Close. Next to it were fields where horses grazed.
There were few cars or tractors around in those days. Horsepower meant exactly that. When the time came to cut the meadows, two horses pulled the cutter and one followed behind drawing the rake.
"As a little girl I used to like to stand and watch them," Daphne says.
The Wilkinsons kept goats, which provided milk for the family's needs. Goat-keeping provided great fun in summer, but meant frozen fingers and udders in winter.
"Space we certainly have," says Daphne's alter ego, Dorothy, in the book.
"I'm not sure of the pleasure of country air when I'm cleaning out the chickens, milking the goat or filling the oil lamps."
To vary the routine, there were visits to various markets, and trips to the seaside at Canvey.
Horsepower ruled there, too. Visitors were met by a horse and trap at Benfleet Creek and transported to the beach.
Along with the countryside, there was one other presence that brought Daphne enormous pleasure as a child. This was her grandfather's piano.
It stood in the parlour of Meadow Lodge, and it has remained Daphne's constant companion throughout her life. It still lives with her, and is played daily, at her retirement home in Pitsea.
Daphne was classically trained, but "I was lucky, I had a brother, five years older than me, who was mad on jazz. So I learnt jazz chords from him."
It meant Daphne could turn her hand to anything, from playing hymns at school assembly to working in a dance band.
She also played by touch, which made her a great help during bombing raids.
"At college, the lights would go out, and a cry would go up, Is there anybody who can play in the dark?' That's when I'd step in."
Daphne is also accomplished at the keyboard of a more unusual instrument, the piano accordion.
Her holidays as a younger woman were often spent at folk dance festivals, accompanying Morris men and other traditional dancers.
The instrument is enormous and, for Dorothy, weighs the equivalent of about a ton, but she has developed an efficient technique for picking it up and humping it around.
"I call it my suit of armour," she says. She still plays on request, is in great demand, and has a roster of regular bookings.
In her 20s, Daphne played regularly with Bert Wright's London-based band, which provided the music for Friday and Saturday night dances and weddings.
It seems Daphne was almost too hot for this band. At her audition she was told, "You can play in any key you like as long as it's F".
Daphne set out with the ambition to be a dance-band singer, but she was steered gently into her father's profession, teaching.
Her first active experience as a teacher was at Hawkwell Infants School, at the age of 18.
If a bomber happened to roar over the school, Dorothy would keep the children's spirits up in her own musical style.
"I'd get them singing, at the top of their voices, Whistle while you work, Hitler is a twerp...'," she recalls.
Her father taught at Langdon Hills school for 22 years. Daphne followed in his footsteps, teaching there for 25 years. Jointly they completed almost half a century.
"I've never been especially ambitious, but I've enjoyed teaching, enjoyed the children, enjoyed keeping animals, enjoyed music, enjoyed writing. Now I'm enjoying reading what I've written."
Daphne never married, but a succession of dogs and other animals have kept her company throughout her life.
She continues to inhabit a world of music as she has all her life, and she is not alone in her music-making. As she removes her accordion from its case, her budgie, Bertie, strikes up a song.
"He always does that as soon as he sees it," she says.
Daphne isn't the type to make great personal statements. But you can't help feeling the closing lines of her book are a simple personal testimony from this redoubtable 85-year-old.
"Dorothy," it reads, "faced the future in quiet contentment and acceptance."
6:17am Thursday 15th March 2007
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CommentPosted by: Shirley Seeds, Benfleet on 10:32pm Sat 24 Mar 07
Can you please give me the title of Daphne's book and where I can purchase it. Many Thanks.
Can you please give me the title of Daphne's book and where I can purchase it. Many Thanks.
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