Surprise! Surprise!

Do you like surprises? Well here is a very special surprise prepared for me some years ago.


It’s my birthday tomorrow. Mind you, now that fifty has passed, I don’t take much account of them anymore. It’s Friday and Laura, as a celebration has planned a mystery weekend. She won’t tell me where we’re going.
“You just drive, I’ll tell you where to go.”

With that she handed me a piece of paper that simply read Leominster for lunch. Leominster is an old country town about two hours drive from home. This gives me an idea about where we may end up. So doing as I’m told, like a good husband, I drive to Leominster. We have lunch at a favourite café and then I receive the next piece of paper.

Hay-on-Wye for dinner, it read.

I am a lover of books and of one book in particular, “Kilvert’s Diary”. Hay-on-Wye links them both. It is only a small town on the borders of England and Wales but it is full of bookshops, including what is claimed to be the largest second-hand bookshop in the world. It adjoins the village of Clyro, where Francis Kilvert was the curate in the early nineteenth century. The diary is his fascinating and moving account of life as a country curate at that time. It is a remarkable social commentary, written with wit, humanity and an uncanny insight into human nature. He died young, only a few months after marrying and although his wife removed from the diary whole passages, which she considered “indelicate”, it was an immediate and huge success when it was published in 1938, long after his death. An ‘industry’ grew up around him, a Kilvert Society was formed and houses mentioned in the diary are favourite places of pilgrimage for Kilvert aficionados.

It is in just one such house, owned by two sisters who adored Kilvert and whom he visited regularly and now a Bed & Breakfast establishment that we are to spend the night. I am of course thrilled to bits. After browsing the bookshops, we return to the B&B for dinner. We change and are shown into the lounge, given gin and tonics and asked to wait. We wait and we wait and we …! I ask Laura “What’s taking so long?”

“I expect they’re cooking something special.”

Another thirty minutes pass and the front doorbell rings. We hear new guests being welcomed. Suddenly the lounge door opens and in walks my elder son David and his wife Edi. They were the newly arrived guests! I might have known. I spent most of his childhood waiting for David, so why should it be any different now he’s grown up!

“Hello Dad. What a co-incidence. We were just passing and decided to stay here for the night.”

After kissing and hugging them I say,

“Co-incidence? A likely story!” and turning to Laura, “You arranged this ‘co-incidence’ didn’t you?”

Smiling, she nodded and we all had a good laugh and went in for dinner, which had of course been awaiting their arrival. Dinner was wonderful, including some excellent Welsh lamb, which showed great consideration, for Laura hates to eat lamb. We spent a wonderful evening with the children, whom we had not seen for some weeks and next morning we breakfasted together. It was a really memorable time for me and I thanked Laura for her thoughtfulness in arranging such a special birthday treat.

She wasn’t finished yet! At breakfast she handed me another piece of paper that said, Gaufron school for coffee.

Gaufron is a tiny hamlet in Radnorshire (now Powys), Wales where for five years during WW Two, I was evacuated. Like all children in the area, I attended the two-classroom, two-teacher school, which taught those from five to fourteen years of age. The school was now a café and Laura and I had become friendly with Liz, the current owner.

“How romantic to think of having my birthday morning coffee (for today was my actual birthday) in the classroom where I sat as a child”, I thought squeezing Laura’s hand in silent thanks. This was typical of Laura, who is both romantic and very good at thinking of unusual ways to celebrate special events.

When we arrived at the school I noticed several cars parked but thought no more about it because our friend Liz appeared.

“Happy birthday Lionel, come and have some coffee. I’ve made a special cake for you.”

We walked into the main classroom with Liz and immediately I was nine years old again. I could taste the chalk as I cleaned the blackboard; hear it screeching as Mrs Bacon wrote on it. I could smell the ink; feel the nib juddering against the paper in my exercise book. I … but my reverie was interrupted when Liz brought the coffee and cake. We were the only people in the place and I still didn’t think about the cars parked outside and where their drivers might be. I soon found out!

No sooner had I put the fork into the delicious birthday cake when the door between the café and the adjoining shop opened. I could hardly believe my eyes!! People, some I hadn’t seen since I was eleven years old, walked in and came over to wish me a happy birthday. They just kept on coming. I was overwhelmed. Liz had contacted all the local people who had been at the school with me between 1940 and 1945 inviting them to come along to celebrate my birthday. Some of course were unable to make it but most had, including Vera the daughter of Alice Thomas with whom I’d been evacuated. She gave me a lovely reproduction of John Constable’s The Haywain, which I treasure. The next hour or so became an orgy of nostalgia and I loved every minute of it.

What a birthday!!!