E. Nesbit's Well Hall, 1915-1921: A Memoir

God gives us memory so that we may have roses in December.

—Sir James Barrie

More than fifty years have elapsed since we lived at Well Hall, Eltham, with E. Nesbit, in the unforgettable atmosphere of that household and its surroundings. It had already seen its heyday, and since the death of her husband, Hubert Bland, the financial pinch had been acutely felt. Old friends found it more difficult to visit, and it was war time. My mother, separated from my father, went to Well Hall to help E. Nesbit (Mrs. Bland to all of us, and later Mrs. Tucker when she remarried) run an elaborate and very modern poultry farm. My mother had had some training in the latest techniques. The old stables and back yard at Well Hall were duly set up for that purpose. To help the household finances, E. Nesbit was already selling garden produce to munitions workers at the nearby Woolwich Arsenal and to the Government as provisions for the two local hospitals.

It was arranged that my mother would join the enterprise as soon as my sister and I went away to boarding school in Huntingdonshire in the fall of 1915. During our school vacations, we children, my two brothers, Geoffrey and Ronald, my sister, Margrey, and I were to be P.G.'s (Paying Guests) at Well Hall. Hopefully we would be good companions (and we were) for E. Nesbit's adopted son, John, and for her granddaughter, Pandora.

John was the natural son of her husband, Hubert Bland, and his secretary, Miss Hoatson, commonly known as Mouse. Mouse was still living at Well Hall when we first went there, and remained I think until E. Nesbit remarried in 1917. This dimimutive, vivacious, and competent little woman, with her big brown eyes and mop of grey hair, was, when we arrived, the pivot of all the functional and complicated household finances at Well Hall.

The poultry farm, despite modern know-how, failed almost before it began. There was a shortage and rationing of chicken feed, and the hens, oblivious to the artificial lighting, refused to produce the projected two eggs every twenty-four hours. Futhermore, the water rats living in the moat killed off the hens at an alarming rate, and this soon ended the ill-fated enterprise. After that, mother did wartime work at a local munitions factory and we all made our home at Well Hall.

As I write, many long-forgotten incidents come to mind. In moments of psychological insecurity, childhood memories often bring unsuspected resources of personality. Many are the times I have savored the recollection of our first arrival at Well Hall.

It was at the beginning of the Christmas holiday in December, 1915. Mother met us girls at Liverpool Street Station and shuttled us across London to take a train down to Blackheath where we had to change for the Well Hall station. My brothers, each at a different Public School in the south of England, made it on their own. We all arrived without luggage and therefore with no ration coupons, an occurrence whose continued repetition was to become an endless annoyance. On the way, mother told us something about Well Hall and E. Nesbit. We had read some of her books. She also spoke to us about other people who were living at Well Hall, and especially about John Bland. In 1915 John was a day boy at St. Paul's School in London. He was a real loner and often very sullen, but for us he became another brother. He and Geoffrey grew to be the most intimate of friends. In the early years John would often carry my little sister on his shoulders, give his hand to his niece, Pandora, and tell me to hang on to his coat tails while he took us all over London to see the sights. We were indeed a strange foursome.

That first night we assembled for supper in the dining room, the old Hall, where a long oval table was placed lengthwise in front of a roaring fire. The...