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Home <> Lifestory Library <> Explore By Location <> <> <> Tea And Memories In Dunoon




  Contributor: Patricia FarleyView/Add comments



Patricia Bridgen Farley was a Wren (Womens Royal Naval Service) stationed at Portkil, Near Kilcreggan, Scotland during World War II, living in a house affectionately known to the group of Wrens that were based there as 'The Barn'. The Wrens came to be known as the 'Barnites'.

Most of our extended travelling was on leave time and consisted of heading south to England. But I do recall a day when I boarded a paddle steamer at the Kilcreggan pier and continued along the Clyde to the town of Dunoon.

One of my friends who had worked at the same office in Manchester, the Ministry of Health, had married an Irishman, who later joined the Army. She wrote to me that they would be spending a holiday in Dunoon and wondered if I could meet her.

What fun we had! I met her new husband and was dutifully impressed, and then we took off. We walked on the beach, had lunch and talked. Did we talk! Not only about our old co-workers and our hateful woman boss, but also of the times we would go bicycling through Cheshire on the weekends.
   
Her parents had money and her father liked to hunt and we had such a laugh remembering a funny incident from our childhood. One day, we had stopped to have some tea at her house and, on entering the front door, I was appalled to smell a terrible gamey 'stink'. There is no other word to describe it. It couldn't be avoided as it permeated the whole place.

When I looked at Liz, she looked back at me with a big grin, and said 'Oh Daddy, just loves jugged hare' (A kind of rabbit stew). But before the hare is made into a meal, it is first hung on a skewer and left to literally rot! And that was the aroma I was sniffing. Needless to say, I declined to have a cup of tea with her, and suggested we try a nearby café!
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