Thank goodness my wife died before me. I don’t mean that selfishly — that I stayed alive and she did not, that she went through awful pain and I have not (so far). What I mean is I wouldn’t have wished upon her all the financial and legal faffing and fiddling around that happens when someone dies.
In theory, and in practice, all financial and legal matters had been totally my domain throughout our 55-year marriage. I just used to tell Margaret to sign here, and she did, with no idea what she was agreeing to. I could well have been off to South America in the morning with all her money.
But what I had not bargained for after her death was the massive amount of paperwork and decisions, meetings and arrangements, digging and searching that death throws up, trying to think and remember back, trying to find stuff about the life we had led. I went to bed each night with my head throbbing. One of the hardest decisions I had to make involved our beloved home at Loweswater in the Lake District, not far from where we grew up.
Hunter Davies found himself at a loss with what to do with the house that his late wife, author Margaret Forster, adored
I had been several times since Margaret’s death to visit my old friends and old haunts after depositing half of her ashes in the village churchyard.
Her gravestone I will visit for ever, as long as I have the breath to cool my porridge, as my mother used to say. But what was the point of going up there to stay there on my own?
What should I do with a house that had been such a huge and emotional and beloved part of her life for so long?
For most of the past 30 years we had lived there half the year, roughly from May till October. We made a rule never to come to London when we were there, and vice versa. We broke it a few times, for family dramas, and of course they made visits, but it meant we only made that awful M1/M6 journey once a year. How perfect is that?
In each house, Loweswater and London, both by chance dating from the 1860s, our basic working life was exactly the same. We were at our desks each morning, moving words around. In Lakeland, my wife sat with her pen and ink, smiling quietly to herself when she heard me effing and blinding as the electricity went off, yet again, or the broadband was down.
In the afternoon, we walked. In London, walking down Kentish Town High Road, going for my regular swims, you have to try hard to breathe — not quite the same as rambling round beautiful Crummock Water.
A few years after we moved in I bought five fields, around 15 acres, which surround the house. I created an orchard, tree house and rebuilt the drystone walls.
I loved our little town of Cockermouth, an architectural gem, where I swam three times a week, poked around the antique shops, met local friends, had lunch. I did get upset when anyone asked, ‘Enjoying your holidays?’ ‘Do you mind?’ I’d say. ‘We live here.’
I liked to think I was part of the community all those years, entering for the Loweswater Show, taking part in events, getting to know everyone. It took time. Cumbrian farming folk winter you, they summer you, winter you again — then they say hello.
For most of the past 30 years we had lived there half the year, roughly from May till October. We made a rule never to come to London when we were there, and vice versa. We broke it a few times, for family dramas, and of course they made visits, but it meant we only made that awful M1/M6 journey once a year. How perfect is that?
I did of course moan all those years about the expense of it all — paying two lots of council tax, double heating and water bills, having to have two of everything, including two TV licences. The free TV licence for the elderly only covers one home, not two. Bloomin’ cheek. But I always realised how lucky we were.
Friends in both places always asked us which we would choose, if forced. We hesitated and said London, but only when the time comes, so we stressed. London is, after all, where our children and grandchildren live.
Alas, with the death of Margaret, the time came to decide. What would happen if I was living there on my own? Aged 80, what would happen if I was ill, with my local GP seven miles away?
As for hospitals, God knows where they are now. In recent years, when locals have been seriously ill, they have had to go to hospital in Newcastle or Lancaster, miles away, in a different county.
Some months after Margaret died, I spent six weeks on my own in Loweswater to see if I could stand it, if I could survive being on my own in a fairly large and remote house.
It was a strange feeling. In London I had grown used by now to the absence of Margaret. At first I’d think I could see her through the window, sitting reading on the downstairs couch when I came home through the back way, walking across the garden, but that soon faded. I was so busy in London, so active, so many social activities.
In Loweswater, though, during those weeks on my own, I imagined she was there, in the house with me, all the time.
Each day when I came back from my walk to the lake, or from Cockermouth, I opened the front door and I expected to find a note from her, written in her bold and impeccable handwriting.
The notes normally contained one of three messages:
Do not disturb. I am working. Answer your own bloody phone calls, it has gone non-stop.
Have gone to the lake, down the Lonning, back the Scenic Way.
If it was the latter, and she had put the time she left, I would immediately turn round and go and meet her.
In Lakeland, it had always been just us, we two, at constant close quarters, in a remote rural situation. Little wonder I now sensed and saw her presence all the time.
In London, we had our three children living near by, and grandchildren, friends and neighbours we had known for 50 years, visitors for work and pleasure popping in. In London there were always distractions. In Lakeland, I was alone with my thoughts and memories. So I decided to sell.
It was a strange feeling. In London I had grown used by now to the absence of Margaret. In Loweswater, though, during those weeks on my own, I imagined she was there, in the house with me, all the time
The local estate agent I contacted to do the dirty deed — well, it seems dirty to me, awfully disloyal to Lakeland — boasted that they employed a drone and a fully qualified drone pilot. The idea was to hover in the air, about 400ft high, film and photograph our lovely house, and my lovely five fields, and show the three lovely lakes within walking distance. Isn’t modern technology grand?
I had decided to show all prospective buyers round the house myself, to talk to them, find out where they were from, what they were really looking for.
After all, I knew the house, knew the problems and pleasures — unlike the estate agents.
It was such an intimate experience, showing strangers your bedroom, watching them lift up carpets you would rather they did not, avoiding sinks for fear of catching the plague, or entering a room and making a face at your wallpaper.
In the end there were six who were seriously interested. Four were roughly local while two had come from farther afield. One was from London and the other from the West Country, both men who had left their wives at home. They each stayed overnight locally, returning the next morning for a second look.
I was amazed they were investing so much time. Then I remembered that when we bought the house I had come from London on the train for the day, on my own. It could well have been a total waste of time.
Blow me, next day both men made offers — at the asking price. I suppose I could have tried to get them higher, but I was so delighted by their enthusiasm for the area, which they already knew well,
