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Royal visitors at Hoar Cross Hall #10

...n imagine lots of front rooms crammed with neighbours eager to see the new Queen or even watching the TVs in shop windows (yes, this really did happen!) The Queen and her family made their first documentary for TV in 1969 and she had her first walkabout in 1970 during a tour of Australia. The Queen has had fourteen Prime Ministers during her reign, the first one being Sir Winston Churchill who helped her enormously when she first became Queen whilst she was still getting over the loss of her father. Her grandmother Queen Mary must have been a huge help to her in those early days with advice and support although she too sadly died in March 1953 before seeing he...

Skools out for Summer #16

...they had lots of climbing frames and slides which made our summer holidays much more fun!  The private road also joined up to our woods near the driveway and this is the road I walked along every day, up to the main road, to catch the bus to school. It was about half a mile but I hated walking through the woods, especially in the winter when the mornings were darker. I was growing up now and keeping different secrets from my parents than the previous escapades with my brothers, Gavin and Piers; I had started smoking! Going into Uttoxeter every day meant I could buy cigarettes for 30p a pack and smoke them on the way home. I often went up to our attic room to...

Suits you Sir! #22

...ob we had lots of dutch courage inside of us! Gradually over the next year or two we managed to swap most of the armour over and also exchanged the better paintings for reproduction versions; we took the original antiques to Kev’s parents’ house and kept them in their attic until my dad could sell them. My dad managed to sneak out other smaller items too but as there was so much stuff in Kev’s attic he forgot what he’d taken; a few years after the divorce was over Kev’s dad found a pair of duelling pistols in a lovely wooden box still up there under a pile of Christmas decorations! Whilst his friend was making the reproduction pieces, my dad asked him...

The Graveyard Shift #23

...ainly had lots of fun in those days, as a lot of the customers were quintessentially English and the local gentry were quite eccentric – even to the point of one gent bringing a horse into the pub one lunchtime and standing with it in the bar while he sipped his G & T ! Only in rural England! "Why the long face?" asks the Landlord    Don’t miss next week’s exciting instalment:    'Whodunit in the Library?'   If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, click here and please feel free to share with your friends. Follow me around my childhood home in my 'Tour of the Hall' – click here to view and subscribe to my YouTube chan...

Whodunit in the Library #24

...When we first moved to Hoar Cross Hall, growing up in a stately home seemed an idyllic way to live – and lots of fun if you’re a child. This rambling old house full of empty rooms and secret doors, wild gardens and woods to explore, was in some ways a dream come true for our family, certainly for my father. But as we turned from children to teenagers the isolation and lack of public transport was frustrating. Coupled with this was my parents' fighting and subsequent split, living at each end of the house and battling for the house and business through their solicitors. The small gardens we loved to explore   The effect this had on me, as the eldest c...

See you in Court #27

...ished and lots of paper shuffling had happened, the Judge looked at us all and said, “There’s only two people in this courtroom that are going to make anything out of this sorry state – and that’s you (dad’s barrister) and you (mum’s barrister)”. He pointed at them both as he said it, as if they hadn’t already made a lot of money out of it! “Now go outside and sort it out between you. I’m going for lunch now and I want to see it all sorted when I get back”. Well, what a shock! Files and papers were quickly gathered up as we all walked back out into the corridor. And then it began – the bartering and bargaining between the legal eagles as...