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Eat, drink and be merry! #10

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY!        We were now in our third year at the Hall and our lives were always busy keeping on top of the weeds and general upkeep of the house.  My dad expected us children to help as much as possible, which we hated, and much of our time was spent trying to hide from him to get out of doing the chores.  But sometimes we didn’t mind and we happily pulled an old trolley into the woods every now and then to collect wood for the fires and sometimes as a family we would spend a day clearing parts of the woods and grounds.  My mum had hired a lady from the village to help with the housework and we had also taken on a retired chap calle...

The Graveyard Shift! #25

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT!       Life carried on at the Hall as best it could in difficult circumstances.  My dad continued to go to Arms and Armour Fairs to buy and sell antiques and we also went to a mediaeval banquet in Cheshire one night, although it wasn’t anywhere near as good as ours!  Once or twice we took my dad out with our friends to Derby, where he originated from, and that seemed to cheer him up.  But he really needed to get away from the house for longer periods of time and when he saw a boat advertised for sale at Caernarvon he jumped at the chance and bought it.  It was an ex lifeboat called The Bembo so quite sturdy, although in need of a li...

The tax man cometh! #29

THE TAX MAN COMETH:   My parents’ court case was finally over and my dad had six months to leave the house.  In the meantime my mum had to find the funds to buy him out and he had to find another house to live in.  He also had an awful lot of stuff to move too!  He eventually found a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent but as it was obviously a lot smaller he had to get rid of a lot of his possessions and one of the first things to go was his Lotus Elite.  He advertised it in the local paper but instead of getting a phone call from a likely buyer, the first call was from the local tax office.  Back in those days they used to check advertisements in the news...

Moving Out #32

MOVING OUT:       And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave the Hall.  Ten years after moving in he was now moving out, leaving his dream home for my mum to live in alone.  Gavin moved with him and Piers was away at school most of the time.  It was a mammoth task as he had so much stuff to move, especially from the basement.  He had some heavy machinery too that he’d brought with him from his alabaster days, including a band saw which we used to saw up logs for the huge fireplaces in the main rooms.  He had bought a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent which had some outbuildings for a workshop and there he moved to st...

Aristocratic travels Part 2

ARISTOCRATIC TRAVELS PART 2:    During the latter part of the 1800s Emily Charlotte Meynell travelled around the Mediterranean on board her schooner, Ariadne, recording her travels in her many diaries and drawing books, as mentioned in my previous blog.  I have now found the photo of her yacht and one of her paintings; she was a skilled water colour artist as you can see but had a particular affection for nautical subjects.  One particular holiday around Nice in the South of France with her brother Charles is documented by the water-colour paintings they both made.  Soon after her husband Hugo's death in 1871, she embarked on a Mediterranean tour with her...

Rags to Riches #12

RAGS TO RICHES:     My family originated from Derby and my parents were married there in July 1952.  Mum was 19 and dad was 36 so quite a bit older.  They both lived in Derby and were very arty; my dad went to the Derby Sketching Club in his free time and my mum attended art college.  I’m not sure where they met but it was either at something art related or at a dance, as was usual in those days.  My dad was a sculptor by trade; I think his interest was sparked by seeing all the beautiful alabaster in Italian churches during the war.  After the war he set up his own business making alabaster lamps, bowls and candlesticks among other things (see header...