Story Search Results

Eat, drink and be merry! #10

...here were lots of nibbles and quite a lot of champagne flowing and the newspapers and radio stations turned up to take lots of photos of us all in various poses and record interviews with the cast (see header photo). It was a lovely, warm Autumn day and many of the photos were taken outdoors. I remember it turning out to be quite a party, even though it started at 9.30 in the morning; as the day wore on the organist played a few of the songs we would be doing at the banquets, and everyone started dancing and singing along – it was 4pm by the time we finished! And so arrived the day of the first banquet. All the furniture and costumes from the Chinese Room and...

Like Father, Like Sons #19

...LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONS:    As previously mentioned in earlier blogs my dad used to be a racing driver during the 1950s and ran his own team in the 1960s, Shardlow Motor Racing, travelling all over Europe in his trusty Volkswagon van with his two mechanics and driver. He didn’t have big sponsorship money behind him and most of it was done on a shoestring but he came back with lots of funny stories of their van breaking down or some rural ‘hotel’ that they had stayed in. From each country that he visited he always brought me back a doll dressed in the traditional costume of that country. There was quite a collection and I still have them; I used to put the...

Alice - the ghost in the mirror #28

...ALICE – THE GHOST IN THE MIRROR:     (Based on true events)    In 1865 Lewis Carroll wrote another story about Alice following on from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. It was called ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’. In this story Alice climbs onto the mantlepiece over the fireplace in her lounge and finds that she can climb through the mirror into another world which is reversed, just like a reflection. Once again, she encounters strange figures in a world dominated by a chess set and nursery rhyme characters, among others. But what inspired Lewis Carroll to write about a little girl having lots of adventures? In the 1850s Charles Dodgson (Carroll’s rea...

The Kitchen Maid's Story #37

...THE KITCHEN MAID’S STORY:    If you were young, free and single – oh, and very well-to-do – the 1920s were the decade to be a part of. The upper classes had lots of time on their hands and enjoyed post-First World War delights such as the theatre and jazz clubs. Not so for the lower classes, in particular a young girl who was to become the kitchen maid at Hoar Cross Hall in the 1920s. The ‘depression’ after the First World War brought stark poverty to her home and many like her. Her name was Jean Rennie, and she was extremely intelligent having won a scholarship to Glasgow University to study French and music. However, the £5 bursary she got was ta...

My Dad Bought a Mansion #1

...ouse with lots of rooms to play hide and seek in. The gardens were vast and we couldn’t wait to climb trees and make dens in the yew hedges. Pathways led to sunken gardens and ponds with stepping stones and a ha-ha wall bordered the grounds.   Me standing on the stepping stones   When my dad bought the house it had been empty on and off for nearly 20 years as the Meynell family who owned it back then had moved out to a smaller mansion on a nearby estate. A doctor had rented it for about ten years and then a caretaker had been installed and he and his family lived in a few rooms on the first floor. Their daughter was the same age as me and we soon bec...

Mediaeval Mayhem! #11

...here were lots of nibbles and quite a lot of champagne flowing and the newspapers and radio stations turned up to take lots of photos of us all in various poses and record interviews with the cast. It was a lovely, warm Autumn day and many of the photos were taken outdoors (see header photo). I remember it turning out to be quite a party, even though it started at 9.30 in the morning; as the day wore on the organist started playing a few of the songs we would be doing at the banquets, and everyone started dancing and singing along – it was 4pm by the time we finished! And so arrived the day of the first banquet. All the furniture and costumes from the Chinese...