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Panto Pranks! #76

...‘ATV Today’ cameras were present for the dress rehearsal and a clip of three or four minutes on the television no doubt helped to boost the ticket sales.  The pantomime was on for three nights and had capacity audiences every night of 300 people.  A good profit was made and a donation went to the Prince Charles’ Appeal for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Fund.  This was the first time that I’d been involved in ‘theatricals’ and it was such a good atmosphere in the house (for once!) that we all hoped there would be another one – sadly, it wasn’t to be. After each show we would meet up in the Meynell pub in the village and the pantomime was the t...

HUNTIN’, SHOOTIN’ & FISHIN’ #6

...s to this day although some have now changed to clay pigeon shooting. On a good day they could bag anything up to 300 birds!  The shooting season was from October through to February and every year the local ‘shoot’ would come to the Hall to bag a few birds. I think there was an arrangement with the Meynells that they could still come and shoot on our land when we bought the house.   In the woods near to the house were the old greenhouses and kitchen gardens – all derelict then of course.  A gamekeeper used to breed the pheasants near there in sheds and I remember seeing him there and looking at the little chicks.  It seemed incredible to us that some...

WHODUNIT IN THE LIBRARY? #25

...e! One day during this time, I came home from work to find the house empty and the Library door locked, which was most unusual on both counts.  I eventually got in through the secret door to find blood all over the floor – and I mean loads of it - right in the middle of the room.  I thought I’d walked onto the set of a Hercule Poirot film – it was a real whodunit!  It looked like someone had been murdered and then whilst looking around I found the ‘weapon’ – it was a Victorian truncheon that we had on display.  This was a large wooden truncheon with a chunk of lead in the end - and it was covered in dried blood.  This could do some serious da...

RACE TRACK ‘AFTER PARTIES’ #27

...RACE TRACK ‘AFTER PARTIES’ Because my dad used to be a racing driver he was often invited to parties and open days at various racing circuits.  He naturally knew lots of racing people and on this particular occasion he was invited to an Open day at Donington Park.  Tom Wheatcroft, a local entrepreneur, had bought Donington Park in the 1970s as he owned the largest collection of Grand Prix cars in the world at that time.  In 1973 he opened a museum there to house them all and called it the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition.   Donington became the favoured home of the British round of the MotoGP motorcycling championships but he was really hoping to bring F...

Here comes the bride (Part 1) #30

...HERE COMES THE BRIDE (Part 1)   Our wedding preparations were going quite well.  As we knew lots of musicians it wasn’t hard to find a local band and a DJ to do the disco.  A friend of my dad’s offered to do the catering and the bar was set up with plenty of kegs from the local brewery in Burton on Trent.  I had two bridesmaids and we all went to Birmingham one day to choose our dresses and shoes – it was all kept very simple really as I had no help or advice from my mum as most brides do.   Kev’s parents had eloped after the war and got married in a register office with two witnesses dragged off the street, so they had no idea what you did to pla...

The Grand Opening #5

...ame for a day out.  Although I would make the scones earlier in the day, we would always leave a few in the oven so that there was a lovely smell of home baking floating around the place – a sure-fire way of making sales!  Another way of generating sales was by giving us three kids an ice cream to eat out on the terrace on a hot summers day. Soon everyone was asking for one too.   My dad was good at that sort of stuff and we certainly didn’t mind helping out! I seem to remember we had quite a good number of people that first Easter as we had advertised well; we stayed open until the first week of October, being open on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays a...