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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...

Motor Racing Days #9

MOTOR RACING DAYS Although my blogs are about living at Hoar Cross Hall, I would just like to give a bit of background about my dad’s racing career in the years leading up to moving to the Hall as this will set the scene for later instalments of my story. As mentioned in my first blog my dad used to be a racing driver but he actually started off racing motor cycles in the 1930s. Because of this he became a despatch rider during the Second World War and spent a lot of time in North Africa. After the war he started racing motor bikes at nearby Donington Park and he raced there up to the beginning of the 1950s. After that he moved onto cars and drove a Cooper 5...

Ventures New! #10

VENTURES NEW We were now in our third year at Hoar Cross 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 called Mr Hickman to do som...

Here comes the bride (Part 2)

HERE COMES the BRIDE (Part 2)      And so our wedding day arrived bright and clear, all thoughts of solicitors, legals, fights and arrests behind us!   Myself and my bridesmaids went to get our hair done in the morning and Kev slapped a piece of steak on his jaw to bring the swelling down after the rather unfortunate fight at his stag do.  Fortunately, the bruise didn’t show up too much on the photos!  Gavin drove my dad’s Mercedes Benz car all the way down the drive and back up the road to the church – this was one of the drawbacks of having a church in your grounds; you don’t get to drive all through the town with everyone looking at you!  Neve...

More Tea Vicar? #12

Life at Hoar Cross Hall was always busy but during the long summer holidays it was easy to get bored. As there was no public transport from Hoar Cross and no other families living nearby, we three children had to make our own entertainment and we were always having adventures and getting up to mischief – a bit like the Famous Five but without a dog! We would roam around the village or explore the basement. My dad was a hoarder and had kept all sorts of stuff over the years including gas masks and field phones from World War 2. the old Servants Hall was now my dad’s workshop and he spent a lot of time down there restoring antiques to sell. He had one of the f...

Skools out for summer #13

When Hugo and Emily Meynell built Hoar Cross Hall it included a whole estate with it, namely kitchen gardens, greenhouses, stables, a farm and cottages. Old Hall (their original home) was also on the estate and was accessed via a private road, which ran from the main road. By the time the seventies came along the stable block and Old Hall were private houses and another part of Old Hall had been made into a children’s home. Emily Meynell had started this home in the Victorian days, calling it ‘the Home of the Good Shepherd’ but it was for boys only at that time. When we were there it was a mixed home and run by a husband and wife couple. they used to have...