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Here comes the bride (Part 1) #27

Now my dad was having to move out of Hoar Cross HAll we had decided to bring our wedding forward so that we could get married in the church in the grounds and then have the reception afterwards in the HAll, which was after All our family home. The wedding preparations were going quite well and 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 hel...

Here Comes the Bride (Part 2) # 28

And so our wedding day at Hoar Cross HAll 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 a nice long drive through the town where Everyone can see you! NEver mind, a smAll crowd of l...

Behind the green baize door #47

"The green baize door - dividing line betwix servant and master.” All stately homes had at least one green baize door and Hoar Cross HAll was no different. This was the door used by the servants to access the main part of the house unobtrusively and silently so they could go about their work without disturbing the family. The HAll had a spiral staircase at each end of the house for the servants to use and the green baize door on the ground floor opened onto the Garden Corridor which led to the Chapel and the main house, as well as the garden. The green baize door on the first floor opened onto the east wing corridor and guest bedrooms and from this corridor t...

Becoming a rock chick #18

BECOMING A ROCK CHICK:        My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave.  The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school in Uttoxeter which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them!  Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns just like the ones at Eton and Harrow – or the Beano!   HowEver, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into town Every lunch time to meet up with a group of guys that worked at the local J. C. Bamford firm.  They were All into motor bikes and one of the first films I watched was ‘Easy Rider’.  They also went to a lot of concerts...

Becoming a Rock Chick #17

My schooldays were coming to an end now and I absolutely couldn’t wait to leave. The school itself was an old Victorian grammar school in Uttoxeter which still had wooden desks with inkwells in them! Even the teachers wore their mortar boards and gowns just like the ones at Eton and Harrow – or the Beano! HowEver, in the last two years there I had made a few good friends and we would go into town Every lunch time to meet up with a group of guys that worked at the local J. C. Bamford firm. They were All into motor bikes and one of the first films I watched was ‘Easy Rider’. They also went to a lot of concerts to see live music, something which was totAlly...

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.  He had been a despatch rider in World War 2 in North Africa and after the war ended and he’d recovered from TB he decided to take up racing his bike as a hobby.  As he lived in Derby the nearest track was Donington Park and he raced there at the beginning of the 1950s.  After that he move...