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More tea Vicar? #11

MORE TEA VICAR?     During the long summer holidays it was easy to get bored. As there was no public transport from Hoar Cross and no children 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 field phones in his workshop...

Things that go bump in the Night #3

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT! Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old haunted house is even more scary!! That first winter at Hoar Cross hall was like that. The attic rooms were on the floor above our bedrooms – there were about fifteen rooms which had been used for the servant girls to sleep in. Every time there was a windy night I could hear a window banging in the attic – all night long it kept me awake. The next day I would go upstairs to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for 20 years. I remember standing there in those d...

Moving Out #29

And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave Hoar Cross 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 start afresh. He carried o...

A New Year Calamity!

A NEW YEAR CALAMITY!      The New Year’s Eve Balls at the hall were usually the highlight of the year.  After twelve months of hard work, especially running the Mediaeval Banquets twice a week through the winter, we were always ready to see out the year in style with a big new year party.  In those days it was always black tie for the men and long dresses for the ladies – usually around 500 people bought tickets for an evening of entertainment with a dance band, disco and a meal.  At midnight a man dressed in traditional Scottish regalia, including a kilt and sporran, would pipe in the new year with his bagpipes.  Down the Long Gallery he would slowly...

Panto Pranks! #22

PANTO PRANKS!      During the 1970s Hoar Cross hall was used from time to time for local community activities and one such event was the production in 1978 of a traditional pantomime, ‘Midnight and a Journey back to Happiness’.   It was written by local people, Robert Leighton from Yoxall and the Hon. Alexandra Meynell, daughter-in-law of Mrs Jean Meynell whom we had purchased the hall from.  The words and music were written by local songwriter, David Matthews, who had written songs for quite a few pop artists during the 1960s, his most famous being Matt Munro’s ‘We’re gonna change the world’.  So off to a good start there! For those of you w...

Panto Pranks #21

PANTO PRANKS!     During the 1970s Hoar Cross hall was used from time to time for local community activities and one such event was the production in 1978 of a traditional pantomime, ‘Midnight and a Journey back to Happiness’. It was written by local people, Robert Leighton from Yoxall and the Hon. Alexandra Meynell, daughter-in-law of Mrs Jean Meynell whom we had purchased the hall from. The words and music were written by local songwriter, David Matthews, who had written songs for quite a few pop artists during the 1960s, his most famous being Matt Munro’s ‘We’re gonna change the world’. So off to a good start there! For those of you who don’...