Story Search Results

Alice - the ghost in the mirror

...Victorian era when Emily Meynell (nee Wood) lived there with her husband, Hugo. He found the original mirror which came from Hickleton Hall and now it hangs over the fireplace in the Library, just as it did all those years ago. But it seems that the ghost of Alice may have come with the mirror.  Ever since the mirror was installed in the Library people have seen a little girl running around the house.  There is also a bedroom upstairs called ‘The Alice room’ where guests have heard a child knocking on the door and running away! One evening a barman working in the Library looked into the mirror and saw a little girl standing behind him in the secret doorw...

Race day parties #26

...post war era – he and his wife were always very expensively dressed and hosted one of the marquee parties.  There was also a VIP marquee which we managed to sneak into when no-one was looking.  After ordering our drinks at the bar, Kev asked how much they were and was told in no uncertain terms that if we were real VIPs, we would know that it was all free!  Kev and I with the Lotus   My dad revelled in these events as there was always lots of free food and drink and he usually managed to help himself to one or two bottles of champagne which were squirrelled away in the car, “for when you get married Viv” he would tell me.  He had a whole rack...

Ghostbusters #8

...o another era, as nothing had really changed in 100 years – but not for long as they were quite dark! All the rooms were still the same as they had been when the house was first built; same décor, everything – so it was easy to imagine that the Victorian days were still with us, especially when you were an imaginative teenager! The spooky basement corridor   On another occasion the local press wanted to do a story on our resident ghost. They turned up, coincidentally, the day after I’d heard more noises in the night. I have always kept a diary and this particular night tells me that I couldn’t sleep and was sitting in bed reading at about 1am wh...

The Tax Man Cometh #29

...My parents’ court case was finally over and my dad had six months to leave the family home, Hoar Cross Hall. In the meantime my mum had to find the funds to buy him out and he had to find another house to live in. He also had an awful lot of stuff to move too! He eventually found a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent but as it was obviously a lot smaller he had to get rid of a lot of his possessions and one of the first things to go was his Lotus Elite. He advertised it in the local paper but instead of getting a phone call from a likely buyer, the first call was from the local tax office. Back in those days they used to check advertisements in the newspapers and...

The War Years and Beyond #37

...ing considerably reduced. Colonel Meynell, who had been seriously wounded in the Second World War, was suffering from his disability and it must have been difficult for him living in such a large house. Therefore, in 1952 the family bought a smaller house in nearby Newborough called Hollybush Park. I remember Mrs Meynell telling us a funny story about how her husband had come home one day and told her he had bought another house. He was raving on about the ‘hard tennis courts, so much better than our grass ones’. When they eventually moved into their new home, Mrs Meynell also told us how the servants were so excited to have a smaller house to clean! How tim...

Alice - the ghost in the mirror #38

...Victorian era when Emily Meynell (nee Wood) lived there with her husband, Hugo. He found the original mirror which came from Hickleton Hall and now it hangs over the fireplace in the Library, just as it did all those years ago (see header picture). But it seems that the ghost of Alice may have come with the mirror. Ever since the mirror was installed in the Library people have seen a little girl standing in that room. There is also a bedroom upstairs called ‘The Alice room’ where guests have heard a child knocking on the door and running away! One evening a barman working in the Library looked into the mirror and saw a little girl standing behind him in th...