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 to see live music, something which was totally new to me – I’d only seen dance bands at the New Year’s Eve Balls (yawn), even though I loved music. They opened my eyes (and ears) to a new type of music and always bought me a ticket for the next concert they went to but my mum would always say ‘No’, much to my disgust!
Eventually I started dating one of the lads who was actually 21 so a bit older than my 16 years but as he was quite sensible my mother approved of him and eventually let me go to concerts with him. Over the space of a few months we saw Jack the Lad, Dr Feelgood and The Who. The Who were incredible and Keith Moon even smashed his drum kit up as their grand finale! We also went to this really cool place called The Highwayman. Up to this point my only socialising was at the banquets with my parents watching my every move – now I could get out and away from them as my boyfriend had a car! I loved the dark, smoky atmosphere of this place with its loud rock music – we would go there in a convoy of minis and motor bikes, driving fast through the lanes. With places like this to go to, life could only get better – couldn’t it?
In September I started college in Burton-on-Trent – another big change for me. It was nice to be in an environment where I was treated a bit more like an adult and I could wear my own clothes and not a uniform! I wore my new afghan coat which was admired by all and sundry along with jeans and cheesecloth tops completing the hippy look that half the college wore. This didn’t go down well with my mum who had just spent a fortune on smart new clothes for me – oh well, I did wear them sometimes! Of course, travelling to Burton each day meant that someone now had to take and fetch me as there was no school bus anymore and no other public transport. Dad would ask the people who rented the apartments if they could give me a lift and when a new person applied to rent an apartment he would ask if they worked in Burton and could they give me a lift to college, before agreeing to let it to them! I don’t know what they must have thought but they usually agreed!
I still worked at the banquets and cleaned and polished the house – the cleaning was never ending – I played with Piers and helped Gavin clean out the pet guinea pigs, who sometimes escaped into the yew hedges. Their hutch was on the back porch which was off the chapel corridor and next to the library. In the summer we left the back door open and visitors would wander outside and look at our pets – I imagine an over enthusiastic child had opened the hutch and not shut it properly because they escaped into the house and got into the library, it being the nearest room to the back door. I happened to be coming into the house on this particular day when I heard a woman scream “Rats, rats – on the bookshelves!” I rushed into the Library through the secret door (which made the visitors jump even more) to find them looking at our guinea pigs! How could they think our lovely pets were rats? However, we did get rats in the house but that’s for another blog! The guinea pigs were safely put back into their hutch - not long after this we discovered that one of them was expecting babies! Not sure what happened in the Library but they were both supposed to be girls when we bought them!
After a couple of months at college I met a boy called Kev. He was in a band and his chat up line was that they needed a singer and he was pretty sure he could get me an audition (it must have worked as we’re still together all these years later!). I agreed, even though I’d done very little singing, and I went along to their rehearsal room one afternoon and got the job. So now I was fronting a rock band – what would my mother have to say about that I wondered! The band also went to a venue called the ’76 Club’ in Burton-on-Trent. I talked my boyfriend into taking me (no ID checks in those days) and we went along one Friday night with Kev and the band. It was full of weird and wonderful characters - mainly hippies - and the atmosphere was the usual dark, smoky one except that now the smoke had a funny smell to it. Someone said the drug squad came into the club ‘in cognito’ and we did see one or two guys wearing long haired wigs and trying to talk the lingo. They really stuck out like a sore thumb! When one asked me if I had any skins, I innocently replied “Do you mean banana skins?” It was a lot of fun and the music was even better – who remembers Steelers Wheel, The Doobie Brothers, The Steve Miller Band and Steely Dan to name but a few? Such great music and such good times.



And so my first term at college ended, although my boyfriend and I had split up and it looked like I might be Kev’s new girlfriend. However, things at home were still going badly with my parents; one particular day in December they had a huge row and we were so scared we all ran upstairs to the old lounge on the first floor, including my mum! There we all sat crying and shaking while my dad banged on the door demanding we open it. The shouting and ranting went on for an hour or more while we huddled together wondering when it would end and if we would be spending Christmas trapped upstairs! My mum tried to lighten the atmosphere by pointing out that all the presents were in this room at least! After what seemed like an age, my dad ran out of steam and went back downstairs and we were able to leave the room; they finally split up just before Christmas with my mum and Piers staying with a neighbour.
It was now down to me to cook the Christmas dinner! I hated cooking at the best of times (apart from scones and apple pies) and my dad hadn’t got a clue of course, like most men in those days! So what could possibly go wrong? We went into Burton to buy the turkey and a kindly butcher gave us instructions on how to cook it and what to buy – I have to say it was a challenging day but at least all our Christmas presents were still in the house and my dad, Gavin and I had a (fairly) nice dinner finished off with a good dose of the Morecambe and Wise Show to put a smile on our faces!
Don’t miss next weeks’ instalment: Party On!
If you’d like to follow my story from the beginning click here and please feel free to share with your friends.
Viv Wilson | 29th October 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
Going to sleep in a big old house is quite scary when you’re young but going to sleep in a big old house that’s haunted is even more scary!! As we approach Hallowe'en my mind has gone back to that first winter at Hoar Cross Hall and all the scary things that happened - and that was without any trick or treaters in those days! We quickly realised that we weren’t the only inhabitants of the house when we moved there in the 1970s. 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 the attics to close it but there would be no windows open or even loose. They were all tightly shut as they had been for the previous 20 years, when the house had stood empty. I remember standing there in the attic rooms feeling a tingling down my spine and goose bumps all over as I felt the atmosphere closing in on me - and I quickly legged it back downstairs! On other nights we would hear people walking along the attic corridor (the attic, by the way, was the floor right above our bedroom floor) and then at other times we could hear heavy furniture being dragged about – yet there was nothing up there as the rooms were all empty! How strange! Other members of the family heard it too and also people that stayed overnight, so it wasn’t the imaginings of a frightened child. There was also nobody else in the house at that point, apart from our family and they definitely weren’t walking about the house at 3am. And why is it that these things always happen in the middle of the night? When it’s dark. When we feel most scared? I often woke up at 3am whether there were noises or not – or perhaps there had been a noise and that’s what had woken me up – who knows? I also loved reading books about old houses, mysteries and ghosts but when you actually live in one in real life, it’s a bit different! The spooky attic The first few years at Hoar Cross Hall were the worst ones for spiritual activity - maybe we'd disturbed the ghosts who were used to an empty house and not one with children running about everywhere! Our family consisted of my mother, father and two younger brothers; my parents being members of the Historical Society were keen to buy a house to show my dad's huge arms and armour collection along with many antiques. But we hadn't bargained with the house being haunted! My mum was often woken up by the sight of a little girl ‘floating’ over the bed. She said the girl was wearing a long nightdress and mop cap and seemed to be stretching her arms out to my mum as if she was asking for help. She floated all around the bed scaring my mum half to death. Frantically she tried to wake my dad while the ghoulish girl reached out - by the time my dad was awake the child was fading away and he missed it all! If you haven’t already worked it out, long nighties and mop caps were the ‘go to’ fashion trend back in the Victorian days! She saw her a few times on the staircase too just standing in the corridor before fading away. This made me terrified to go upstairs to bed on my own and once inside my room I would lock the doors and burrow down under the blankets so I wouldn't see or hear anything - quite forgetting that ghosts can walk through walls! The haunted bedroom corridor When I got older it was great to have parties in the attics as we could play our rock music really loud and no-one would hear it! My dad had made the west wing of the house (the old Victorian nurseries) into an apartment which we rented out and it was here that my 18th birthday was celebrated as we had become friends with the people that lived there. As everyone had heard about the ghost stories at the Hall, we made an ouija board and tried to contact the spirits. Most people had had a few spirits of a different kind by then and we sat around the table watching the glass move aroun...
Viv Wilson | 24th September 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the new Downton Abbey film out this month I thought I would do a comparison of the two family homes, Downton and Hoar Cross Hall, the latter being my old family home for those of you who are new to these blogs. Although Downton Abbey is fictional, the house on which it is based is not, it being Highclere Castle in Hampshire which was built in 1679 and is owned by the Earl of Carnarvon. Hoar Cross Hall was the original home of the Meynell Ingram family who first came from Leicestershire and was built in 1863. Hugo Meynell of Quorndon was the High Sheriff of Staffordshire and Member of Parliament for Lichfield and the family owned considerable property in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Derbyshire. He bought the Hoar Cross estate in 1793 and built a hunting lodge there known as Old Hall and founded the Meynell Hunt. It seemed the family lived here for many years until Hugo’s grandson, also Hugo, got married in 1863 and decided to build the present Hall for him and his wife, Emily Charlotte. The house took nine years to build and was eventually finished in 1871. Hugo and Emily had already moved in, but their new life together was soon to be cut short by a tragic accident. Fourteen months earlier at Birch Wood on their estate Hugo had a horse riding accident and had been bed-ridden ever since – he died in May of that year. They had no children and Emily built The Church of the Holy Angels in the grounds of the hall in memory of her husband. This is the church that I got married in over a hundred years later. On Hugo’s death Emily inherited the family's many large estates and they say she was a double millionairess – which in those days was a huge amount of money! Emily Charlotte The original site of Highclere Castle was recorded in the Doomsday Book of 1086 when an Anglo-Saxon king granted the estate to the Bishops of Winchester and in the 14th century a palace was built there by the Bishop. However, it was confiscated during the Reformation by Henry VIII. Later it was rebuilt in 1679 by Sir Robert Sawyer, Attorney-General to Charles II and looks to have stayed in his family ever since. The Downton Abbey story seems to be very similar to the Highclere Castle one actually! In the early part of the 20th century Downton is owned by the Earl of Grantham who marries an American heiress to save the family home. At about the same time Highclere was owned by the Earl of Carnarvon who also married the heiress to the Rothschild fortune and received a very large dowry. (In case you're wondering, a dowry is a sum of money or property given by the bride's family to the groom's family upon their marriage, and has historically been practiced by various cultures over the years). During the First World War, Highclere opened the house up as a hospital with the then Lady Carnarvon assisting as a nurse. In the Downton story Lord Grantham opens up the house to be used as a hospital for injured officers and some of the family assist in nursing them back to health. The Meynell family at Hoar Cross Hall also offered their home to be used as a hospital but were told that it was unsuitable owing to its isolation and inaccessibility in the country. However, Lady Mary Meynell opened her London home in Lennox Gardens to be used as a Military Hospital for officers during the First World War. Indeed, her own son, Francis, stayed there for a while recovering from severe wounds to the back in 1917, something which he never really recovered from resulting in his early death in 1941 at the age of 52. Hoar Cross Hall was too remote Although these aristocratic families seemed to live very charmed lives (and a lot of them did!) they also ran their estates to provide food and farm the land. This also gave local people much needed employment although being a domestic servant in those days could be quite hard with long hours and not much down time. However, they were families like the rest of us with the...
Viv Wilson | 19th August 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
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. This was quite common in those days as the estate supported the house with food etc and also gave employment to local people. 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 1970s 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 fetes there in the summer and we would sometimes go round to play with the children, as they had lots of climbing frames and slides. The private road also joined up to our woods near the driveway and this is the road I walked along every day, up to the main road, to catch the bus to school in nearby Uttoxeter. It was about half a mile but I hated walking through the woods, especially in the winter when the mornings were darker. One day, whilst walking round Uttoxeter at lunchtime, I saw a newspaper board telling everyone about a streaker that had run through the town the day before – what was this? A man running naked for the fun of it? On further investigation I found that this was the latest craze from America – but why anyone would want to do it in our cold country was beyond me! Streaking comes to Britain! I was not an academic by any means and hated my schooldays. I was constantly being teased for being too thin, too quiet or for living in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) so when it was time for 'skools out for summer' I was more than ready to leave! By now the Mediaeval Banquets, which my parents ran in the house, were proving a huge success and as package holidays were becoming very popular my parents decided to book a two week holiday abroad. My dad had always wanted to go to Greece to see all the temples but was a bit disappointed when he got there. Most of the temples were in ruins and once you’ve seen one ruin you’ve pretty much seen them all! The Acropolis was quite impressive though. I loved being abroad – the weather was so hot and the sea was always warm. Cold climes don’t suit me as I feel the cold so much so I would always be outdoors as soon as the sun was out - most of my summer holidays were spent in the gardens weeding whilst listening to Radio 1 on my little portable radio, although usually I dreaded the school holidays as it meant I was stuck at home for six weeks, rarely seeing my friends. Ticket to the bullfight Because of the success of the banquets it meant we could go abroad every year and other holidays included trips to Majorca, Portugal and Spain. I remember in Majorca going on a lovely train ride through orange groves and gardens to the Caves of Drach – the scenery was stunning with mountains watching over us from their great height. In Portugal we went to see a bull fight which I found both thrilling and frightening all at once. The matadors came so close to the bull but I hated that they had to stab them first to make them angry – it seemed so cruel. In Spain we went to a club one night to see some flamenco dancing and they pulled me up onto the stage to join in which was fun, if unexpected! We also went on a day trip to Morocco and walked around the Kasbah, which was the local market (see header picture). I remember hoards of children following us around trying to sell us things. My dad noticed one of the stallholders smiling at me and said for a joke “You can have her for two camels”. Well, the man never left our side after that – he took it very seriously and followed us all round the market trying to n...
Viv Wilson | 25th June 2025 | Growing Up In a Stately Home
With the summer season well and truly upon us and Wimbledon almost here, I thought a blog about tennis might be in order! The game of tennis first started in the Mediaeval days and involved hitting a ball with a bare hand and later with a glove. By the 16th century the glove had become a racquet and the game had moved to an enclosed playing area and the rules had stabilized. This was known as ‘real tennis’. The word tennis came into use in English in the mid-14th century from French, via the Anglo-Norman term Tenez, which can be translated as 'hold', 'receive' or 'take', a call from the server to his opponent indicating that he is about to serve. It seems that royalty and the upper classes played tennis a lot, with Henry VIII making the biggest impact as a young monarch, playing the game with gusto at Hampton Court! However, the game was actually invented in Birmingham (England) and is the direct descendant of what is now denoted ‘real tennis’ or ‘royal tennis’ and continues to be played today with more complex rules. Many original courts still remain at Oxford, Cambridge, Falkland Palace in Fife, Scotland and Hampton Court Palace. Wimbledon itself is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and arguably the most famous. Since the first tournament 148 years ago in 1877, The Championships have been hosted by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, London and take place over two weeks in late June – early July. Tennis became popular because of the waning interest in croquet and the Club decided to organise a tennis tournament to pay for the repair of its pony roller, used to maintain the lawns. It must have been popular as its still going strong! Although you may enjoy the tennis I think people love the strawberries and cream too that are famously served there! Or you may like a tour around the museum - check it out here Wimbledon Many stately homes would have had tennis courts including Hoar Cross Hall. However, when we moved there in the 1970s you couldn’t see them at all as the grass had grown long and wild and it looked liked a wilderness. In fact, we didn’t even know that there were tennis courts there until Mrs Meynell, the previous owner, told us! Mowing the old tennis courts in 1984 Of course, back in the 1930s the younger members of the Meynell family often played on them during their weekend house parties (see header picture). One young man who became a close friend of the Meynell family made regular visits to Hoar Cross and recalled the happy times he spent there as “.....the last days of the traditional English country house with weekend parties full of gracious living and good company.” The people who came to the parties were usually young aristocrats such as Lady Diana Legge and her sister Lady Elisabeth Bassett, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother from 1959 – 1993, when she retired at the age of 85! (see below) Lady Elizabeth (in the dark dress) Am-dram at a weekend house party on the tennis courts! I remember Mrs Meynell recalling a funny story about when they moved out of the Hall to a smaller house in the neighbouring village. Apparently her husband had come home one day to tell her he’d bought the house (without even consulting her) and the reason was that it had hard tennis courts, 'so much better than our grass ones' he told her! How different things were in those days – however, the servants were very pleased about the move as it meant less rooms to clean! And also less mowing now that they had hard courts! Don't miss next month's blog: 'Summer Balls and Garden Parties' If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, please click here and feel free to share with your friends.Follow me on a personal tour of my childhood home on YouTube. Click here to view and subscribe to my channel.OUT NOW!! 'My Dad Bought a Mansion' book is available on Amazon....
I have been saying for some time now that my book is about to hit the Amazon market -well, the time has finally come and
'My Dad Bought a Mansion' is out now for all to see and buy!
A compilation of all my blogs plus a few spicy extras! Along with over 100 original photos’ including some historical pics over 100 years old.
Hope you take the time to check it out and give me some feedback, and if you buy it, then a big 'Thank-you' from me - Enjoy!