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Midnight Pool Parties #20

MIDNIGHT POOL PARTIES:      After leaving school I spent a year at Burton-on-Trent Technical College Studying to be a secretary but my year at college had come to an end - now to find a job! It didn’t take too long as there was plenty of employment around in those days and I was soon offered a position with a small engineering firm in Burton. As I didn’t drive there was Still the problem of me getting to work and dad managed to talk the residents of the apartments into taking me, as they were going to Burton every day as well, and it would save him coming out twice a day (no doubt he was thinking about the petrol he would save too!) Kev and the band were...

Midnight Pool Parties #21

After leaving school I spent a year at Burton-on-Trent Technical College Studying to be a secretary but my year at college had come to an end - now to find a job! It didn’t take too long as there was plenty of employment around in the seventies and I was soon offered a position with a small engineering firm in Burton. As I didn’t drive there was Still the problem of me getting to work and dad managed to talk the residents of our apartments into taking me, as they were going to Burton every day as well, and it would save him coming out twice a day (no doubt he was thinking about the petrol he would save too!) Kev, my boyfriend, and the band were getting a fe...

Bacon's 'Essay on Gardens' # 56

Francis Bacon was born in 1561 and was 1St Viscount St Alban. He wrote his Essay on Gardens in 1625, a year before his death of pneumonia. He was also Lord Chancellor of England under King James I and led the advancement of both natural philosophy and scientific method and his works remained influential even in the late Stages of the Scientific Revolution.  The essays he wrote between, mainly, 1612 and 1625 were about anything from love and marriage to superStitions to gardens and any subject in between! Bacon's genius as a phrase-maker appears to Great advantage in the later essays and the 'Oxford Dictionary of Quotations' includes no fewer than 91 quotations...

Midnight Pool Parties # 59

Following on with the summer theme my mind drifted back to those halcyon days of summer when we were all young and lively and hanging out with a large group of friends.  By now Kev and I had left college and were both working but weekends were for fun and parties! Kev and the band were also getting a few gigs around the area and after singing with them for a little while I gave it up and let a more professional singer take over – I needed to work on my confidence firSt!   We Still went to the local '76 Club' though to see live music – it was the Start of the punk era and we saw the Sex PiStols there when they were juSt Starting out – I have to say they...

Temple Newsam and the Meynells

TEMPLE NEWSAM AND THE MEYNELLS:     On 11th AuguSt 1863, Hugo Francis Meynell Ingram married the Hon. Emily Charlotte, daughter of Sir Charles Wood, Bart, afterwards 1St Viscount Halifax.  The Woods were an old gentry family, for many centuries respectable York merchants.  They were to turn grand upon the discovery of coal beneath their anceStral eStates.  This was the Great Barnsley field, with several hundred acres of Britain's deepeSt and fineSt coal.  Sir Charles Wood had a diStinguished political career and they owned family seats at Garrowby, Pocklington, near York and Hickleton, near DoncaSter.  They also owned a London house in Belgrave Square....

The country house in society #48

Country houses are to be found throughout the British Isles and are a peculiarly English phenomenon. Houses range from mediaeval manor houses to classical Palladian mansions, elegant Georgian residences to the Gothic buildings of the Victorian era. A Great many have survived for two main reasons: Britain has been spared much of the havoc of war and revolution affecting other countries. Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire   Wentworth Woodhouse (above) is one of the largeSt Stately homes in Europe and was visited by King George V and Queen Mary in 1912. It is now with the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation TruSt and is much bigger than this photo shows!   The...