Story Search Results

Skools out for Summer #16

...ived in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) My concentration was awful and I tended to daydream a lot, then I wouldn’t know what was going on in the lessons. As a child my maths was terrible so my mum got a private tutor in to help me out. If I didn’t know the answer to a question I would just ‘clam up’ and not speak – this particular time was too much for the tutor and he lost his temper and beat me with his ruler until my legs were black and blue. Needless to say, he was asked to leave and not come back – imagine what would happen to him nowadays! The teachers at school would often hit the kids over the head with books or rap their fi...

Rags to Riches #63

...a nearby stately home as a servant and fell for the son of the house.  My mum told me all about it years later – how they had fallen in love and were ‘walking out’ together even though it was frowned upon in those days for the upper classes to mix with the servants.  However, the son caught tuberculosis during the First World War and sadly died so my grandmother had to bring my dad up alone with help from her own parents, and without getting married (this is where my dad gets his double-barrel surname from).   When my dad was about 4 years old my grandmother married a sailor and they had a little girl, my Aunty Dorothy.  He told me how his grandparen...

Skools out for summer #13

...ving in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!) My concentration was awful, my memory not much better and I tended to daydream a lot, then I wouldn’t know what was going on in the lessons, which caused a lot of anxiety for me. I have since discovered that I have moderate ADHD which explains a lot about the way I am and definitely explains why I was so bad at school work. My mother even sent me for an IQ test which proved slightly above average; this left her baffled by my awful school reports which steadily grew worse each year. As a child my maths was also terrible so my mum got a private tutor in to help me out. If I didn’t know the answer to a q...

Skools out for summer! #14

...ving in a stately home. (This was from the teachers too!)   My concentration was awful and I tended to daydream a lot, then I wouldn’t know what was going on in the lessons.  As a child my maths was terrible so my mum got a private tutor in to help me out.  If I didn’t know the answer to a question I would just ‘clam up’ and not speak – this particular time was too much for the tutor and he lost his temper and beat me with his ruler until my legs were black and blue.  Needless to say, he was asked to leave and not come back – imagine what would happen to him nowadays!  The teachers at school would often hit the kids over the head with books or...

Victorian Society #93

...Victorian society was built around Queen Victoria’s reign, loosely between 1820-1914.  It was characterised by a class-based society and Britain being the most powerful empire in the world. Hoar Cross Hall was built in 1870, at the height of the Victorian era, and boasted up to seventy rooms, twenty-five of them for the servants, approximately fifteen for the kitchens and utility areas, leaving around thirty rooms for the family and their guests.  During this time a lot of people, particularly women, went into domestic service and the Housekeeper at the Hall earned about £50 a year, while a housemaid earned £15 a year – quite the difference!  By all ac...

Hickleton Hall and the Meynells #38

...ry of the stately home' If you would like to follow my story from the beginning, click here and please feel free to share with your friends.Follow me around my childhood home in my 'Tour of the Hall' – click here to view and subscribe to my YouTube channel. OUT NOW!!  'My Dad Bought a Mansion' book is available on Amazon.All my memoirs packed with lots of original photographs from the times. Go check it out here and let me know what you think!As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.     ...