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Ghostbusters #8

GHOSTBUSTERS! Later on in the year of 1973 a couple of professional ghost hunters asked to stay over one night to try and source the noises we heard in the attic.  They brought cases full of recording equipment and set it all up in one of the attic rooms.  Rather them than me I thought!  Then I had a brilliant idea and went off to tell Gavin all about it.  As mentioned in my first blog the attic and basement had a row of bells which the family used to summon the servants.  Before the men arrived we spent all day trying out all the bells to see which ones were which.  We found that one of the bell pulls in the Chase Dressing Room made one of the bells in th...

LET THE BANQUET COMMENCE! #11

LET THE BANQUETS COMMENCE!: It was the end of the summer season and rehearsals had started for the new venture of Mediaeval Banquets.  All the cast would come round to the house each week and my mum and one or two other ladies were busy making the skirts and blouses for the wenches, although the main costumes were bought.   My mum also made about 200 bibs which the guests were going to be wearing as eating five courses with a dagger can be quite messy!   We had a King, a Jester, a Fire-eater, a Halberdier, an organist and various wenches and serving ladies.  To launch the banquets my parents decided to hold a Press Reception about a month before and so we...

Like Father Like Sons #20

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SONS  As mentioned before my dad used to be a racing driver during the 1950s and ran his own team in the 1960s, travelling all over  Europe in his trusty Volkswagon van with his two mechanics and driver.   He didn’t have big sponsorship money behind him and most of it was done on a shoestring but he came back with lots of funny stories of their van breaking down or some rural ‘hotel’ that they had stayed in.  From each country that he visited he always brought me back a doll dressed in the traditional costume of that country.  There was quite a collection and I still have them; I used to put them on display in the Library when our...

RACE TRACK ‘AFTER PARTIES’ #27

RACE TRACK ‘AFTER PARTIES’ Because my dad used to be a racing driver he was often invited to parties and open days at various racing circuits.  He naturally knew lots of racing people and on this particular occasion he was invited to an Open Day at Donington Park.  Tom Wheatcroft, a local entrepreneur, had bought Donington Park in the 1970s as he owned the largest collection of Grand Prix cars in the world at that time.  In 1973 he opened a museum there to house them all and called it the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition.   Donington became the favoured home of the British round of the MotoGP motorcycling championships but he was really hoping to bring F...

Here comes the bride (Part 2)

HERE COMES THE BRIDE (Part 2)      And so our wedding day arrived bright and clear, all thoughts of solicitors, legals, fights and arrests behind us!   Myself and my bridesmaids went to get our hair done in the morning and Kev slapped a piece of steak on his jaw to bring the swelling down after the rather unfortunate fight at his stag do.  Fortunately, the bruise didn’t show up too much on the photos!  Gavin drove my dad’s Mercedes Benz car all the way down the drive and back up the road to the church – this was one of the drawbacks of having a church in your grounds; you don’t get to drive all through the town with everyone looking at you!  Neve...

Moving On #33

MOVING ON - And so we come to the end of my story.  My dad and Gavin moved out to live in Burton and my mum carried on running Mediaeval Banquets for a few more years.  She and the singer eventually got together much to my dad’s chagrin.  He spent a lot more time at the Hall helping my mum run the banquets; however, Piers didn’t really get on with him.  When he was about 14 years old my dad received a phone call from Piers – he had run away from home and was ringing from the phone box by the Meynell Arms car park!  He told my dad that he was hiding behind a bush and could he come and get him.  Of course, my dad was only too happy to fetch him and get...