Story Search Results

See you in Court #27

...original suits of armour that were swapped over We tried to keep out of the way as much as possible and stayed in Burton all week, where we worked, and came home at weekends where we would meet up with our friends and party in the apartments out of sight and sound of my parents. One morning we came home at 8am after being out all night and met my dad on the stairs as we were going to bed. He looked surprised and said “You’re up early today aren’t you?” to which we just nodded and carried on to our bedrooms!We consoled ourselves by spending a lot of time in the Meynell Arms, the local pub in the village. When we walked in of an evening, everyone was k...

Rags to Riches #63

...iture and suits of armour so we didn’t think anything of it.  My bedroom had a tiger skin rug on the floor and when a workman came to the house to check the electrics he wouldn’t go in my room – he was terrified of it!  Well, it did have the tiger’s head on it too with its mouth wide open displaying a large set of fangs!  In another room was a bearskin rug complete with head – we had no chance of getting the electrics fixed!  Because of all the space we had a table tennis table in a spare bedroom and a pinball machine in another room that my dad had bought at a sale.  This all seemed completely normal to us although in hindsight it was obviously a...

Ghouls Galore! #85

...ght of 20 suits of armour staring back at me through their visors, which was quite intimidating.  Oh by the way, if you’re wondering what a visor is, it's the front piece on the helmet of a suit of armour and has slits for the eyes to see out of.  To me it looked like they still had men inside them, looking at me!! My brother, Gavin and I had turned one of the attic rooms into a ‘den’ for us to hang out in.  We found an old table and chairs to take up there and I had an ancient typewriter which I used to type up stories on but as soon as the light started to fade we’d be out of there like a shot – once I was up there on my own and hadn’t noticed...

VENTURES NEW #10

...VENTURES NEW: We were now in our third year at the Hall and our lives were always busy keeping on top of the weeds and general upkeep of the house.  My dad expected us children to help as much as possible, which we hated, and much of our time was spent trying to hide from him to get out of doing the chores.  But sometimes we didn’t mind and we happily pulled an old trolley into the woods every now and then to collect wood for the fires and sometimes as a family we would spend a day clearing parts of the woods and grounds.  My mum had hired a lady from the village to help with the housework and we had also taken on a retired chap called Mr Hickman to do some...

Reburbishing our Mansion #4

...all those suits of armour looking at me so I would leave the lights on and let my mum switch them off later!  However, if I heard any strange noises in the night at least I could blame the new tenants now and not think about the attic ‘tenants’. Around the back and side of the house was a dry ‘moat’ as we called it.  Not full of water but there to allow light into the basement rooms.  A stone balustrade surrounded it and we loved to walk along the top of it even though it was a long drop if we’d fallen off!  These moats were full of soil and dead leaves which all needed to be cleared and the only way of accessing them was through one of the baseme...

Moving Out #32

...And so the day arrived a month or so after our wedding when my dad had to leave Hoar Cross Hall. Ten years after moving in he was now moving out, leaving his dream home for my mum to live in alone. Gavin moved with him and Piers was away at school most of the time. It was a mammoth task as he had so much stuff to move, especially from the basement. He had some heavy machinery too that he’d brought with him from his alabaster days, including a band saw which we used to saw up logs for the huge fireplaces in the main rooms. He had bought a house in nearby Burton-on-Trent which had some outbuildings for a workshop and there he moved to start afresh. He carried o...