Story Search Results

Calendar Girls and Front Covers #6

...ger and a bar – I’m sure a good time was had by all, if that’s what floats your boat! The Staffordshire Building Society also featured the Hall on one of their calendars – we were the January picture and it showed the driveway and entrance to the Hall covered in an inch of snow – very seasonal and pretty but as previously mentioned, very cold indoors and not good for our leaking roof! The next summer found us being photographed for The Staffordshire Magazine’s front cover  (see header photo).  It was for their Christmas edition so we had to pretend it was December and find some old Christmas cards to put around the shelves. They wanted us to pose...

Hysterical Productions #15

...HYSTERICAL PRODUCTIONS:    By the end of 1974 we had done about 40 banquets at Hoar Cross Hall and they were still going strong. Most of the original cast were still with us but we were on our second King now and also doing our own catering and bar, whereas when we first started, we had a catering firm in to do it all. Every weekend over 200 people came to sample our Noble Brose, Roast Lambe and Saracen’s Delight and sing along to ‘I’m Henry VIII’ whilst drinking beer, wine and mead. But it was a very adult environment for 15 year old girls to work in; a few of my school friends also worked at the banquets as wenches and we were constantly being chatte...

Race Day Parties #25

...ks at the bar, Kev asked how much they were and was told in no uncertain terms that if we were real VIPs, we would know that it was all free! My dad revelled in these events as there was always lots of free food and drink and he usually managed to help himself to one or two bottles of champagne which were squirrelled away in the car, “for when you get married Viv” he would tell me. He had a whole rack of them in his bedroom all ready for my wedding! To get to this event we had all squeezed ourselves into my dad’s Lotus Elite, which he had recently bought as a way of cheering himself up, and it did suit the occasion nicely! These racing events always attr...

Here Comes the Bride (Part 1) #32

...HERE COMES THE BRIDE (Part 1):   Now my dad was having to move out of the Hall we had decided to bring our wedding forward so that we could get married in the church in the grounds (the Church of the Holy Angels) and then have the reception afterwards in the Hall, which was after all our family home. The wedding preparations were going quite well and as we knew lots of musicians it wasn’t hard to find a local band and a DJ to do the disco. A friend of my dad’s offered to do the catering and the bar was set up with plenty of kegs from the local brewery in Burton on Trent. I had two bridesmaids and we all went to Birmingham one day to choose our dresses and...

See you in Court #31

...to make a barricade then used fire extinguishers and soda syphons to squirt water at each other until one side ‘won’. As you can imagine, the mess was horrendous; water was everywhere! Every week the cleaner resigned and they would have to find another one. What a place! A typical night at the Meynell!   But all this jollity didn’t put off the inevitable day in court. Birmingham Crown Court was where we all met to finally sort out this miserable mess that my parents had got themselves into. On the one side was my dad with his solicitor and barrister plus Kev and I for moral support. On the other side was my mum with her solicitor and barrister and...

Here Comes the Bride (Part 2) #33

...drank the bar dry. My dad brought down the promised bottles of champagne that he had been saving for all those years and put them on our table. After a while he noticed that everyone was happily drinking the cheaper pomagne, which we had bought for the toast, so he took all the bottles back upstairs to his room! We didn’t even get one for ourselves! Later on we had the speeches and, as I have said before, our best man was in the entertainment industry and was a professional performing magician. As he did his speech, he incorporated some of his tricks into the talk and guests were treated to bunches of flowers being pulled from his sleeve and strings of hankie...