Blogetty Blog 3: Of Silver Bands and the Cresta Run

The entrance hall in Warnham Court, my grandfather’s house in Sussex – where I lived as a child with my parents, Geoff and Aileen, and my younger brother Rupert, as well as my Uncle and Aunt and their children – was flanked on one side by the Dining Room, a spacious room with east and south windows affording wonderful views across the deer park; and on the other by the Library which overlooked the driveway and forecourt. Both rooms were strictly forbidden territory to children. I remember admission to the library only once, so a special occasion in itself, during the run-up to the Christmas celebrations when the entire family gathered with a few village notables in the dark on seating arranged facing out through the broad windows to watch the Horsham Recreation Silver Band perform a program of carols. Governesses and senior staff, such as Mr. Priston the butler and Mrs. Grenup the cook, were allowed to stand behind us and the ordinary and outside staff watched from the floor above. The band assembled within a ring of lanterns raised on poles and their instruments glittered and shone in the flickering light contriving an unforgettable, magical scene. After some preliminary shuffling of positions and riffling of scores the Bandmaster turned his back on the spectators, raised his baton and struck up his uniformed musicians.

At age four …? five …? I thought them quite wonderful. The carols were familiar because our governesses were required to play nursery piano and teach us to sing – though not unfortunately to play the upright – and also from Sunday services conducted by the Reverend Felix Farebrother in Warnham village Church. The performance was I am sure of very high quality (though I was not of course qualified to judge at the time) because the Horsham Band were famous in the County as winners of many Sussex competitions.

At the conclusion the performers were invited into the entrance Hall to ‘get warm’ and enjoy their well-earned reward of turkey sandwiches and hot rum punch. My father allowed me two or three delicious tiny sips of the latter, overcoming my mother’s shocked protest with some remark to the effect “He’s got to learn sooner or later.” I expect I slept deeply, prophetically as we shall see in due course, imagining myself playing a silver trombone.

The principal task of our governesses was teaching the 3’Rs, but the governesses themselves came and went. One unsuccessful incumbent was foolish enough to tell Rupert as she put him to bed that he was “her little Lamb of God” – to which he brilliantly riposted “So we must all be a family of sheep then.” The tale was too much for my father when he heard it and the poor woman received notice instantly. We hated her so we were delighted. In the end Monica Eardley-Wilmot arrived to be our tutor and friend and was adored by us both.

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Wikipedia tells me the English winters of 1927-1931 were exceptionally cold. 27-28 was the snowiest with a blizzard over the whole of southern England at Christmas resulting in 20 foot drifts on Salisbury plain. I was less than two years old at that time, so if I am correctly placing my memory, what I remember must be my very first recollection: it was thrilling enough to remember all my life. Father organized the gardeners (who had no work to do) to construct a sleigh run starting at the top of a hillock outside the garden door, across the lawn with the round pond, down two terraces, down the steeper terraces to race across the huge tennis lawn, up and over the deer fence – almost flying at this point – and downhill at least a quarter of a mile to the Lakewood in the park. It was a Cresta Run (which he had in fact ridden) without the curves and very fast when well frozen.

After numerous practices made sure of safety a small bundle – me, wrapped up in blanket and all sorts of wooly clothes – was put in his lap, strapped in, and securely enclosed between his knees with his arms holding me tight. Off we tore. Some of the terrace surges were stomach wrenching and the final deer fence leap mind-blowing but I was totally confident in my father’s assurance that it would be great fun. It was. I was wildly excited and loved every moment. Of course I remember it. How could I ever forget? Alas, it was a once in a lifetime experience, because after that first day the snow began to melt and the sleigh run became too dangerous to use before at last melting away. Où sont les neiges d’antan?

I have just located my mother’s album of photos and records from my birth onwards. The photos of course are the primitive quality produced by box cameras (Brownies were they called?); I can see I was unjust in Blogetty 2 by describing my nursery as a sort of yellow windowless Kafkan cell. In fact it had a very large window stretching ceiling to floor, a huge fireplace behind a giant wire firescreen, a comfortable chaise longue, the upright piano and rocking horse I remembered, a sizeable dining table covered with a white linen cloth, hanging shelves for china, a large stuffed toy dog looking up at a stuffed monkey sitting on the fireplace mantle, and two skilled arrangements of long-stalked white or yellow daisies like Shastas. It is cluttered, relaxed and comfortable. You can only trust memory so far, especially at long, long range!

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