Blogetty Blog 7: Golden Years

My father’s 21^st birthday party on 19^th August 1908 was a splendid occasion at Warnham Court, the estate in Sussex owned by my grandfather, most notable for the astounding array of ladies’ hats. Friends and relations assembled from far and wide to celebrate; and very likely to take advantage of the gathering of male family members to play cricket.

Cricket was a consuming occupation of the Lucas family in Edwardian days. They had their own field on a level section of the park which must have included a pavilion for spectators. They often played as a team composed almost entirely of family members. Many of them,  including my grandfather, three great uncles, my uncle Joe, my father Geoff,  were members of MCC – the Marylebone Cricket Club, the owner of Lords’s Cricket Ground and formerly the governing body of cricket –   and played at County standard. Frederick, my grandfather’s nephew, played for England and was on his way to the coming Test series against arch-rival Australia when he unfortunately caught cholera in India and died aged 27.

My father’s best friend Cyril Rattigan, my namesake and uncle through my mother’s family, was a frequent visitor to Warnham Court and a greatly valued honorary member of the Lucas X1 team. As the person responsible for introducing my parents “Cyril Rat” was important to my family in more ways than one.

In those golden days Britain’s leisured class with country houses large enough to accommodate 22 players and a nearby playing field had the ability to host a cricket week. They hosted traveling Club teams, each with its distinguishing many-colored striped blazer  – outclassing Joseph’s famous coat – silk scarves and ties, caps and flat straw ‘boaters’ decorated with  club ribbon around the crown. My father belonged to the Eton Ramblers and Butterflies, as well as MCC, and would sport an article of each over his white flannels to display his multiple allegiances.

Click here to watch original video footage of the Lucas XI cricket team playing at Warnham Court.

This extraordinarily privileged social system barely managed to survive World War I. As a child I remember just one occasion when the house was invaded by a horde of young men dressed in white flannel who tramped up and down the staircase to the bedroom floor above ours, but like much else – so far at least as my family were concerned – such parties vanished in the shade of WW2. There is no trace of the Warnham Court field left today though the village has one originally donated by my family.

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To general relief I expect, we are fast approaching the end of my childhood recollections, so I shall be able to spread my subjects more widely.  I want to mention one further memory of uncertain date when I was old enough to ride my Fairycycle down the long Warnham Court front drive to the Gatehouse.

It was a large structure overarching the roadway, divided into two residences, one on each side, for the gatekeepers whose wives and older children shared the gate-keeping duties while their men were employed in other estate occupations. There was a choice of three roads on exit: straight ahead for Horsham town, left for Dorking on the main road to London, and right onto ‘Robin Hood’s Lane” which wound around the edge of the deer park as a back route to Warnham village.

On fine summer days this junction was regularly occupied by the Wall’s Ice Cream Man. “Stop Me and Buy One!” proclaimed the painted the sides of the blue and white cold box on the front of his sturdy tricycle.  Well there was no need to stop him because he was stopped already, conveniently located for patronage. His unusual vehicle was bulky and must have been hard to pedal especially up the steep hill back to Horsham past the Mill Pond.

His wares included delicious choc-bars and cheaper water-ice ‘sno-frutes’ on sticks. My favorite flavor was lime if my pocket-money did not extend to the more expensive choc-bar: an important matter of mere pennies, sound instruction in the value of money no doubt.

Going outside the gates and stepping into the world beyond was different from my seaside and Scottish holiday experiences, for the Gatehouse defined the limit of the safe and secure ‘bubble of home’ which then seemed to me so solid and enduring. Every one of us, of course, faces the moment when we meet the unpredictable world waiting beyond our familiar first experiences.

Going to School was the next intimation that life in the nursery cocoon was irrevocably changing. My first academy was a kindergarten attached to a girls’ school in Horsham called Parkfield. My sole recollection is that the student body was divided in two – for competitive purposes entirely meaningless to me – of Pioneers who wore blue ties and Pilgrims who wore green ties. My cousins Joan and Priscilla were Pioneers. I was designated a Pilgrim. I was sharply disappointed – at age 4? – by the separation and may well have cried in frustration. Priscilla and I attended half a day, Joan –age 6 – a full one. We were all driven to and fro by Eric Linfield, the family’s under-chauffeur.

I have no idea whether I learned anything from the curriculum because thanks to my governesses I could already read and write and do elementary sums. As occurred again later on, I expect I was idly content to drift along and occupy my mind with my own thoughts. I have done that all my life without making much sense of them. Purpose-seeking teleologists have this problem in dealing with a random universe which cares nothing for human concern with purpose, or explanation of what life is fundamentally all about.

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