Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    AU10/102/1/205
  • Title
    Typewritten letter
  • Date free text
    30 November 1971
  • Production date
    From: 1971 To: 1971
  • Scope and Content
    "Many thanks for the magazines, the December one arrived yesterday, and for the Beds. magazine (don't you want to keep these?) I was thinking only this morning that next year - 1972 - I shall have lived 25 years since I left Ampthill. The years have flown past. It will be 17 years next week since I arrived at the Castle. I have never been so long in one place in my life. And it looks as if I shall be here for the rest of my days. I have always liked the Castle and its immediate surroundings. Margate and Broadstairs and Thanet generally don't interest me ... but they are convenient places within walking distance - for me - and if I get too old to make the distance there is a 'bus service direct from the Castle to B'stairs - and also one back - every two hours. Actually I enjoy the walks over the cliffs. I have always been a good walker, and can do 10 miles if necessary without falling by the wayside. In fact, I am singularly fortunate in my health generally. Apart from vaccinations and inoculations prior to my voyages, I have had no occasion to see a doctor for many years. There was, of course, that nasty attack of 'flu two years ago when I was travelling up to Glasgow overnight to join the ship. I shall never forget that. When I arrived on board, I dropped into my bed and when I got out we had arrived in Barbados! I had intended spending Christmas and New Year cruising down the Nile from Cairo to Assuan. I have visited Cairo twice, and have always intended going further down the Nile. However, I have decided to put it off till next year sometime. So my present plans are to leave for Normandy on December 18th., crossing from Ramsgate to Dover on the hovercraft, and spend Christmas with my French relations there. This is one of the happiest places I visit - a charming old house in the country - delightful hosts - thick woods all round with delightful walks. They also have stables and horses ... last time I was there I did some riding. I wonder if I shall feel up to it again! I used to ride over the Dunstable Downs with Kenneth Akin when he was a police constable near Shefford: I remember we also rode once in Wrest Park. I rode in Richmond Park occasionally when I was there, but there has been no opportunity here. I don't know how long I shall stay at Argentan, but I have promised my cousin Marcel and his son Philippe that I will go down to Menton sometime. I think I told you they were both over here earlier this year. I took a Swan Tour of Stately Homes with Marcel: Philippe came here in July when I had another French lad here, also Swiss Willi (whom I later met in New York: he has gone there for a year's course in Law at Manhattan Uninversity). Marcel is one year younger than I am: he lost his wife 5 years ago: both her daughters are married (she was a widow when Marcel married her in 1940): so he is very much on his own. Of course, Philippe comes and goes from Monaco. On my way home I shall spend a few days in Paris. My old friend of Oxford days - Valentine Vinogradoff - has not been well lately, and wants to see me. He lives alone ... the friend he shared his flat with died two years ago. Did you see the play on TV about Rasputin? I was very interested, since Prince Yousupof, who shot Rasputin, was a friend of Vinogradoff. In fact, in paris in the 1920s I met him several times ... also his beautiful wife. There was a large group of Russian aristocrat exiles in Paris then. Valentine's parents had got enough money out of Russia to send him to Oxford! His mother used to take me to the services at the Russian Orthodox church: they had a marvellous choir which made many records. I shall be in the throes of decoration next week. My bedroom has been looking very shabby for a long time, so it is going to have a new paper and paint. Also a new carpet. I like to keep the place in first-rate condition and do a bit at a time. The bathroom and guestroom downstairs were done two years ago - also the kitchen. The hall and staircase don't look too bad at the moment: but it will be their turn next. I shall be glad to get this off my mind before I leave for France. There is not much castle news. We have several new residents ... but most of them have their main homes in London. No, we did not travel by Greyhound Coach in USA. We had special coaches laid on at the various places. It was a wonderfully organised trip. Our courier was a very experienced one, and he had done the trip many times, so he was well known at the airports and hotels, and there were no delays in getting to our rooms. Now they are reducing the air fares across the Atlantic, if and when I go again, I shall go on my own, not primarily to sightsee, but to visit my friends in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But when that will be I don't know. My neighbour Mrs.Olley has gone into a house on the North Foreland near by run by a nice woman as a guest house: she takes only 3 or 4 elderly ladies - each with private room and bathroom etc., large lounge with TV, facing the sea: quite a warm, comfortable place, rather expensive, but better than the Albion Hotel in Broadstairs where Mrs.O. first intended to go. Her successors in the flat next door live in London: an engineer about 40 - unmarried - and his old mother. they have been down twice, and I have just met them. But no furniture has arrived yet. Perhaps they will be coming in the spring. The other flat across the hall - where my friend Sydney Crouch lived - was bought by Fr.Fox, vicar of a church in Chelsea. He does not retire for 3 years yet, so will not be in permanent residence until then. He came in the summer for a few weeks. So this corner of the Castle is very quiet! My "cousin" Anne was here for two nights recently. Her husband - Dr George - was in London for conferences. She is fortunate to have a full time "nanny" for her baby, Tom: so she can pursue her very active social life as before. They are all going off to Geilo in Norway for ski-ing after Christmas. Tom must be one of the world's most travelled babies. He went to Italy with them last winter: to Portugal in the summer: and now he is going to Norway. And he will not be two until next June. Yes: I did see the Hillam family on TV on the programme you refer to. It was quite a surprise to see my name in front of me! It is of course a Yorkshire name: there is a village of Hillam near Selby, and Hillam Hall - a Tudor place much restored and renovated - was the home of my great grandparents, and probably of their forebears. But apparently my grandfather sold it when he inherited, and my father had only very vague memories of it. My father was an only child, so I had no Hillam aunts or uncles. So I have never met another Hillam! My only brother went down on the "Cressy" - he was a midshipman on his first appointment from Osborne (Dartmouth as it is now) - in 1914: he was 18. And I had no sisters. So the Hillams are not a prolific family - at any rate in my branch. But I am told there are one or two Hillams in the Bradford Telephone Directory: and there are two in the London Directory. And there are several Hillams around Rutlandshire. Apparently some Hilliams moved there centuries ago, and the name changed. Many years ago I met a professor of Leeds University who specialised in Yorkshire history, and he told me that the Hillam family went back to the 11th.century. They owned land - near Selby - and it was on this land that the Battle of Towton, the last battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought, and from that time the records of the Hillam family ceased, until the 18th.century when they turned up in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Apparently, the Hillams were wiped out in the battle. Anyway, this professor told me that the family - although never ennobled - were prominent landowners, and had a coat-of-arms which could be seen on a tomb in a church at Barwick-in-Elmet, near York. I remember my father and I went to look at it. In 1938, when I went on a visit to my parents in Yorkshire with Miss Di Eagles in her new Daimler, we drove over to look at Hillam Hall. Apparently a chemical manufacturer was living in it, and they were away. But the gardener let us look round. I thought it a very attractive place. So much for the Hillams! However, my mother ... what with her English relations and her French ones - my maternal grandfather was English and his wife French ... more than makes up for the scarcity of Hillams in my pedigree! So Andrew is on the move! Do explain to me exactly where 39 Church St. is. Do the Houfes live in the Old Gate - the Bartons' house? Or do they still occupy Avenue House? And has the Red House - St.Joseph's - changed hands? Did I ever tell you that the reason the Eagles called it St.Josephs was not because of any particular devotion to the saint, but because in Trinidad - where they were brought up - their country house was in a village of that name? When I visited Trinidad a few years ago, I made a special journey out by taxi to see it ... a really lovely place beside a river. I wondered which was their house ... if it still there! I know they would both have been glad to think I had been there! I came across the enclosed in COUNTRY LIFE recently. I thought Andrew - if he has not already seen it - might like to add it to his collection of Ampthilliana. As it is apparently for sale, wouldn't the Houfes be interested to acquire it? I expect Professor Richardson would have been Yours sincerely,"
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