Herry's Archives

Martin's summer lunch, held more or less continuously since 1974. Left to right, standing: Di Gibb, Geoff Spawton, Chris Gibb, Annie May (Spawton), Will Martin, Anthony Provest, Julian Pearson , Sandra Wake, Nick Duke, Herry, Mike Lawford, Peter Cartwright, Pauline Provest, Sheila Proffit, Jane Lovell, Ian Hay, Richard Lovell, Erica Hay, Val Pile. Front row: Anna-Maria Pearson, Charlie Madge, Terry Porter, Wendy Cartwright, Ayako, Penny Lawford, Sally Wilson-Young, Prue, Belinda Martin Click the heading for more photos from this lunch. Click here for more photos from the Sydney Albums Bernard and Grittie Allez Philippe and Carol Allez Gerard and Vigdis Allez Julian and Quenelda Avery Sam and Claudia Bartowsik Tim and Sally Boycott Nigel and Susannah Bateman Tomo and Vedrana Badurina Bill and Nik Birch Reynardson Carol and Barry Bowhill Frances Duke Patrick and Angela Bruce-Gardyne Janie Christmas Peter and Penny Crittle Richard Courtauld Julie Courtauld Mic...

Patrick played regularly for Colin Balfour 's Wintershill eleven in their annual match against Durley. Colin is sitting in the middle at the front and Patrick, in an excerable hat, over his right shoulder next to Jonathan Findlay. Annette is standing at the back, third from the right (in dark glasses). The others are as follows: Back row (l to r) John Colvin (Prue's brother), Marie-Therese Hill, Minnie Hughes-Onslow, Bruce Spicer, Peter Lyndon Skeggs, Jenni Napier, Annette Lawford, Gill Winterton, Robbie Walford. Middle row - Fergus Hughes-Onslow, Patrick Lawford, Jonathan Findlay, David Winterton. Front row - Jamie, Harry Joynt, Colin Balfour, James Hill, Robin Napier. These were some of my parents' friends: Lady Liz and Capt Sir Edward (Teddy) Archdale Cmdr Colin and Prue Balfour Nigel and Susannah Bateman Derek and Ann Bazalgette Pat Bertlin Michael and Patricia Blake Capt. Peter Bence-Trower Bill and Nik Birch Reynardson Paddy & Ja...

Litchfield Manor during the war. Herry's bedroom was on the near corner. The window was broken by a bomb just after he was born. Having completed his pupilage with Percy Bragg at Headbourne Worthy , Patrick was offered the Litchfield Estate by the then owner, Carey Druce (who lived in Switzerland as well as at The Mount, Whitchurch). He came there in 1938 and married Catherine Stephenson in 1940. She died in December 1941. Patrick married Annette Luxmoore nee Pugh (who was living with her mother, Lady Herbert and step-father, Sir Alfred Herbert, at the neighbouring estate of Dunley ) in 1944. Herry was born at Litchfield Manor in 1945 and christened at Litchfield Church that September. Herry's Christening at Litchfield September 1945. Annette (holding Herry), Patrick, Jane Lawford (Patrick's mother), Percy Bragg, Constance Travers (Herry's godmother), Gill Luxmoore  It was at Litchfield that Patrick became a fine horseman and shot. Charles Carey Druce g...

Bottom right: Elsa and her mother by the fire, both characteristically smoking. In the other photos - Ruth's stepdaughter Sara [from Ruth's photo album 1946] In 1963, between leaving school and going to university , Herry spent the winter in Engleberg where an old friend of the Pugh's, Frau Prof Hauthal (known as Tante Erica) and her daughter Elsa had a chalet called 'Haldengutli'. Members of the family who loved skiiing - particularly the Pughs and the Cassels (Francie - Sir Francis- and later his son Tim) - had spent the winter there since the 1930s. Griffith Pugh , who later played a crucial role in supporting Hilary and Tenzing on their successful conquest of Everest in 1953, learned to become an Olympic-level skiier there, ignoring his father's entreaties to return home to his medical studies. As Elsa and her mother got older, looking after up to 16 guests every day proved too much for them and one of the family or close friends used to send thei...

Notes for the Address at the Funeral of Patrick Lawford in Meonstoke Church in February 2002 Patrick Lawford was born on 23rd November 1914, the youngest of five children, to Capt Vincent Lawford (CMG, DSO, RN) and Jane Agnes nee Mapplebeck at Chorleywood in Hertfordshire. The Lawford family were mostly bankers and solicitors but his brothers Adrian and Denys followed their father into the Navy, while his other brother Valentine had a distinguished career in the diplomatic service and then became a noted author, art connoisseur and artist in New York. His sister Sylvia Findlater, who is 92, survives them all. It was doubtless the Navy’s loss but Patrick had one term at Dartmouth before deciding to go farming after he left Repton - where he was an outstanding long-distance runner - and was taken on as a pupil by Percy Bragg at Headbourne Worthy , just outside Winchester in Hampshire. There he spent a marvellous three years before being recommended to Carey Druce...

Fuff , Annette with Piers , Herry in the wheelbarrow at Danegate Summer 1949 . Photo by Horst Following Patrick's pupillage at Headbourne Worthy and his first management job at Litchfield , the family moved to Eridge in 1946 - first to Crown House and then to Danegate on the Marquess of Abergavenny's estate. Danegate was an imposing crenellated house overlooking Eridge Park and we had a most happy time there as it was a perfect place for children. Herry remembers to this day the taste of the Michaelmas daisies he tried to eat in the border and his mother remembers finding him half-way up a huge ladder trying to see the moon better! He also used to ride his tricycle (and later an orange tractor) in the house's wide corridors. Later, having learned to ride a bicycle, he used to bike down the long drive to play with the little girl who lived in the lodge. Piers was born there in 1947 and Fuff started school at St Ronan's the same year. The ...

Pen-y-Fan Herry had enjoyed the corps at Winchester and shortly after joining Millers , he joined the TA - 2.1 SAS which was then based at the Duke of York's Barracks on the King's Road. He trained at the barracks on Tuesday evenings and at weekends on 'the Fan' (Pen-y-Fan') in the Brecon Beacons and on the moors outside Newcastle. Training was pretty tough, and he remembers having to force a fellow recruit down off 'the Fan' while he wanted to lie down in the snow as he could go no further. And fording deep rivers in the dark with a full 'bergen' on his back and a rife was pretty nerve-wracking as falling would have meant a struggle to survive. We even had to cross the top of one the Elan Valley dams with the water flowing over our boots..... Elan Valley dam He took the selection course in 1970 and was  'Best Recruit'  in his year. Subsequently he went on a number of training courses, including taking parts of the SERE training course ...

Following St Ronan's , Herry went to Winchester from 1958 until 1964, in Phil's (Sergeant's) where Francis King was his housemaster. Although his father Patrick had been at Repton, his mother Annette's brothers were all at Winchester as was her father, and she had been at  St Swithun's . Although a distant relation, Herry didn't get on with King, partly because of his (Herry's) eclectic reading tastes (Maupassant, Zola, Iris Murdoch) of which King (a devout man) did not approve. King also ran an appalling kitchen, the taste of some foods remaining with Herry to this day.... Herry's mother probably contributed inadvertently to the reading problem by maintaining an account for him at Harringtons in Parchment St and encouraging him to buy any books he liked - a practice which he later continued with his own children. She also supplemented his food rations by maintaining an account at Cullen's, a rather smart grocers in Jewry St, not far from Bar...

Herry went to St Ronan's from 1953 until 1958. Fuff (known there as 'Lux') preceded him and Piers (known then as 'Scurry'), came in 1955. St Ronan's was a marvellously happy prep school in huge grounds outside Hawkhurst. Founded in 1883 in Worthing, it moved in 1946 to Tongswood House, which had been owned by the Gunther family (the makers of Oxo cubes; hence the oxo motif in the stonework). It was owned and run by WB 'Dick' Harris who was succeeded in 1957 by the Vassar-Smiths (Sir Richard and Lady Dawn) , who were friends of his parents, Sir Richard having been at Lancing with Fuff's father Arthur Luxmoore . Dick Harris, the retiring headmaster, used to amuse the boys by allowing them to put sweet papers in his enormously bushy eyebrows. In addition to huge playing fields, the school had a magnificent wood - 'Tongswood' - which contained a stream where we constructed clay water-slides and built 'hides', a sinister and enor...

The UK Club's 125th Anniversary Dinner at the Guildhall in January 1995. Click the photo for a surprisingly good enlargement, with most people clearly identifiable. Herry is at a table 7 o'clock from the centre Thomas R Miller & Son was founded by Thomas Robson Miller, a third generation German immigrant from Hanover whose family name was originally Reichmuller. TR Miller was born in Newcastle and became mayor of Morpeth and a shipowner as well as secretary to the North of England Hull Club before being invited down to London to run the UK P&I Club by the then managers, Lamplough & Co. In 1885 he took over their business and by the 1890's the UK Club was the largest such institution in the world. There is an excellent description of the early days of the firm and a photo of Thomas R Miller in 'Mutuality' - The Story of the UK P&I Club by Peter Young - on the internet. After graduating in 1967 Herry started work for Thomas Miller at the su...

Herry and Prue Watson married on 18th December 1971 at St Peter's, Watson's Bay, Sydney, with the reception held at Somerset , Prue's home in Vaucluse. Prue was given away by her father, Mel. Nick Duke was my best man, and Peter Crittle (Prue's brother in law) gave the toast to the bridesmaids - a virtuoso speech which had the company in fits of laughter. Herry's parents came out from England for the wedding, taking the 'Galileo' from Genoa to Melbourne and then flying up. Others from England included Charlie and Lucie Skipwith , who were then running a restaurant in Melbourne, and Frances Duke (then married to Arthur Johnson) . The honeymoon was spent at Mel's house on the beach at Surfers' Paradise (long ago sold for development) and later at Castaway Island, Fiji and Hawaii (where Herry left his new Guccis outside their room to be cleaned (as was common in Europe) and they naturally disappeared.... Click the heading for more photos from t...

Wadwick was part of the Dunley Estate which Sir Alfred Herbert , my step-grandfather, owned near Whitchurch. Although I had no knowledge of it, being only one, the family lived there for a few months in 1946 between Litchfield Manor and Danegate . Some photos from that time can be seen here After Sir Alfred died in 1957 ‘ Granny’ (Lady Herbert , nee Nina Arundel, later Pugh) moved Dunley Manor to Wadwick House, which had become the 'dower house". The rest of the Dunley Estate was sold to Sir Brian Mountain of Eagle Star. She took with her as her housekeeper, the strict Scotswoman from Dunley, Mackenzie, and some other servants, but I best remember the two cheerful Sicilian nurses, Maria and Concita, who looked after her for many years when she was bedridden by a stroke. She was a Christian Scientist and declined to see doctors. My mother Annette used to drive to see her from Stocks every week, and I used to go along too and play in the garden or around the ho...

Sadly I don't have many photos of us from the early days , but this one has some interesting features, particularly the girls - Penny Hitchcock, Frances Duke and Sally Farmiloe . The boys are 'the three musketeers' - Herry, Charlie Skipwith and Nick Duke . We were going to a party at an hotel in Southampton on 6th August 1966. Here we were actually dressed as musteteers at Sally Farmiloe's 18th - Herry, can't recall and Nick Duke Nick Duke's Stag party at Cobbetts 11th April 1974 Nick Duke, Charlie Skipwith, Andrew Ward, Ian Hay, Mike Lawford and Will Martin. Herry took the photo in Botley Square sometime after midnight This photo was taken at Naomi Skipwith's wedding in June 1999 when the three musketeers and at least one of the original girls - Frances - were together again. Frances was the 'original cause' of my meeting Prue, leading to our wedding and subsequent Australian history. Return to Early Social Life Return to Archive Inde...

My parents, brothers and friends having tea in the bottom of the swimming pool at Stocks in October 1967 Left to right: Tim Hancock, Belinda Martin, Cilla Clempson, Tim's sister Deidre, Annette (with Justin in her arms), Mike Lawford (probably - back to the camera), Annie Skipwith, Patrick, Belinda Luxmoore (kneeling), Jess (in chair), Nick Duke, Ricky Skipwith, Fuff (or is it Piers?) Charlie Skipwith was in Bordeaux at that time, otherwise he would certainly have been there... I guess I was the photographer even then Click on the link below to hear what we were listening to in those far-off days

                 Chilworth Manor. The upper bay window is of the room he shared with Julian Avery Following Winchester , Herry went to Southampton University to read law. The professor of the relatively new law school was Prof Phillips whom his father Patrick had got to know when sitting on the Southampton Bench. It seemed a good idea; no exams to take to get in and only about 30 minutes from Stocks and Herry's childhood friends . The transition was made the more smooth when Herry was allocated to the universtity's newest hall, Chilworth Manor, which had been acquired from the Willis-Flemings and which was a splendid old house surrounded by enormous grounds. Herry spent his first two years at university there. In his second year he shared a room with Julian Avery - the upper room with the bay window in the photo..... Blue Hayes, outside Romsey In his final year, Herry took a cottage on the edge of the New Forest outside ...

Herry's christening at Litchfield on 26th Sept 1945. Annette, Patrick, Jane (Patrick's mother), Carey Druce, Granny (Lady Herbert) and Arthur Luxmoore's brother

Photo from Richard Johnson, whose mother, Winifred Morgan, worked at Dunley. The names of those in the photo are Pam, (Florence peeping out), Hilda, Winnie, Peggy, Molly & Mary Morgan on the lawn at Dunley Manor circa 1940 "My mother too lived at '3 Dunley Cottages', just like Jackie Sopp ! She has a photograph of her younger sisters sitting on the step outside. She does not recall Jackie but says a large number of evacuees were present over the WWII period. She does recall Nancy Seabrooke. The tap across the road which Jackie refers to was a well in my mother's time, and a deep one at that. She recalls a barn with a number of individual coal sheds with the well at the end. All of which are long gone. In the six cottages were: Bone/Fuller/Morgan/Randall/Vincent/Ted Munday. She recalls how Crouch (who had an Irish wife) would call on the parents complaining that the children had let off his gin traps in the woods. She recalls 'Mondon's old horse' and h...

"The following (in no particular order) are some of my mother's (Nancy Seabrooke's) reminiscences...... Piper was indeed a Chauffeur (but she said he was the 'under-chauffeur) who sometimes drove a pony and trap. Apparently, he was very friendly with my grandfather, Arthur Seabrooke, who was Estate Carpenter. Busby was the Chauffeur. Miss MacKenzie had been parlourmaid to an artist (Mother can't recall the name) who was well-known, in London circles. Then she had worked for Winston Churchill (no time period given here, so don't know whether it was before the war - presume so?). Her brother was a policeman in Edinburgh, and they originated from Sutherland, away up in the Highlands. Mother says, once Miss MacKenzie gave some bread (which was left-over,) to the dogs and Lady Herbert severely reprimanded her because she had fed them with bread bought up in Coventry, which cost 1/2d more than in Whitchurch! The gardener's name was Mr Sopp (honestly, no kn...