Herry's Archives

  Patrick Lawford and John Spreadbury in the early 90's John Spreadbury, came to Stocks aged 19 when we first arrived there, and became headman on the retirement of Reg Whitear in the 1960s and remained on the farm while it expanded with the purchase of Harvestgate Farm from the Biles's in the 60's and Little Stocks Farm from the Henderson's in the 70's, until Patrick Lawford retired from the day to day running of the farm when he reached 80, and John also retired, though he continued to do jobs on the farm, such a spraying for Stephen Horn who was contracted to look after the farm from his own at Bushey Down. John had been gifted Little Stocks Farm in Meonstoke in the 80's, so that he could build houses for himself and his family - his wife Peggy, and children Andrew, Rita and Shaun. John lives there still, but very sadly his son Andrew, who also worked on the farm from an early age, died in May 2021, and is buried in Meonstoke Churchyard. This photo, in a silv...

Draft                                                   Herry with the boys from Zadar including Peter Kragic   Herry and with Dusko Kacina, Peter Kragic and Herry with Jenny Kacic and the children including Zdravko  Herry, Justin More, Harry and Jenny Kacic at their house in Dingac  Although my first trip abroad on business was to Genoa in 1969, to help investigate a number of cases of condensation damage to grain shipments from Argentina, I was next asked to accompany Frank Ledwith to Split for a lecture he was giving on General Average to a group of shipowners and local insurers. The visit showed me the Yugoslavs at their hospitable best, ending long meals of delicious local fish (which often had different names in each port on the coast but was usually dorade) and local wine (Postup or Dingac) with philosophising and singing. One of their favour...

  Francis Frost 1945 - 2022 Francis in Stockbridge 2021 [Part of a letter to Lies Frost, July 2022] I always thought that I had first met Francis when we joined Millers together in October 1967, but in fact we discovered much later that we had each spent a few early months of 1967 living at Mrs Knott’s boarding house in Ashburn Gardens mugging for our bar exams and that we most probably met there at breakfast, although it wasn’t a place at which one fraternised and I don’t think we would have even known each other's names. As you know, he spent his first years at Millers in Frank Ledwith's training room, which was permanently in state of barely- suppressed uproar, as we played practical jokes on each other and particularly on the luckless Nigel Lindrea, who was a year senior to us.   During that time, and for some years afterwards, we would be invited - with you and in my case with Prue - to Frank Ledwith’s excruciating moral-reamament plays, or for ‘drinks’ at his flat w...