Herry's Archives

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...

The Dunley Estate was originally part of the land belonging to the Earls of Portsmouth (the Wallop family) and was bought by my step-grandfather, Sir Alfred Herbert in 1917 and owned by him until his death in 1957. Sir Alfred married my grandmother, Nina Pugh (nee Arundel) in 1933. Her first husband (my grandfather) Lt-Col Archie Pugh , had died in 1923. My mother Annette lived at Dunley for a few years before she married Arthur Luxmoore , who was in the RAF, at St James the Less, Litchfield in 1935. She had Fairfax in July 1940. Sadly Arthur was shot down over Belgium in 1941 and my mother returned to live at Dunley with Fairfax (always known as Fuff) until she married my father, Patrick Lawford , who was then managing the neighbouring Litchfield Estate  for Charles Carey Druce, in 1944. It was at Dunley that 'Step' pursued his favourite recreations - shooting and fishing . He was a fine shot and had as friends and guests some of the best shots in the country. My ...

Moto Sugiura, the UK Club's Representative in Japan, with his family June 2010 I first became involved in Japan in 1972, when as a junior executive in Syndicate 1, I was called upon to look after visitors from our correspondents, Dodwell, Naga Kotsuru and Moto Sugiura. I took them, as was recommended, to a Japanese restaurant, Miyako, the first that I had ever been into in London. There I was introduced to sushi and the many other delights of Japanese cuisine. That was the start of a long love affair with Japan, which continues to this day. But it's not only built around friends and food, although both are important. Japan has also provided a vast amount of intellectual stimulation. I remember one of my first cases in the Syndicate was a Japanese tanker collision in 1974, just after the Arab Israeli war and the closure of the Suez Canal. The value of tankers soared overnight, and the owners of the "DAUPHINE" found that their ship was seriously under-insured...