Herry's Archives

This archive is a family and personal history. Outline Born Litchfield Manor 25th April 1945 Christened in Litchfield Church 9th September 1945 Moved to Crown House and then Danegate 1946 Piers born 9th May 1947 Moved to Stocks Farm, Meonstoke 1950 St Ronan's 1953-58 Winchester 1958-63 Engleberg winter 1963/4 Southampton 1964-67 Thomas Miller Oct 1967 10 Shouldham St 1967 First visit to Yugoslavia 1969 SAS Selection Course 1970 Married Prue in Sydney Dec 1971 First visit to India 1972 Moved into Harvestgate Farm December 1973 Radha 29th December 1973 Edward 2nd April 1976 First visit to China and Japan Jan 1978 Charles 11th April 1979 Partner Thomas Miller 1982 Divorced 1983 Ayako in London 1985 Kei born 12th January 1989 Harvestgate Farm sold 1993 Married Ayako April 1994 Moved to 24 Edna St 1994 Moved to 78 Wandle Road May 1998 Mother died 10th June 1998 Father died 10th February 2002 Radha married Neil June 2004 Edward married Marijke Oct 2005 Retired from Thomas Miller May 2006...

My parents Patrick and Annette stayed in and around Ramatuelle for nearly 40 years, visiting two or three times a year outside the harvest, planting or shooting seasons for about three or four months in total, as the dry warmth and swimming helped ease my mother's arthiritis. They built up a wide circle of friends who either lived there, such as Pol and Poppett (Pol), and others who visted regularly such as Patrick Heyworth, Felicity Hindson, Griff Kewley, Bridget Mill, Carolyn Maguiness, Jim & Sue Meyrick, Juliette Oram, George & Yvonne Robertson, Ursula Segwick and a number of Swiss, Belgian and French friends. They never bought a house there, preferring to rent, mostly from an American, Ruth Wise , or from other friends. They bathed and picniked almost every day at L'Escalet and in the evenings ate in the restaurants under the great ormeau (elm) tree which had been planted in Ramatuelle square by Sully in the 17th century, or in the neighbouring Saracen towns s...

, Headbourne Worthy Shoot 1936.  Patrick is kneeling at the front My father was a fine shot and kept a shooting book for more than 50 years. He began shooting with Percy Bragg at Headbourne Worthy , but it was at Litchfield that he made his mark, probably after Carey Druce had given him his prized pair of Holland & Holland 'Royals' . For example, his book records shooting over Litchfield and Dunley on four occasions in September 1943 alone (as well as shooting stag on Mull on 27th September) with our step-grandfather Sir Alfred Herbert (known to us as 'Step'), Col Kingsmill , Sir Geoffrey Watson, Sir Ralph Sperling, Maj Deane, Maj Phelps, Capt Cornwall, Dr Ironside and his own father, Capt VA Lawford . Later entries bear the names of Sir T Dunhill, Sir E Bell, Percy Bragg and Air Marshall Sir Arthur Barratt. On some days, the party (usually of eight guns) picked up more than 1000 birds (pheasant and partridge) as well as numerous other game. Sir Alfred...

Left to right: Charles, Edward, Prue, Radha, Neil, Kei, Herry and Ayako A photo of the family at Prue's house in Mosman at Christmas 2006 - but missing Marijke and the latest addition, Charlotte , who were snoozing downstairs Click here for photos of the bridge and here for the New Year's fireworks Return to Archive Index Return to The Family in Sydney Return to The Family at New Year 2008/9

Herry's Office Retirement Speech - a more personal affair than the many that had been made at the 13 parties around the world - and his last official appearance in Thomas Millers' offices One should never follow a Stephen James’s speech, as he is one of the masters of the art. And having had more than my fair share of speech making over the past two months, starting with a farewell party in Hong Kong in March, I have used up my entire miserable stock of jokes. And I can asssure you I’m not going to repeat the speech that I made at Trinity House in April, which was far too serious for this company. I shall miss so many things about Millers and so I thought I might just take you through a typical day here both to remind you and to fix in my memory what a remarkable place this is and how many remarkable people it contains. Some of you know I always come into the office fairly early and park my car downstairs. It slots into a space that was bequeathed to me more than 20 years ago ...

Retirement is a strange thing. You find yourself voluntarily walking away from friends you've worked with for many years - in my case nearly 40 - and a business and an industry that you love.  It's an industry that's full of interesting and intelligent people – a few of whom are here tonight – and lives on a daily diet of fascinating news and events. Like the proverbial butterfly in the Amazon, much of what happens around the world has its effect in time here in EC3.  People come and go of course, and a number of my friends have already retired, but surprisingly few people ever leave the industry that we're in, and for some reason most of us, despite a peripatetic lifestyle and more entertaining than may be good for us, remain pretty healthy.  That being said, I'm mindful of the example of Dawson Miller who retired as senior partner of Millers in December 1970 and died in January 1971! It's a truism, but our business is built on friendships and hard work....

Herry had his 50th birthday party at Stocks in June 1995. The party was catered by Charlie Skipwith and his family and he also supplied the marquees (actually scout tents!). Radha was over from Australia with her then boyfriend George. About sixty people came and Herry made a short speech. Click the heading for some more photos