Favourite Photos: Kei's Photos of China

I have been to China many times, but sadly have hardly done any sightseeing. My daughter Kei is making a trip there now, and her photos of the Yellow Mountains and Mount Huanshan in particular are so spectacular that I am reproducing them here.

Favourite Gardens - The Buildings, Broughton

Panorama of the grass garden

I have posted many photos from this amazing garden before, but on yesterday's NGS visit, it was looking more beautiful than ever. As some of you know, it has been the inspiration for my own grass and gravel garden, which sadly will never reach this level of perfection.

Old Swan House gravel garden in September

Click here for more photos from the Buildings
And here for more photos of Old Swan House in September

Horst at the V&A: Photographer of Style

Horst's Vogue covers

The V&A's superb exhibition of the works of the photographer Horst (1909 - 1999) runs from 6th September to 4th January 2015 is a fine account of his fascinating life and includes his most famous fashion images and portraits as well as some of the more informal shots of those in his gilded circle of friends. Horst lived with my uncle Valentine Lawford (known as Nicholas in the United States) from 1950 to Valentine's death in 1991 and was an occasional visitor at home and took a number of portraits of us (which fortunately did not surface at the exhibition).

Herry and Valentine at Danegate 1949. Photo by Horst

The exhibition website the curator, Susanna Brown, has created is full of wonderful material.

For some photos of the event, click here.  

Obituary: Ernie Stiles 1941 – 2014

Ernie at Harvestgate Cottage 2012

Ernest Stiles was born on 17^th May 1941 to Alfred and Edith Stiles at Hillcrest in Meonstoke, within sight of the Bucks Head.  He was the youngest of three boys and is survived by his brothers Alfie and Phil. Ernie went to Meonstoke School and then to Cowplain, and left school at 15 - as was common in those days - and started work for my father Patrick Lawford at Stocks Farm in October 1956. Ernie remained at Stocks all his working life until Patrick Lawford died in 2002 and the farm was sold – a total of 46 years.

Ernie met Sylvia Painter when he was sixteen and she 14 and they married in 1963, when he was 22. Sylvia came from a family of eight from West Meon. Together they had four children - Jane, Andrew, Phillippa and Richard, and there are three grandchildren, Chloe, Rebecca and Jessica. Richard still lives with Sylvia at home at Harvestgate while the others are in Bishops Waltham, the Isle of Wight and Devon – and all are of course here today. 

I would like to tell a little of the story of Ernie’s life from the time he joined Stocks. On Saturday 14^th October 1956 my father’s farm diary includes ‘Stiles Boy’ for the first time in the list of those working there – which in those days included Reg Whitear, then the head man, John Spreadbury, who had joined he farm in October 1950, the year we moved in, George Langridge (who my brother Piers and I called ‘long-nose’) and who later worked at Peake, Tyrell and ‘Shep’ Frampton, who had worked with my father at Litchfield. In those days there were seven or eight men working regularly on the farm, and there were three cottages in the village on the hill above the Buck’s Head, as well as two at ‘Blackhouse’ on the down under Old Winchester Hill - now an enormous pile called Stocks Down Farm and rented to Dr Morris, who has been so good with Ernie throughout his long illness (but I am getting ahead of myself).

In the those early days Ernie had a BSA motorbike, which Sylvia remembers cleaning, and they used to travel together to watch stock car and speedway racing in Southampton.  They married on 30^th November 1963, and the farm diary records the wedding - naturally on a Saturday – but by Monday Ernie was back at work and he spent the rest of the week ploughing. He and Sylvia moved into one of the Blackhouse cottages, which being high up under Old Winchester Hill had by far the best view in the valley - at least they used to until a later tenant, Stan Cutler, planted a Christmas tree in the front garden!  

Ernie’s life was bounded by the farms and villages around Stocks, and he never travelled very far.  To the north, there was the imposing bulk of Old Winchester Hill, which was taken over from us by the Nature Conservancy in 1954, and behind it Peake Farm and the McPhails where Ernie was sometimes sent to help. To the East was Parker's, and Tom Parker could often be seen up, riding the boundaries in his polished riding boots or in the lane in a pony and trap, and we all marveled at ‘the Cathedral’ – the huge drier and grain store which he built over the hill from us. To the south and west were the Horns - Bob and Stephen – and down Stocks Lane towards Meonstoke, the Biles’s at Harvestgate Farm, which we bought on Tom Biles’s retirement in 1970.  Ernie and Sylvia moved into Harvestgate Farmcottage and remained there to this day. Down Stocks Lane were the Minors and beyond them Bruce Horn at Shavards, the Martins in Exton and above Corhampton, the Rowsells. And Ernie worked with all of them, for as we shall see, he was also a great beater.

When Ernie first came to Stocks, he would have driven the old Fordson tractors without cabs and other comforts, possibly still started by hand, but he became a good ploughman, winning some ploughing matches. But my memories of Ernie then were more often on one of the Fordsons with a buck rake on the front, moving stuff around the yard or carting feed. Ernie had many years potato and sugar beet harvesting and used to take trailer-loads of sugar-beet to Droxford station where the invariably wet and muddy beet had to be loaded by hand onto the wagons using those strange blunt-ended forks. In later years, he ran the drier, working for hours in the heat and dust to clean and dry the grain and either bag it or move it into great piles from where it could be loaded onto the grain lorries. Ernie would work, as all the men did, late into the night and at weekends without complaint, until the harvest was in and safely stored away. But that heat and dust made his job particularly arduous.  

Ernie had the customary schooling, but I wonder if his teachers knew that he would turn out to be good as he was at mental arithmetic? Bruce Horn remembers the terrifying ‘Tiger’ Harris at Cowplain who would hurl the blackboard rubber at you and once cut open David Cook’s head. But Ernie was extremely quick; a skill learned perhaps not from school but from playing darts, which was his main pastime. He loved to play with friends like Tony Farnell, John Miles and George Hambly at the Buck’s Head and at the Thomas Lord in West Meon and won many cups and trophies. Indeed his daughter Jane told me that she wasn’t allowed to play darts with him until she could score  - and what a brilliant way that was to get your children to lean arithmetic!  And his skill was not only essential at darts, but also invaluable on the farm, as my brother Fairfax remembers that he always knew exactly how many bales there were in a rick, or bags in a stack in the barn. And despite being slim, he was strong too, with Fairfax, who worked with him for a year before going to Cirencester, again remembering that he (and fellow-pupil David Williams) could together stack 200cwt sacks of wheat up to three tiers high! We all know what ‘health and safety’ would say to that today – not to mention the fact that Fairfax and I used to do some of the corn cart from the age of about ten!

But in addition to his traditional farm duties, Ernie was extremely helpful and reliable and he became indispensible to my parents, undertaking many duties apart from tractor driving, such as feeding the animals, pheasants, chickens and sometimes ducks – if the fox hadn’t had them - as well as the dogs when my parents were away. When there wasn’t one, he was also unofficial keeper, which suited his other love, that of beating.  Ernie beat at all the shoots my father had at Stocks and at many of those on the neighbouring farms as well.  Rod Rowell, the Parker’s keeper, knew him from his teens and just now from Scotland, couldn’t speak highly enough of him. He admired not only his skill as a beater and always being in the right place (or more particularly perhaps, of not being in the wrong one!) but of his general cheerful common sense. As a beater, he probably knew the woods and hedgerows of these farms better than anyone. But he never shot, himself.        

Rod also mentioned something else, his kindness. and this is echoed by everyone one who knew him. Nichola Hussey, who came to Stocks after us, found his kindness and reliability a great strength, whether it was helping with horses, or dogs or even children.  Rod says, and anyone who knew Ernie would agree, that he behaved always as though he didn’t think of himself. Rod also found him well read and interested and knowledgeable about many things.  Simon Martin also recalls his sense of fun. When doing his garden in Soberton, he used to call down the garden, ‘Tea, Ern?’ and invariable they would both crack up laughing about it.

Ernie retired from Stocks when my father died in 2002 and the farm was sold, but he continued to work part-time for those around him and with his son Richard, and of course continued beating. He spent a lot of time with his friend Ron Talman in Soberton, and Bruce Horn used to take him to Salisbury Market, which he greatly enjoyed.  Bruce was amused to find that the last time he had seen Stonehenge was on a school visit 50 years before, and had never seen the Fovant badges.

In 2007 he fell ill with leukemia, which meant that he had to have chemotherapy and thereafter, constant transfusions, but he never complained and bore his illness bravely. Even when weak, he still liked to go out as much as he could, walking the familiar fields and hedgerows, refusing a stick or a scooter. Sylvia said that he never admitted to being in pain, even at the end. He was well looked after by Dr Arnold in Winchester Hospital, and Dr Morris at home, as well as his carers Jenny and Jilly  - and of course always Sylvia who bore the brunt of his care.  But Ernie was a true kind ‘gentle man’ and in the best way, became part of that beautiful landscape, which will always contain him now, as after this service his family will spread his ashes on Old Winchester Hill. 

Herry Lawford

29^th July 2014    

The family interring Ernie's ashes on Old Winchester Hill on 20th August 2014, in a beautiful quiet spot overlooking Stocks Farm. Left to right: Jane, Graham Lee, Richard, Pippa, Andrew, Phil Eyles, Sylvia with Jessica Eyles, Chloe Eyles, Rebecca and Phil (Ernie's brother)

Obituaries and Eulogies

As the years draw on, I seem to be attending more and more funerals and have to write more obituaries and deliver more eulogies. And having seen the appalling treatment of Sally Farmiloe in so-called 'obituaries' of such a highly intelligent and interesting 'free spirit', I am even more convinced that a decent obituary that captures a person's character and the good things they brought to the world, is essential.

See recent obituaries

Sally Macpherson (by her step-brother)

Nick Duke

Richard Shaw

S. Venkiteswaran

Joanne Johns Taylor
Ernie Stiles
Annie May Spawton
Lucie Skipwith

and other favourite poems by Edna St Vincent Millay

Drapers' 650th Anniversary Summer Fayre

The courtyard

Stands in the Hall illustrating the many organisations with which the Drapers are involved.

The Drapers' Livery Company held a Summer Fayre for its members (Freemen and Liveryman) at Drapers' Hall on 5th July 2014 to commemorate the 650th anniversary of the first grant of Letters Patent in 1364 from Edward III.

The Fayre was opened by the Master, Admiral The Lord Boyce and included displays and stands illustrating the Company's founding or long association with schools such as Bancrofts, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Hertford College and St Anne's College, Oxford, Thomas Adam's School, Wem, Blundell's, Howell's School, Llandaff, St Paul's Cathedral School as well as the Drapers' Academy, opened by the Queen in 2012.

In addition, the Company has long association with and supports the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal the College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the City & Guilds London Art School as well as the 1st Battalion, Welsh Guards and HMS Monmouth.

The Company's properties include Drapers' Gardens and several other major City buildings, and three almshouse complexes housing almost 200 residents at Edmanson's Close, Tottenham, Queen Elizabeth's College, Greenwich and Walter's Close, Southwark.

There was also an excellent  display of art created by members of the Company, including this lovely Cornish scene by Sophi Beharrell

At the end of the day, a picnic tea was taken in a marquee on Throgmorton Avenue, next to the Company's barge, the 'Royal Thamesis'.

The Company's Barge, the 'Royal Thamesis'

Old Swan House Garden in June 2014

Some photos of  the garden in June 2014 and a video talking about some of the planting

The grass garden

Summerhouse

Part of the old border being slowly replanted

The borrowed landscape over the west garden wall

The garden from the main lawn 

Favourite Gardens - Ashtall Manor

On Sunday 22nd June I found myself at Ashtall Manor where Rosie Pearson was holding her biennial sculpture exhibition On Form in the glorious gardens designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman. I had long wanted to visit the house as my step-grandfather, Sir Alfred Herbert, had it for some years until after WW1, after which he arranged for it to be used as a home for injured servicemen. Lord Redesdale moved in in 1917 and there brought up his daughters, the famous Mitford sisters.

Another reason for attending was that one of the exhibitors is my cousin, Luke Dickinson.

William Peers 'Wild Albert' and Paul Vanstone's 'Senator'

  Click here for more photos of the garden and the sculptures

Click here for the report of the second on form exhibition held in 2016

Favourite Gardens - Adwell

Adwell gardens are open each year for charity, this time supporting Tikkli Bottom School and St Mary's Church, Adwell.  For more photos, click here

See also Adwell Fair 2011

Favourite Books - As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning

Laurie Lee's wonderful book has been read on BBC4 for the past few days, and its descriptions of the country he travels through are some of the most evocative ever written. 

He begins to walk towards the Wiltshire Downs on country roads that

"…still followed their original tracks, drawn by packhorse or lumbering cartwheel, hugging the curve of a valley or yielding to a promontory like the wandering line of a stream. It was not, after all, so very long ago, but no one could make that journey today. Most of the old roads have gone, and the motor car, since then, has begun to cut the landscape to pieces, through which the hunched-up traveller races at gutter height, seeing less than a dog in a ditch."

A30 near Chilbolton

And in Spain
"The violence of the heat seemed to bruise the whole earth and turn its crust into one huge scar. One's blood dried up and all juices vanished; the sun struck upwards, sideways, and down, while the wheat went buckling across the fields like a solid sheet of copper. I kept on walking because there was no shade to hide in, and because it seemed the only way to agitate the air around me...I walked on as though keeping a vow, till I was conscious only of the hot red dust grinding like pepper between my toes."

Contrast the gentle evening gold of ripening grain-fields near Winchester

and the soft shade near Wilton