We now live in an age when much that I never even dreamt about when I was young has come about. The world of Tom and Grizel has been relegated to the stuff of fairy stories, yet at the time it was as natural as night following day. There was no other game in town for those on either side of the green baize door, and we all got on with it. As a child I had a great relationship with everyone who worked for my parents, both in the house and on the farm, except for Mrs Porcher, our cook. She was a small woman with a shrill voice, and although she was no doubt a dab hand at the kitchen stove, as far as I was concerned she never seemed to blur any issue with goodwill. She didn’t exactly take on my parents, but there was sometimes a curtness to her manner that did not always bring out the best in Grizel. I remember Mrs Porcher going into the drawing room after breakfast, notepad in hand, ready for Grizel to order the food for lunch and dinner that day. Mrs Porcher always had the sense to realise that if she entered into a battle of wills with Grizel there could only be one outcome, while Grizel knew that it would be an awful bore to have to find another cook. As a result, there existed a continuous state of armed neutrality between them. When Mrs Porcher eventually returned permanently into the no doubt grateful arms of Mr Porcher, cooks came and went at a fair pace, until the redoubtable Mrs Alexander took over.
My early years must have shaped the initial hard core of me, which I hope has been smoothed down a bit by the subsequent journey through the mainly self-imposed rough seas of life. In many ways, of course, memory is selective, but there is no doubt that the family estate at Hoveton was an enchanting place in which to have been brought up. Over a great many years it had grown smaller as those in charge of it had seen fit to sell off pieces of land – mostly, I expect, to raise a bit of lolly. But the nucleus that still remained when I was young was heaven for a small boy. Two of the Norfolk Broads, Hoveton Great Broad and Hoveton Little Broad, were within its boundaries, and there were many acres of exciting marshland, with dykes and dams and all manner of birdlife, from ducks and geese to bitterns, swans, hawks and masses of smaller varieties. Grizel was passionate about the local flora and fauna, and would teach me the names of butterflies, birds, insects, trees and wildflowers. Sadly I have forgotten most of them, which would have made her very cross. Sometimes she would find a swallowtail butterfly chrysalis in the reeds on the marshes. This would be brought home and put in a cage in the drawing room, and some time later the most beautifully coloured butterfly you could imagine would emerge. Before it could damage those magical wings by fluttering against the sides of the cage, it would be released into the marshes to fend for itself. Sadly, over the years swallowtails became increasingly scarce and by now have probably completely disappeared : I should think the last one to be reared at home was sometime in the fifties.
For a time Grizel collected Siamese cats, which lived in a long wooden hut in the farmyard at the Home Farm. She won many prizes with them. The silver spoons with which we stirred our coffee after lunch all had the letters ‘SCC’ (Siamese Cat Club) emblazoned on their handles. She also went through a Japanese bantam stage, during which, intermingled with a fluffy collection of white Silkies, they trawled all over the farmyard, not always to Tom’s delight.
Another phase of her life was devoted to Dutch rabbits. These again won prizes, and were kept in the shed that had once been the home of the Siamese cats. There was also an impressive herd of pedigree Shorthorns, which, amid great excitement, won all sorts of prizes over the years at the Royal Show. Grizel was closely involved with the breeding of the cattle, and would go down to the dairy farm almost every day. With the head cowman in tow she would have a look at whatever animals she was particularly interested in, and cast an eye over any new calves. If need be, she was more than happy to roll up her sleeves and help with a difficult birth. When I was very young she would talk for ages to Birch, who was the head cowman, and later to his successor, Pressley, whom I found more fun. I remember Grizel and Pressley constantly hatching plots to convince Tom of the necessity of buying a new bull, or a couple of heifers, or whatever. The dairy was always a fruitful playground for me. I loved watching the cows being milked, and then the milk being separated from the cream. There was one occasion when I eluded Grizel and Pressley and walked into one of the cow sheds when a heifer was in the act of being served by a bull. After I had been dragged out Pressley was embarrassed, but Grizel, who took these things in her stride, said to me, ‘You’ll find out more about that one day, darling, but not just yet.’ This left me deeply curious, but I knew better than to question her. She had drawn a line under the subject for the time being.
Grizel, with her familiar stride, which was more a purposeful walk than a strut, was forever busying herself around the house, the garden and the farmyard. She made the life of the gardener, Walter Savage, confusing and difficult as she issued instructions over her shoulder while he struggled along in her wake. Savage, as we called him, was thin, about medium height, with a white moustache, a good First War record, and a huge and frightening wife who put the fear of God into poor old Savage. They lived in one half of the charming Dutch gabled cottage at the bottom of the Hoveton House garden. When I was a bit older, Savage would drive me and some friends in my mother’s car to the Norwich speedway track, where the home team were pretty high in the national pecking order. Ove Fundin, a five-time world champion from somewhere in Scandinavia, was a name I shall never forget; nor that thrilling smell of petrol fumes and burning rubber as the riders strove to steer their brakeless bikes around corners. On other occasions Savage ferried several of us to the Yarmouth Fun Fair, where the bumper cars, the ghost train and the fish and chips were all irresistible.
When I was a child the farm, which had been whittled down over the years to about 1,300 acres, had become principally a fruit farm. There were an awful lot of people employed to tend to its needs. When I was old enough I used to help the wives of the farmworkers pick the fruit. There was the excitement of being paid sixpence by Herbert Haines for a basket of Victoria plums and a punnet of raspberries. This was a useful supplement to my pocket money. Herbert, short and indomitably cheerful, wearing a perilously placed felt hat, loved his cricket and presided over the fruit picking.
The farm manager, the slightly austere, bespectacled and white-haired Mr Grainger, tootled about the place in his rather severe-looking car. I was extremely careful of him, for I knew that anything I got up to would go straight back to Tom. Mr Grainger had a small office in the Home Farm yard which I avoided like the plague. In fact I think it was a mutual avoidance. As far as I was concerned, Mr Grainger, who lived in a small house down the drive, was always hard work, and if he had a lighter side, I never found it. My father’s office was presided over by the ebullient, bouncing and eternally jolly, but not inconsiderable, figure of Miss Easter, a local lady from Salhouse who was a close ally of Nanny’s. I loved it when she paid us a visit in the nursery. ‘Miss Easter’ was a tongue-twister for the young, and she was known affectionately by all of us, including Grizel, as ‘Seasser’, although Tom never bent from ‘Miss Easter’. I suppose she must have had a Christian name, but I can’t remember it. Sadly for us, she left Hoveton when approaching middle age, and became Mrs Charles Blaxall. He was a yeoman farmer, and they lived somewhere between Hoveton and Yarmouth. I used to go with Nanny to visit her in her new role as a farmer’s wife. She remained the greatest fun, always provided goodies and was one of the real characters of my early life. I can hear her cheerful, echoing laughter even now.
Freddie Hunn, a small man with the friendliest of smiles, was in charge of the cattle feed, which was ground up and mixed in the barn across the yard from my father’s office. I loved to go and help Freddie. There was a huge mixer, which was almost the height of the building. All the ingredients were thrown in at the top, mixed, and then poured into sacks at the bottom. The barn had a delicious, musty smell. Freddie’s other role was to look after the cricket ground at the other end of the farmyard, through the big green gate and up the long grassy slope to Hill Piece. After his day in the barn had finished he would go up to the ground and get to work with the roller or mower or whatever else was needed. The day before