The beauty of the estate, however, lay not in the house, however comfortable the interior, but in the lands, which stretched beyond the eye could see and included a deer park that Randolph would grow to love. To the west was Kirkland, the nearest farm, and further beyond, up the Wood O’Cree Road, looking over the River Cree, sat All Saints’, Challoch, the family’s church and burial yard.
On inheriting all this Lord Galloway grew further into his new role and began applying himself to a myriad of public duties. He became justice of the peace for Kirkcudbrightshire and in 1932, four years after Randolph’s birth, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. This role lasted until 1975 and involved lunches with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, from whom – in terms of old-school austerity and iron backbone – he was not dissimilar. The same year as Lord Galloway began representing the Queen, he also embraced masonic life. He was initiated into Lodge St Ninian, No. 499, and became Right Worshipful Master when he took office in Grand Lodge as Junior Grand Deacon. (In 1945, he would become Grand Master Mason.)
Unsurprisingly Lord Galloway’s responsibilities and his extensive travelling dictated the rhythm of the household. Randolph’s early years were typical of a post-war childhood in a big house, at one turn privileged, at another, by today’s standards, emotionally lacking. It would have been quite unthinkable by the standards of his class for Lord Galloway to make his many trips abroad without his wife. As a result Randolph spent much of his time with a succession of nannies, nurses, and governesses. The year was divided into time spent at Cumloden; a large house in Sandridgebury, near St Albans, where Lady Galloway had grown up following her father’s death – a fine residence with butlers and footmen, chauffeurs for the two Rolls-Royces, cooks, general maids, and scullery maids; and London. The London trip occurred in late January, usually when Lord and Lady Galloway were abroad, and the children would travel up with the nannies to stay at 39 Lowndes Street, where they would remain until just before Easter. The children adored these trips. In the cold London air the nannies would walk them round Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where they would stand, eyes wide with delight, before Peter Pan’s statue. Occasionally they would go to Bryanston Square, where Randolph had been born, and curl up with Nana, their mother’s old nurse.
Just before Easter the children would be brought back to Cumloden where they would remain until July. The nursery toy box overflowed. There were puppets, clockwork cows, and the ‘bunny express’, an engine in lapine form that sounded a bell as it chuffed around the track. There was a toy cinema, countless picture books, and annuals – a favourite being the series of adventures of the Peek-A-Boos. Lady Antonia had a large and intricate doll’s house, which in fine weather was moved into the play hut in the grounds of the house, and Randolph had three sets of trains with tracks, two containing green engines with chocolate and cream coloured coaches with multi-coloured roofs. The puppet theatre was a favourite. If Lord and Lady Galloway were in residence, the countess would make sure all adults attended performances, including the sombre dowager. Often Lady Galloway would go behind the puppet stand herself. There were picnics in the surrounding beauty spots, which brought the children much joy, but not always the adults, particularly the dowager. The sun annoyed her, any wind drove her frantic, and in the rain she would sit alone in the Rolls complaining of her misery and wishing she was by the drawing room fire.
Come July the children would transfer to Sandridgebury where they would stay until October. During these months Cumloden would be let out to rich holidaymakers and Lord and Lady Galloway would travel to Europe or beyond, announcing their departure in the broadsheets. The trip south was a complicated operation involving much luggage. At 8.30 a.m. on the dot Mr McGowan would arrive in the Rolls ready to drive the nannies and their charges to Dumfries station, the starting point of their long journey south. The nannies would then shepherd the children into the car while Mr McGowan struggled with the numerous trunks, hat boxes, Gladstone bags, books tied with string, attaché cases, and luncheon boxes, as well as the portable wireless and gramophone. At Sandridgebury they would be met by another Rolls, driven by Hubert French, and in the back seat sat a delighted Mrs Percival Griffiths. Mr Griffiths was equally pleased by their presence in his large house, and often liked to take them to Whipsnade Zoo in the Rolls, although he would get cross if they made a noise during his afternoon nap.
All things considered, with old great aunts pressing upon him as many Fuller’s peppermints as they could manage, Randolph thought himself happy at Sandridgebury. It was one long blissful summer of hide and seek, sardines, netball, rounders, tennis, croquet, and golf. And in October, on his birthday, there would always be a party during which his great aunt would stamp about the hall, much to the children’s delight, shouting ‘Do you know the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man, the Muffin Man? Do you know the Muffin Man who lives in Drury Lane?’
And so this was the cycle of Randolph’s early life, spent largely in the bosom of extended family and in the care of familiar, loyal servants who were always on hand to ensure the smooth running of the houses. Cumloden had a large staff, most of whom lived on the estate with their families, so that as Randolph’s anxieties began to take hold, and he became prone to wandering the grounds alone, these familiar, weather-beaten faces seemed part of his world even though they came from a quite different one. Mr Curry, for instance, who tended the grounds, tidied the woodland paths, cut the wood, and ensured the house remained heated, lived with his wife in a cottage in the deer park. Mr Malcolm Scott, the head gamekeeper, lived with his wife and daughter, Monica, at Cumloden Lodge, which sat at the south entrance (Monica was responsible for opening the gatehouse gate and waving in the Rolls). It was often the case that the house employed several members of the same family. The succession of cooks – Mrs Robertson, Mrs Cockie, Mrs Partridge, Mrs Bain, Mrs Clark, and Mrs McNabb – and the roll call of butlers – Mr Leashman, Mr Campbell, Mr Hopkins, Mr Sparks, and Mr Wright – tended to arrive alone, but the coachman’s daughter, for example, was head housemaid and parlourmaid. Randolph’s favourite servant beyond all others, the one he continues to talk of in adulthood, was Nan Dalrymple, the laundry maid and wife of the station hand at Newton Stewart railway station. Often he would seek her out in the laundry room and she would embrace him with vigour – an unfamiliar but very pleasant sensation.
Randolph and Lady Antonia were initially educated at home. They were woken at 7 a.m. by the school-room maid with a glass of hot water ‘that tasted awful’, as Randolph remembered later, and in the afternoon, after lessons, they rested for an hour before being taken for a walk around the grounds by their governess. There was rarely a shortage of company though. Children of family friends were always being invited over for parties and on Tuesdays in spring, after their return to Cumloden, the portable gramophone and a box full of records, including selections of Irish and Scottish country dances, would be carried down from the school-room and set up in the billiard room where Miss Border, the dancing instructress, would hold classes for them and their friends. But Randolph’s fear of his father slowly began to overshadow all. His ‘personality problems’ began early, long before he left Cumloden for Belhaven Hill, one of the most fashionable Scottish preparatory schools at that time. He cried when he left Cumloden for Sandridgebury and he cried when he left Sandridgebury for Cumloden. He was often making a scene, ‘either public or private or both’, he recalls. This irritated and angered Lord Galloway, who expected his son to behave with dignity, composure, and formality. It did not help that Randolph was a slight, sickly child. Whenever he contracted a cold or the flu, the school-room was turned into a sick bay.