Both my grandfather and my father were pilots during the World Wars -- Grandad in WW-1 and Dad in WW-2:

In the photo above -- taken in 1918 when he was 25 years old -- my grandfather, center, is standing in front of his DeHavilland-4 biplane with a wooden propeller. His plane was shot down over Germany and he was taken prisoner of war. When we were children he used to roll up his trouser leg and we could see and feel the shrapnel embedded there for life. The photo on right, of course, is my father, age 19.

A week before sending the postcard of his father's home, Hazells Hall, my father was visiting his mother's home, Spains Hall, and sent her a letter (a blue flimsy aeoograph scanned and transcribed below) enclosing this original pressed flower

"My Darling Mum... Well, Mum, guess where I am? Yes! that's right. At Spains! It is a wonderful old place and I'm thoroughly enjoying looking around... I got here today about noon, after being met in Witham by Aunt Marge and then at Spains by "Sir John"... Wish you could be here to see Spains Mum. They say it is very little changed from when you were here... It is such a thrill seeing all the places that you used to know so well and all the things I've always heard about. I was shown "Grandfathers schooling book" and all the family portraits and the old organ, the hall, the play room, the "seven ponds"... They all know me through you and were full of inquiries after "Miss Octavia". There is going to be a huge big family gathering in 1960 to celebrate the "200th anniversary of the famly being at Spains". You and Daddy are expected to make it so hope I'll be able to treat you to a trip over... It's a great house!!! Tons of love, your loving Son, S! xo"

"Dear Mum, Enclosed are some English flowers. They really are pretty over here. They grow wild as beautifully as they are in the gardens. You'll know what they are so I'll just send them as is. Hope they arrive o.k. The "cows lips" (!!!) from Spains, Aunt Marge says are "paigles". You'll remember them from the woods. Also the "aubretice" growing on the house, this particular piece from the parapet outside the "play room". A really wonderful place is Spains. Wish you could be here to enjoy it with me. Writing Aerograph to-night. Love & Hello to Dad, Love S."

On the back of my father's letter to his mother from Spains Hall, his cousin, "Sir John" added a note:

Several decades ago Hazells Hall was divided up into "flats" as they say in England, although we call them apartments or condos. The owners of one of the flats, who was home when we visited, told us there's a book called: THE COUNTRY HOUSE: TO BE OR NOT TO BE and that Hazells Hall is on the cover and is one of the 7 stately halls featured. As soon as I got home I ordered a copy and it was fascinating seeing the photos and story of the transformation of Hazells Hall to present day.

My grandfather's eldest brother, Leslie, inherited Hazells Hall and when he died in 1945 his son Francis (my grandfather's nephew) inherited the estate. Over the years (I'd first visited in the early 70s) members of the Canadian branch made pilgrimages to Hazells Hall whenever in England.

After that visit in 2004 I sent Francis (my father's cousin who by then was The Right Honourable the Lord Pym) a copy of the Hazells Hall "memory album" I'd created and a letter telling him we'd visited the house that past August and had a tour.

Lord Francis, in appreciation, sent me an autographed copy of his fascinating cloth-covered, glossy-paged, very heavy book, SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY: TRACING AN OUTLINE OF FAMILY HISTORY. It included the story of my grandfather's parents Lucy and the Bishop of Bombay, Walter Ruthven Pym -- and beautiful photos reproduced from originals. It's a treasure-book to be passed down through generations.

Then the godcidences kept on happening when we got to Spains Hall where, from a distance, we saw Sir John sitting in a sunny open doorway and couldn't resist the opportunity to visit him -- just as you and I had done spontaneously that time.

Mustering our courage to walk to the door and introduce ourselves -- hoping Sir John wouldn't be annoyed -- he put us at ease at once and even remembered me from when you and I visited before. He asked the servant to bring us tea (in mugs like how Orwell drinks it) and soon the daughter of my cousin -- the future heir -- joined us from their Farm House next door.

Sir John was talking about ghosts in the house and in the photo above my cousin's showing him a picture of the ghosts. I asked Sir John if he would sign my Travel Diary which he did, writing, "(Sir) John Ruggles-Brise, Spains Hall, Finchingfield, Eldest Son of Edward R-B"

After saying goodbye to Sir John, and touring the house and grounds, I stood in front of the massive tree which was a little worse for wear from our visit 3 years ago when I snapped a pic of Sir John standing in front of it. Both of them are now teetering and propped up by sticks.

Sir John gave us a small booklet he'd written -- A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAINS HALL -- where he explains: "The flower garden, which was laid out about 100 years ago, includes a large Cedar of Lebanon, planted in 1670, with a spread of approximately 186 feet..."

He also explains a bit about the sunken treasury mystery: "...The present front was built about 1585 by William Kempe, an extraordinary character, who accused his wife of being unfaithful to him and held his peace for seven years when he found he was wrong... He spent the time building seven fishponds... Kempe's vow of silence recorded on his monument in the Church, was broken on the arrival of the famous Puritan vicar, Stephen Marshall, to Finchingfield, three years before Kempe's death in 1628... The last male Kempe is said to have been killed by robbers; so in 1760 the estate was purchased for 14,100-pounds from Lady Swinnerton Dyer, nee Kempe, by Samuel Ruggles, a Bocking clothier... In the Large Hall...the furniture is mostly 18th and 19th century, including Chippendale chairs... Some plates above the 18th century panelling were recovered from one of the fishponds, where they were thrown by the robber who murdered the last Kempe... The panelled Library, with its 1,500 books, Flemish tiled fireplace and Adam mantelpiece, is kept private for family use..."

Before leaving Finchingfield we visited the Church and family plots in the cemetery.

This is where things can get complicated because there are branches going back generations between the Pyms (my grandfather Guy's family from HAZELLS HALL) and the Ruggles-Brises (my grandmother Octavia's family from SPAINS HALL) marrying each other. For example, Sir John, born in 1908, is the son of my grandmother's brother Edward who was born in 1882 and died in 1942.

My grandmother was born in 1892, the youngest of 8 children, and thus the name Octavia. I possess an engraved locket, which when opened, contains a miniature portrait and lock of her hair when she was 2 years old. Sir John's grandparents, who were my grandmother's parents, were Mabel and Archibald Ruggles-Brise. My grandfather Guy was born in 1893, the 7th of 8 children to Lucy and Walter Ruthven Pym who was the Bishop of Mauritius and Bombay. My grandfather's parents were away from England most of the time and died in India by 1908. When my grandfather graduated from boarding school he joined an older brother who'd emigrated to Canada around 1910 to homestead. My grandmother, who was best friends with my grandfather's sister Betty, married Guy in Canada in 1922 and my father, Stephen (their only child) was born there in 1925. Sir John's mother Agatha died in 1937 and his father Edward then married my grandfather's sister, Barbara.

When I got home to Canada -- in self-appointed capacity as family historian -- I compiled photos, letters and memorabilia I'd collected from my grandparents into "memory albums" of their lives -- beginning at their ancestral homes Spains Hall and Hazells Hall:

I sent copies of each album to Sir John with a letter telling him how much I loved hearing his stories about when he visited Granny and Grandad's farm in Canada and went to Banff in the Rockies and saw bears. Sitting with him in the Library, that time, he'd told us about those days -- as though it was yesterday, not 75 years ago -- about chopping wood, feeding the sawmill, herding the Herefords. He chuckled when he remembered about there being a rope strung from the house to the outhouse to hold onto coming and going so as not to get lost in a storm. I'd never heard of this before, or seen the rope in any of the photos, but he said yes, it was there. When I got home, and was sorting through photos of the farm, it turns out many of them include Sir John when he was there in 1926 and -- I SAW THE ROPE!!!

If you look closely, in the enlarged photo above of my grandmother holding my father, you can see a taut rope tied to the house and leading away to, as we can assume, the outhouse.

Sir John had just graduated from Eton and it was during his "gap year" (as we say these days) when he travelled to Canada to visit my grandmother (his father's youngest sister) at the homestead on the prairies in Alberta.

Below are photos of John (with captions explaining):

Looking at photos of the farmhouse a person will be excused for wondering how my grandparents could live in such a place. But in an essay he wrote when he was 86-years old, my grandfather explained his love for "a place dear to my heart". Here are excerpts:

"...My brother - who was married - and I farmed together, and I lived in rather a crude 'shack' some 200 yds from the main house, and it was to this shack, after a lot of scraping and scrubbing, that I brought my Bride."

"...Actually it was lumber built, with wall board on the inside, but no insulation and it leaked warm air like you wouldn't believe it; when atmospheric conditions were helping things along there would be icicles from the eaves to the ground all around the building; nor did we have electricity or plumbing; we had a good deep well about 5 yds away. The building was 12' x 24' with a dividing partition, making a bedroom of about 10' x 12' and kitchen dining room - sitting room - store room and everything else in the larger room (12' x 14'); from this larger room we had the door out. Fairly soon we added another room (kitchen) under which I dug (by hand of course) a cellar; we also added a 6' wide verandah on the east side where we did the separating, took off boots, and stored garden tools etc... We had the usual 'Sentry-box' outhouse very picturesquely sited in a thick clump of willows bordering the slough on which there were always both wild and tame ducks... By modern standards our living conditions would be considered unacceptable, but in all those years, the ups and downs of married life, the ups and downs of farm life, my wife never once complained of the conditions we lived under... You can have your castles, your baronial Halls, your Ranch type Bungalows, your comfortable apartments - a fig for them all - MY LOVE remains with our old unpretentious farm home."

Sir John died in February 2007, in his 99th year, and there's a photo of his memorial at the Church in Finchingfield and story of his life on Wikipedia:

It's notable that in Sir John's obituary chronicling his long, eventful and accomplished life, mention is made of the little slice of time spent at my grandparents' farm, ie, "...Ruggles-Brise was educated at Wellesley House School, Broadstairs and Eton College, where he became captain of his house, and then worked on a family farm in Alberta in Canada...". It's as though that old farm, to Sir John too, was "a place dear to his heart".

Once again Zoe, thanks for bringing these memories back into mind and heart.

Love & all the best to all,
Jackie, August 16, 2024

...cont'd from SPAINS HALL 2001 VISIT REMINISCENCE

VISITING BISHOP OF MAURITIUS'S CHURCH

GRANDPARENTS' HORSES & HOMESTEAD

POONA & MOTIHARI ORWELL MEMORIES

ORWELL & JURA GRANDFATHERS VICARS

ANIMAL FARM COMIC IN MAURITIUS

GRANNY'S BLUE WILLOW DISHES POEM

ORWELL'S TYPEWRITER MY GRANDFATHER'S

VISITNG ORWELL'S ORWELL

VISITING ORWELL'S WALLINGTON HOUSE

ANCESTRAL BOOKENDS TO ORWELL