Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold
by William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’ d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
(Public Domain)
Sonnet to John and Alice by Brigid Marlin
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves do drop and mess the floor
I cling to wraps, as I do shake with cold.
I wonder if, perhaps, I'm getting old?
My voice doth croak when sweet I wish to sing
The twilight of my looks is quite a sting;
As I sit faded in the ever-rainy day,
The ashes of my fire are turning gray.
The fire that Father wished to light up in our belly,
A fierce ambition, is now but turned to jelly.
Still, a new fire flickers from the jel,
That wakes me from my dolorous spell.
It is the flame that burns for all my kin and friends,
Entrance to the Castle Hill Inn, showing sculpture
and distant boat. Looking out to the Atlantic
Ocean, left. Photo by JT Marlin.
NEWPORT, R.I., September 29, 2018–The Portsmouth Abbey School Class of 1958 (or Portsmouth Priory, as we were known then) has started celebrating its 60th Reunion.
Our classmates this year include one who came from as far away as Peru, just for the event. (Three sets of Peruvian parents got together and decided to send their sons to Portsmouth 65 years ago.)
Within the United States, the classmates have come from Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.
Yesterday, several of us had lunch together at the Lawn at Castle Hill, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of Narragansett Bay.
This peninsula of Castle Hill went through several metamorphoses:
Castle Hill faces Jamestown's two main
islands.
It began as a watch house in 1740 when England declared war on Spain.
In 1810 a Spanish brig was wrecked near Castle Hill after a storm.
The present house was built in 1874 for the scientist Alexander Agassiz.
Three years later he outfitted the house with an advanced laboratory. This lab was in due course replaced by the lab at Wood's Hole.
Agassiz made his fortune turning around a nonperforming copper mine in Michigan, and used $1.5 million of it to fund a Museum at Harvard.
Looking across from Castle Hill
to Jamestown. Photo by JT Marlin.
In the hurricane of 1938, Castle Hill became an island. The daughter-in-law of Agassiz panicked about the experience and sold the property.
Thornton Wilder was a frequent guest, who said of the bedroom where he stayed:
"From that magical room I could see at night the beacons of six lighthouses and hear the booming and chiming of as many sea buoys." (Theophilus North, Harper & Row).
Getting a head start on the Portsmouth Reunion, four members of the Class of 1958 and two spouses assembled for lunch at the Castle Hill Inn.
The youngest-looking of the group, Carlos Cleary, is the son of a classmate who could not attend, George Cleary. He is in Venezuela and was unable to leave.
Lunch at the Castle Hill Inn. L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin, John Tepper Marlin,
John Hayes III, Denis Ambrose, Jeanne Geddes, Carlos Cleary.
Remembering V-E Day Guest Words | By John Tepper Marlin | [Reposted by Permission]
Charles Miner Jr., World War II bomber pilot, investment banker, and summertime East Hampton resident, died in March at the age of 96. John Tepper Marlin
May 8 will be the 73rd anniversary of V-E Day, when World War II ended in Europe. I am on my way from London to Holland, where the 1945 liberation is celebrated on May 4. That day, I plan to be at the Cemetery of Heroes in Amsterdam to remember my relatives who gave their lives to fighting the monster Adolf Hitler through the Resistance.
East Hampton contributed many fighters to this effort. Some survived World War II with powerful stories. Charles Miner Jr., who died at 96 in March, was a bomber pilot in World War II. When he died, he was one of 480,000 surviving veterans of that war, out of more than 16 million Americans who served.
Charlie was not related to me, but he was extremely helpful to my understanding his grandfather William H. Woodin, who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first Treasury secretary, and my own family during the war.
As we talked one day, I became interested in his life story. Charlie had to leave Princeton before he graduated to join the Army Air Forces. “I was studying engineering and they wanted engineers, so I was called up,” he told me. “I went to a single-engine flying school, graduated in March 1943, and from there was sent to a sub depot in Charlotte, N.C., where they rebuilt planes that had crashed. I was given the job of test-flying the rebuilt planes before they were returned to their home bases. I got flying time in many types of aircraft.”
While assigned to the base, Charlie married in October 1944 a Southern belle, Mae Hoffman, who was called Maisie. “But just two weeks after we married, I had to report for combat training in two-engine bombers at the Greenville, N.C., Army Air Forces base. We were trained on the B-25 Mitchell bomber. We had three months’ training, doing mock bombing runs over Myrtle Beach at night.”
The B-25 has been described as the most versatile bomber in World War II, named after the air power advocate Gen. Billy Mitchell. Nearly 10,000 of the bombers were built between 1941 and 1945. It was the most heavily armed airplane in the world, used in the historic Doolittle raid over Tokyo in 1942.
“We had a crew of five,” Charlie said. “Besides me, the pilot, we had a co-pilot, bombardier, radio operator, and gunner. Boeing strengthened the plane by adding a gun in its nose, which allowed us to shoot back at targets, but lowered the plane’s maximum speed.”
When was his first combat run? “After my training in Greenville, I was first sent to Corsica to be instructed by the more experienced [Royal Canadian Air Force] and especially [Royal Air Force] pilots who had been flying the B-25. Some of the R.A.F. and Italian pilots were daredevils. They didn’t seem to care whether they lived or died. We had the Mosquito, a laminated-wood plane that could break the sound barrier. The pilots loved it, and they would dive from 5,000 feet. But one day a pilot tried this and one of the wings just came off. The pilot, of course, went straight down with the plane and was killed.”
Miner paused and continued in his jaunty rat-a-tat style (he was a superb joke-teller): “We started flying missions out of Corsica. The Germans were pushed north in the Italian boot, so we relocated closer to the targets, in Fano, on the Adriatic in eastern Italy, about 150 miles south of Venice. My squadron flew 18 missions at 15,000 to 18,000 feet over the Brenner Pass in the Alps between Italy and Austria.”
How did he feel on these missions? Charlie slowed down. “Of course, the Alps were a majestic sight to look down on, but each flight was nerve-racking. We had to stay perfectly in box formation during the bomb run so that the bombardiers could be accurate. We had to keep to it so long as we had more bombs to drop. We could see yellow puffs below as anti-aircraft guns tried to shoot us down, but we were not allowed to take evasive action until our payload was dropped. As soon as we released the last bomb, it was a relief, we were all out of there in every direction, helter-skelter.”
It is easy to visualize Charlie keeping his formation while the flak was flying. His cousin Woody Rowe, in an interview with me, compared Charlie (whom he calls Chas) to his mother, Libby Woodin Rowe. She was a patient mother, although neither of her sons inherited her patience. But Woody told me that Charlie never seemed to be mad at anyone. Asked about it, Charlie thought and said, “I guess you’re right. Disappointed, perhaps, but not angry.”
I asked Charlie whether the anti-aircraft fire found its mark. “Yes,” he said. “We would find out when we returned to the base when a plane and crew were gone. We all paid our respects. But after that, we didn’t talk a whole lot about the ones who were gone. It was just the risk you took.”
Again, Charlie’s usual fast-paced speaking style became slower. He looked at me with the closest I ever saw him get to a tragic expression. “There was one pilot who seemed immortal. He was a major in the Army Air Forces. He finished 50 missions, which meant he could retire and go home. But he wanted to keep flying a couple more times, even though he didn’t have to. On his 51st mission, his plane was hit by flak and he bailed out. I remember seeing his parachute going down over the Alps. If he was lucky, he was rescued by one of the partisans below.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to him?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I never did.” He was silent for what seemed like a long time.
That was a personal moment for me as well, because my Dutch-born uncle Willem J. van Stockum worked hard to put himself in harm’s way. He was a bomber pilot for the R.A.F. and was hit by flak over France on June 10, 1944. I was 2 years old then, so I never got to find out from him what it was like being on the front lines of the air war against Hitler. He was flying with 10 Squadron, one of 126 squadrons serving with the R.A.F.’s Bomber Command. They were bombing a Luftwaffe airfield in Laval, France. His plane was hit by flak.
Bomber Command in World War II recruited 125,000 aircrew, of whom 57,205 were killed. That’s a 46-percent death rate. The queen unveiled a monument in 2012 to the extraordinary bravery of these R.A.F. aircrews.
My uncle Willem, a mathematician who worked in Einstein’s institute in Princeton, understood these numbers. He just had to do something about his country being occupied. His story is told in “Time Bomber” by Robert Wack. His crew of seven and another that came down on the same mission are buried in Laval. I have visited three times, including in 2014, when the French locals erected monuments to the two crews. A survivor of the bombing, of course a child at the time, said that my uncle’s flaming plane steered away from the house where she and her family lived, into an orchard.
This year I went with my wife, Alice, to see for the first time my uncle’s base, R.A.F. Melbourne near York, England. I am grateful to the 10 Squadron Association volunteers who helped us make the visit.
And I am grateful to the late Charlie Miner for helping me understand better what was facing this uncle I never knew. Whatever questions we have about the morality or effectiveness of indiscriminate bombing of civilians in World War II, our appreciation of the bravery of those who looked in the evil face of Hitler’s guns will never be sufficient.
John Tepper Marlin, a regular contributor to the “Guestwords” column, has had a house in Springs since 1981. He is writing a biography of William Woodin and a book about his Dutch relatives’ work in the Resistance.
Postscript: From the May 10 Issue
‘Remembering’
East Hampton
May 3, 2018
Dear David [Editor of the East Hampton Star],
John Tepper Marlin’s “Remembering V-E Day” beautifully conveys the stress, horror, and pride felt by soldiers and their families during World War II.
Coat of Arms of The Lord Lyon King of
Arms of Scotland.
Oxford, April 29, 2018–I was in Edinburgh earlier this week and visited the offices of The Lord Lyon King of Arms of Scotland. The office is centrally located in Edinburgh, on West Register Street. Unlike most other countries where the heraldry authorities are private or nonprofit and honorific, the Scottish heraldry office was made part of the government. The heraldry code has the force of law in Scotland, and The Lord Lyon can prosecute, which is rare or unique in the world (South Africa can prevent use of a coat of arms).
Approach to the National Records of Scotland,
on West Register Street. There is construction.
The portrait in the lobby of The Lord Lyon is that of past Lord Lyon Sir Malcolm Rognvald Innes of Edingight KCVO WS FSA Scot. He held the post for 20 years, 1981-2001. The current Lord Lyon is the third since 2001. He was born on May 25 in a year ending in 8. His portrait shows him in the tabard of The Lord Lyon. He is now Orkney Herald Extraordinary. I had contacted The Lord Lyon's office to ask about the possibility that the stars in the Stars and Stripes were inspired, directly or indirectly, by the mullets in the Douglas or Murray (Moray) coats of arms. Elizabeth Roads, Snawdoun Herald and Lyon Clerk at the Court of the Lord Lyon kindly responded to my query, wondering how I would associate with Scotland the Washington family, which prior to the emigration of two sons of Lawrence Washington lived in Sulgrave Manor, Northampton, way down south, not far from Oxford.
The National Records of Scotland.
I responded that the family originally lived in Washington on the River Wear, then part of the Palatine Principality and See of Durham, near Scotland. Before George Washington's ancestors were called Washington, they were Wessyngton, and before that Hertburn, after the places they resided, near what became the city of Newcastle. George Washington's Ancestors
The Ur-Washington was Sir William fitz Patrick de Hertburn, eldest son of Sir Patrick fitz Dolfin Raby and grandson of Dolfin fitz Uchtred. Sir Patrick fitz Dolfin Raby was born before 1136 at Hertburn, a younger son of Dolfin fitz Uchtred. Upon his marriage to Cecily de Offerton, he became known as Sir Patrick de Offerton and Le Hirsel. The Le Hirsel land lies on the north bank of the River Tweed two miles NW of Coldstream. He died c. 1190.
Sir William fitz Patrick de Hertburn was born c. 1150 in Hertburn, near Stockton-on-Tees (about halfway between Newcastle and York). He married twice, gaining Stockton lands with his first marriage and gaining royal relatives with his second marriage to Marjory (Margaret) de Huntingdon, Countess of Richmond. Sir William and Countess Margaret were close in age, although this was her third marriage. Margaret's brothers were William the Lion, King of Scotland, and Malcolm IV, the Maiden King of Scotland. Her father was Henry, Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, and her paternal grandfather was David I, King of Scotland and saint. Her youngest brother, David Earl of Huntingdon, was ancestor of the de Bruce and Balliol families.
Countess Margaret's four times great-grandparents were Beatrix, Queen of Scotland and Crinan the Thane. So Hertburn acquired new lands and noble connections with his new bride. He assumed tenancy of the Wessyngton lands from the Prince Bishop of Durham at a cost of four pounds per year. He had received the Wessyngton property in trade for his Stockton lands – a good move, since he was already heir to the lands at Offerton, just across the River Wear from Washington. Given his huge step up in status, Hertburn took on the name William de Wessyngton in 1183.He died c. 1190.
Sources for the above include:
1. Audrey Fletcher, Posting as Washington Lass
2. Archaeology Data Service, UK, 1960
Comments:
Today The Hirsel is the seat of the Earls of Home, and the 14th Earl, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was British Prime Minister in 1963-1964 when I was a student at Oxford – he contributed an article to a magazine I edited, Oxford Tory. I served as General Agent of the Oxford University Conservative Association when Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, now Baron Selkirk of Douglas, was President.
George Washington's hero was General William Braddock of the Coldstream Guards. Together they attacked Fort Duquesne, which was renamed Pittsburgh, after Pitt the Elder, who was the patron of the war against the French in North America. Braddock gave Col. Washington his sash and Washington is shown wearing it in several portraits.
Visit to the office of The Lord Lyon in Edinburgh. L to R: (1) Snawdoun Herald and Lyon Clerk, Elizabeth Roads. (2) Portrait of Immediate past Lord Lyon, Sir Malcolm Rognvald Innes of Edingight KCVO WS FSA Scot, with a magnificent estoile above. (3) Your blogger with what seems to be a tiny coronet in chief.
Visit to The Lord Lyon
Snawdoun Herald again was kind enough to respond and wondered why a family so well-connected by marriage would wish to connect to the humbler (at the time) Douglas arms.
At this point there are so many clues and question marks that I am pausing in my quest. A good time to visit Snawdoun Herald and the office of The Lord Lyon! Also see: My Visit to the College of Arms in London
FINALISTS, SENIOR MEN'S DOUBLES (L to R): John
Jaxheimer, John Tepper Marlin, Tim Snell (Pro), Thomas
Gouge, Britton Browne. Photo by Alice Tepper Marlin.
Amagansett, N.Y., August 6, 2016–In the DYC Senior (60+) Men's Doubles, the four finalists were: John Jaxheimer, John Tepper Marlin, Thomas Gouge and Britton Browne. After a tie-breaker in one set, the two teams won one set each after more than an hour and a half of play. Instead of a third set, the match, running on overtime, was decided by a second tie-breaker. The winners were: Gouge and Browne. All four players received glass bowls as trophies. A photo of the handsome trophy bowl is provided at right.
Wellesley '66 mini-reunion, Vero Beach, Fla. L to R: Alice Tepper Marlin,
Anne Liggett (Cinnamon) Rinzler, Karen Ahern Boeschenstein. Matching
nightgowns feature a flamingo, the class mascot. Photos by JTMarlin.
VERO BEACH, Fla., March 22, 2015 - Alice co-hosted with Joan Hass a formal Wellesley '66 Mini-Reunion last summer in East Hampton, N.Y.
It was part of a build-up to the class's 50th Reunion next year.
I posted photos of the Mini-Reunion visits to two of East Hampton's top three attractions (according to TripAdvisor):
1. The LongHouse Reserve.
2. The Jackson-Pollock House.
Don't expect to meet "Captain Hiram". He was a U.S.
Army Sergeant who died in the Normandy Landing.
His mother got this letter and her son's Purple Heart.
(The third of the top three is Main Beach.)
Here in Vero we have had an informal get-together with two of Alice's dearest Wellesley friends–Karen Ahern Boeschenstein from Charlottesville, Va. and Anne Liggett (Cinnamon) and Curry Rinzler from Woodstock, N.Y. (Cinnamon and Alice also both attended The Baldwin School.)
I have posted above a photo of the three ladies in their matching flamingo-dotted nightgowns. The flamingo is the Wellesley '66 class mascot.
Someone in the class of 1966 had cancer at an early age and in sympathy–and support of her recovery–her neighbors posted a flock of plastic flamingos on her lawn, in (I'm guessing) about 1975. Her classmates joined in with the support by adopting the flamingo as mascot (Fiona Flamingo?).
Photo of "Captain Hiram" - Sgt. Hiram H. Collins of
Crisfield, Md.
Kate Spade may know someone in the class because she has designed a "Wellesley Quinn Leather Pink Flamingo Bag" as part of her Wellesley Collection. Since Wellesley is lending "gilt by association" to Kate Spade's bags, it was appropriate that we earlier visited LongHouse Reserve, owned by famed textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen.
Yesterday afternoon we all (including Curry Rinzler) went on a boat tour with "Captain Hiram's River King" around Pelican Island.
"Captain Hiram" is named after someone who died nearly 71 years ago - Sergeant Hiram H. Collins, who was awarded a Purple Heart and like my uncle Willem van Stockum was killed in France during the time of the Normandy Landing.
Blue heron looking our way.
It took the U.S. Army five years to confirm in a letter to his mother that her son was incinerated in his landing craft. The letter is posted above at right.
Three blue heron, independently engaged.
"Captain Hiram" offers three boat-tour options - dolphins, Pelican Island or the Sebastian River.
We were on the Pelican Island tour, which promises birds returning to the island at sunset. Our trip was back in the dock before sunset, but we saw a lot of blue heron, white pelicans and wood storks.
Wood storks have a dark grey head and a lot of their wing is black, not visible at rest. They are also
messier than the fastidious white pelicans. At upper right, two long-necked anhingas.
White Pelicans skim over the water with amazing steadiness.
Pelican Island is the nation's very first National Wildlife Preserve, created in 1903 by Teddy Roosevelt, just north of Vero Beach north of the Wabasso Bridge (Route 510), on the Indian River.
But that trip was more about dolphins and this one was more about birds. Both tours were on the Indian River Lagoon, the largest lagoon in the United States.
Our two guides and navigators, Jay and Scott, explained how Pelican Island has been eroded by hurricanes, but when friends of the pelicans try to help out, the results are not always beneficial.
Daffy Duck. Is that
him in the photo
below?
The best plan, currently in force, has been to forbid anyone from going on the island without clearance from Washington. Violators of this rule are subject to jail time and fines.
Jay explained that Pelican Island is naturally partitioned among the various birds that live there. They create areas where they nest and congregate. So birds of a feather really do flock together.
The various species get along amicably, evidence of the natural agreement among groups over territorial sovereignty that Elinor Ostrom studied and for which she received a Nobel Prize.
American White Pelicans at rest, or at least busy checking themselves for bugs. Looks like an Audubon
engraving, except for Daffy Duck, 2nd from right. Was he inserted by a Warner Bros. animator? Photo by JTM.
We saw a lot of white pelicans, black-headed wood storks (the only kind of storks in Florida, said our guide), blue heron and anhingas. White pelicans are an interesting, majestic species. They have a huge wing span - six to nine feet. They have distinctive white heads, orange beaks and balck wing tips that are not visible when they are at rest. See Pelican Dreams(All About Birds blog, November 5, 2014).
Here we all are at the end of the trip. Better than the slush up north.
L to R: Cinnamon, me (John), Alice, Curry, Karen. Photo by Scott.
The boat's schedule is geared to Standard Time. Because of Daylight Saving Time we were not there for the sunset scene, when all the birds come back to the island.
On the Pelican Island trip we saw no dolphins. On neither trip did we see any manatee. Just to help manage expectations of those who take the tours.
Apart from Pelican Island, the birds were scarce, which suggests that the fish were scarce as well.
In the evening we repaired to Mo-Bay Grill, 1401 Indian River Drive, not far from Captain Hiram's. The Drive runs parallel to the Indian River between Route 1 and the river.
Mo-Bay Grill gets 4.5 stars on TripAdvisor and has a famed Jamaican chef, who came by our table twice. He makes great conch fritters and cooks fish to perfection. We had the grouper with pecan butter sauce, a shrimp-with-coconut-grits dish, and a whole crispy red snapper. The vegetables with it were ample and delicious. It was accompanied by the excellent sweet House Sangria. We shared a scrumptious banana-rum cheesecake and shredded coconut cream pie. The only disappointment was the she-crab soup, which all five of us tasted and none of us cared for. Mo-Bay Grill takes reservations for four or more people–otherwise you have to take your chances and wait in line.
(L to R) Judge Crotty, Alice Tepper Marlin, Francis D. Peabody,
Caroline Tepper-Marlin and John Tepper Marlin.
New York City, September 8, 2014 - Exclusive to the Time Travel blog - Caroline Tepper-Marlin was married to Francis Damien Peabody today on the evening of the Harvest Moon.
Federal Judge Paul Crotty officiated in his Chambers at 500 Pearl Street. Caroline's parents, John and Alice Tepper Marlin, served as witnesses.
After they exchanged vows in the Judge's Office, the bride and groom joined Caroline's parents for dinner at Bouley nearby on 163 Duane Street.
Mr. Peabody and Ms. Tepper-Marlin will leave for a honeymoon that will focus on European restaurants and vineyards, spending a month in England, France and Italy. They will then return to their home in Brooklyn and their Australian shepherd Rondo.
"We decided to get married," quipped Tepper-Marlin, "so that Rondo would no longer be a bastard."
Francis and Caroline at Bouley.
The Bride and Groom
Mr. Peabody has recently served as executive chef and other roles in several Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants. He grew up in Los Angeles, Calif. and Louisville, Kentucky. He is a fan of the Boston Celtics, which was the source of the name for Rondo.
Ms. Tepper-Marlin, a graduate of Trinity School in New York and of the University of Rochester, majoring in political science, is a wine professional/sommelier, consulting in hospitality management and wine selection for restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
She previously worked as a senior design development manager for Ralph Lauren, and had similar titles at Coach and Calvin Klein.
When asked by her parents why she wanted to go into the wine business, she asked them: "What business do you think Ralph Lauren is in?"
"The clothing business?", said one of them.
"No," Caroline replied. "He is selling lifestyle. That is what high-end restaurants sell. They have the same challenges as the fashion industry, to create a mood, and provide a pleasure-giving product for a target market."
The bride and groom next Bouley,
under the Harvest Moon.
Wedded Under A Harvest Moon
The evening ended under the Harvest Moon, which is at its brightest in North America tonight. The Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox (September 22), was especially important for farmers - they knew that around the date of that moon they would have enough moonlight to harvest crops after sundown.
During the evenings before and after the Harvest Moon, the moon rises earlier than usual. The Harvest Moon seems bigger and brighter because it is close to the horizon at sunset.
This year, the Harvest Moon really is bigger than usual because it's a "supermoon" - the moon turns full less than one day after reaching the moon’s closest point to Earth for the month.
Some think the supermoon is super-hype. But in the words (by Yip Harburg and Billy Rose) of Harold Arlen's song, "It wouldn't be make believe, If you believed in me."
All in all, a memorable backdrop for the marriage of Caroline and Francis. They are leaving now for London - appropriately sampling this year's harvest at vineyards and restaurants in Europe.
Comment
I was walking Caroline's dog Rondo, our grand puppy, and our neighbor Ira Hawkins asked about him. I explained he was on loan from my honeymooning daughter, the sommelier married to a chef. He said: "Good pairing."
High Elms Manor in Garston, near Watford, Herts., UK
I have visited High Elms Manor several times over the last 13 years of its ownership by my sister Sheila O'Neill. A well-informed blogger said of Sheila's determined rescue effort:
If there was a prize for commitment above and beyond financial sense then the owner of High Elms Manor/Garston Manor could probably win "Highly Commended" for her determination to rescue this once-derelict country house. Matthew Becket, The Country Seat, April 10, 2011.
The Risk. When my sister talked to me about purchasing the property, I was of two minds about it. Others in the family were not of two minds – they were opposed, because of the commitment required and the risk involved.
On the one hand the property is a jewel with an impressive history. It is a Grade II listed Georgian home. Built in 1812 or earlier, the Manor was once on a 500-acre estate – of which 21 acres remain. It was called High Elms Manor until 1895, when the name was changed to Garston Manor; Sheila has chosen to use the older name. In 1870 or so, the Manor was bought by the Watney family, who sold it to fellow brewers Benskins. In 1911 it was purchasd by Walter Bourne, a department store co-founder, who died in 1921. His son Stafford inherited it and sold it for use as a medical rehabilitation center. During World War II it was reportedly used for U.S.-British air force consultatation and liaison. After the war it became a National Health Service property for treatment of elderly patients, until the 1990s. This is a distinguished history that earns it a place as a Grade II listed property.
On the other hand, the current cost to heat and maintain the building is £75,000 per year. The cost of repairs that are needed to bring the property up to a minimal standard add another £500,000 to the original price she paid for the property, doubling it to £1 million.
Ceilings had fallen in, all the floors had been damaged, the wood panelling had turned green, chimneys had collapsed, lead had been stripped off the roof by vandals, there were a hundred broken windows, the garden was a jungle. It was in a terrible state. – Sheila O'Neill.
Outcome. Sheila went about the renovation one task at a time, starting with putting on a new roof to stop the widespread leaking. Progress was slow but steady over the past 13 years. Sheila has done an amazing job of renovation. In 2010, she and her daughters applied to Ruth Watson of "Country House Rescue," a widely viewed television program (UK Channel 4), to see how they might put the Manor on a more sustainable footing. Here's what Channel 4 said:
Headmistress Sheila O'Neill bought the house as a wreck for £500,000 from the local council with dreams of turning the decrepit building into a school. Thirteen years later and the Montessori school is just about breaking even. But attempts at diversifying into a wedding and conference venue have failed. Sheila and her children, four daughters in their 30s and 40s, all live in self-contained flats on the upper floors of the house... Ruth needs to persuade Sheila to relinquish control and pass some responsibility onto her eccentric and free spirited daughters. Ruth gives three of the daughters individual responsibilities. - Roisin clears the woodland that accompanies the house and create a magical treasure hunt for guests. - Catrine builds on her interest in the supernatural to launch a UFO academy. - Liadain takes over responsibility of the overall look of the house, from the internal decorations to the disheveled terrace and gardens. "Country House Rescue," April 10, 2011.
Based on professional advice that came with the show, the Manor gets a new terrace, floors are fixed, the kitchen is upgraded and paintings are moved around. (Details on the many renovations are in Hertfordshire Life.) The newly sponsored treasure hunt and the UFO academy are great successes. Having been on "Country House Rescue" was itself a huge plus. Stay tuned!
This blog is focused on the concept of time travel, the contribution of Willem Jacob van Stockum to the topic, and historical places that evoke time travel.
