Memories of E/st Markham Hall

Markham Hall c1955
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I remember my father moving to East Markham Hall in about 1937. We moved from Ranskill and there were three of us kids and Mum and Dad. He paid £50 a year rent from Mr Wrench who lived next door in a cottage. There was a big garden, a kitchen garden with a 6ft wall round it with a greenhouse with a boiler which I had to keep going during the winter. We kept chickens, ducks and till the war, and bred Samoyed dogs. There was a big Horse Chestnut tree and other trees which held a rookery, they made a great noise each morning, and in the spring we used to shoot the young rooks out of the nests. In the paddock were walnut trees and good grazing. There was a big rose garden with a mulberry tree in it and on the wall were peach and fig trees. In the big stables at the back, the Lovat Scouts came at the beginning of the war with their horses (see East Markham) and had tents in the field. There was a big lawn which I had to cut with an Atco motor mower, before I could go and play football on a Saturday. It was a lovely big house with a long corridor on the top floor, where we played cricket on wet days. We had several staff, Mr Cutler was the gardener, his daughter was our cook and Olive was the maid. We also had a chamber maid but she sat in the airing cupboard all day crying! My father was a JP and a Church Warden and we used to go to church three times on a Sunday and I loved to sing the hymns and act as an alter boy for the vicar (Mr Bolton). Then we came home and had a good Sunday roast lunch. Then I would help my father count the collection to go to the bank next day. If we had house guests, which was often, we would play cards etc round the big table....mostly Newmarket or Pontoon. During the Second World War we had some evacuees from Yarmouth, a Mrs Hatch and her two girls living on the top floor, and their father was Mayor of Yarmouth. We had a bedroom each but there was no bedside light and of course no heating. I used to read the 'Beano' and 'Hotspur' under the blankets with a torch. The house was HQ for the 10th Notts Batallion of the Sherwood Foresters Home Guard and my father had all the volunteers marching on the lawn and doing drill with broom handles until they were issued with proper uniforms and guns. They did catch a German pilot who baled out. My father, who had been wounded in the First World War on the Somme, had to go to Sheffield every day and spent a lot of time at night on the Home Guard, died in 1946. This left my mother with no money, seven children from 16 down to 2 years old. We split up and went different ways...all over the world. She moved to Reading and kept a council boarding house for Council employees until she married again in 1957. All the children are still going strong except John who died in 2005.