Anthony : There is very little that I can tell you about Mr Snowball because no doubt he was given to me when I was 2 or 3, before the war in the late 30s, at Bog Hall, and I first remember him when Charles and I used to sleep side by side in two beds in what became Mother’s sewing room but was my father’s dressing room. He still kept his clothes there until they left Bog Hall. I remember the coal fire in the corner before electric fires became common. We had such fun sleeping together, and of course close to mum and dad. There was a narrow bathroom, and then a large rather grand room, which was the spare room, but it didn’t have en suite facilities, so they had to use the spare bathroom, which had the most enormous bath. The house as we knew it was rebuilt in 1906 or 1907 by James Millar who was an enormous man, and so had an enormous bath, and all through the war we were never allowed to use it because it would take too much water, with rationing and difficulty with coal and fuel generally, and when after the war we were to use it, it was with all 4 of us, and we were not allowed more than 3 inches. Father would come and measure it – he always carried a four fold rule in his hip pocket and he would measure it and ensure we didn’t take too much water. It’s quite extravagant how we are now – we talk about greenhouse warming and everything, but one didn’t have such high expectations of comfort – if the weather was cold one put on a jumper, one didn’t turn up the heating – there was no heating to turn up – there was a coal fire in the living room and a range in the kitchen, and yet we were perfectly happy. I remember when I went to Cargilfield, then evacuated in the war to Comrie [from research I see that the pupils were evacuated to Lawers House near Comrie], I was at one stage in hutted accommodation, and it was great when it was so cold because the ink froze and we were allowed to use pencils which were so much less trouble than the messy ink.
As a teenager I was teased that I still loved my Teddy Bear [Mil – did you take him to school with you?] No I never took him to school with me – since it was a boys school, that would have been sissy – that was the term. But Charles and I in this bedroom together, our iron bedsteads…. We had such fun – we pushed the beds together and we had riotous games. He loved to play Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Tigger would chase one, and Tigger would be hiding under the eiderdown, and I had a lovely eiderdown with a printed cover of Snow-white and the Seven Dwarves, and I still have a little patch of it. I remember Susan and Jane having the second spare bedroom, and then at some stage after the war, they got their own bedrooms on the second floor – two lovely rooms. Eventually I got my own bedroom which was called the maids’ sitting room. I don’t know where the maids slept, maybe they slept in the lodge. It must have been when I went to boarding school, because I remember the room in the holidays with its own bathroom. But I do remember, certainly at the stage when I was with Charlie, in mums sewing room, being tucked up with Mr Snowball, and equally I remember after I moved to Cargillfield, definitely tucked up with Mr Snowball. And I love the way my mother tucked me up because it gave me ears. I would lie with my head in the middle of the pillow, and she would raise the corners of the pillow over the turned over sheet / blankets and it just felt so cosy with the pillow up over my ears. I remember doing that for your children and they didn’t appreciate it at all.
The Royal Collection 