Alison says…Well Mil I’m holding a lovely moon faced pewter plate which takes me right back to our life at Tanyralt, which was the motherhouse to Bryngwenallt where my grandfather lived.
Anthony says… Bryngwenalt was built in it the grounds so Tanyrallt became just a house with a garden, and Bryngwenalt was the big house, and so Tanyralt was effectively a dower house.
Alison, I think it was my great grandfather built Bryngwenallt. My father inherited [Tanyrallt] but his tragedy was two maiden aunts were given life residency but they lived to an extremely old age, poor father. I remember that Anthony and I were almost through our university lives before we got the use of that house, which of course would have been wonderful to take friends for summer holidays.
Anthony – eventually she did take a friend for a summer holiday – I was invited. Second half of my 20s.
It was always part of the breakfast room, it sat up on a lovely old oak sideboard dresser, and it kind of glowed. I remember it glowed in the half light because it was rather a dark room, so it was always an object of mystery and drama. I think it sat there as an object of interest year after year. It’s pretty plain and pretty old. It says London on the back, and somebody would be able to date it. It was always around and always part of….
They were the sisters of my grandfather. One was called Ella, Great Aunt Ella, and the other one was Lamo, I can’t remember what that was short for ….. oh Myfanwy she was called … they were very bright ladies I remember, but Ella was rather ill, she was a professional invalid, always in a rather darkened room.
Anthony – it would be more meaningly to divert from the pewter plate to this picture.
Alison – oh there they are, and Uncle Frank.
Oh yes we have rather agonising statutory Sunday tea over there. And the only thing I really remember was the little walk over there which was about a quarter of a mile. And I remember that little path, it skirted a copse. I don’t think somehow that my grandmother got on with them very well. My grandfather was Herbert. Frank lived with the sisters in that house.
Anthony – Herbert was the eldest. Do you remember the order the family came in after that?
Alison – No
I completely and totally remember trending the quarter mile. It went through an extremely nice walled garden, then skirted a woodland, and that bit of path was extremely difficult, I used to slip and slide.
(Mil asks if Alison spent her holidays there with her grandparents)
Unfortunately Hannah my grandmother died early which was a great pity because she was the much more fun person. I remember she had the most brilliant blue eyes which were penetration, and I have never ever forgotten my first meeting with her as a baby, when I was presented to her. I have the most completely clear memory of this Mil. I don’t know what age I was, but I remember being deposited on her quilt or something and these kind but penetrating blue eyes looking right into the soul of this little baby girl. She was quite a mystic my grandmother anyway. She belonged to one of these early esoteric societies that I used to love when I was a girl. Which was rather unusual, particularly with her very proper and straight Calvinist husband, who propped up three chapels every Sunday. He had an amazing Sunday life my grandfather. He was a respected elder of three Abergele establishments. And I seem to remember that on Sunday he had a ridiculous ploy of spending half an hour in one chapel, and then trotting along the road quarter of a mile and spending half an hour in the next one, and then to the third one. I can’t remember which one had the sermon, but the sermons were interminable – they were very very long. But there was something that I loved about them, what was it…. It was probably the music, but I do remember it was rather an arid day, and we were’t allowed to read books, just the bible [even when you were in London?] Oh in London that was different. Herbert was a liberal MP for many many decades for Denbighshire and he had a friend, Dr Lewis, who was an MP for the next county and they used to travel together up to London. I have a strong memory of that little railway station that had a very small chunterring chain.
Anthony – Pewter was definitely utilitarian (lots more pewter chat)
(Mil – were the dowager aunts also stern ladies?). I think they had a twinkle. Lamo was quite a girl. For example she had been an absolutely ace golfer in her youth. She had been a top of Denbighshire – prize winning golfer. [the Sunday afternoons being anguished] I think Uncle Frank smoked a pipe…. Or just tobacco. I remember an awful smell. There would have been a routine, but I just remember that towards the end they were very frail and I don’t think they offered us anything. I remember a dark shadow in the kitchen and it was a great relief to get to the front which must have been South facing.
[Mil – did any of them work?] Frank was a lawyer – he had a practice in Liverpool. Ella was a creature of mystery to me. She lived in a back bedroom and always had the door shut. She was a very private lady. I think she was maybe bedridden or didn’t like children. I had a huge love for that house, I’m wondering what that came from.
(Lots of whittering over stuff that no-one is very sure about)
My grandfather had a chauffeur, a fantastic chauffeur character who lived in the lodge. Bryngwenallt had a long snaking driveway with a lodge at either end. It was very grand, but what I loved most about it was the wonderful old roman tin mine at the back of the house, and in order to access it …. It had a wonderful mystery, an old tunnel from tin mining days. And we had to walk through it to get to the lead in the hillside. It was murky and drippy. It was opposite the front door. It was a place for adventuring Mil. I remember it was a rather formal and boring garden with lots and lots of dark formal trees and lawns. [Anthony says typical parkland around a grand house].
I could draw for you the vestibule and the lovely strained glass. It was a beautiful beautiful house. I think my love of Victoriana comes from that house. Totally different from Tanyrallt (Anthony – it was modest – no great towers, just two stories, attics just for servants and modest, a very typical house of that age). Bryngwenallt was the nouveau riche – extravagant.)
It’s very crazy that picture of Uncle Frank and his horse whip and little girly skirt.
An enduring memory is the boredom of the car journey going up and down – a long journey from London.
I think I remember a creature called Penny who was the mistake daughter of our much loved black cocker spaniel called Barley who was in my childhood. In London there was a dreadful shameful episode when the local Don Juan who was a very smart standard poodle – Sebastian – , got up and close with Barley. She was a very lovely and very stupid cocker spaniel. [Anthony says “all cocker spaniels are stupid”]. I remember there was a terrific hoo-ha about it. She was a very bright and very sweet dog, much loved.
And of course you know about my trail of pets don’t you? I don’t know where it began but it deeply featured reptiles – tree frogs. For years I had a particular relationship with a very good lovely shop in soho, and it dealt in, I’m ashamed to say exotic and protected creatures, to which I was extremely partial and don’t ask me why, but I had always loved frogs, I mean there may be a reason. And I told you the shameful action of my father looking after one of my frogs when I was on holidays. As far as I remember, we went off, we planned to go off up to Wales for our normal month’s holiday in the summer (aged around 10), and I had these tree frogs, and the day before the journey I suddenly said what about the tree frogs, and my father, resourceful man, said don’t worry Alison leave it up to me. Put them in a box and I will take them to work. And unsuspectingly I put them in a box and put them in his hand, and that was the last I ever saw of my beloved tree frogs because naughty father, when he got to the Houses of Parliament, his office, it pains me to tell you this, he opened the casement window and flung my dears into the muddy waters of the turbulent Thames where I think they met a sticky end. And I didn’t forgive him for years. It was a huge and versatile hobby and I loved it. I had a brief dreadful episode with a lizard. I fell in love with this very very beautiful green lizard with a long tail, and I thought I’d be able to handle it, and I put it in a rather inadequate cage, and of course that very night it did an escape act into the house, and nobody could find it, we all looked everywhere. I think about a year later we found it shrivelled at the bottom of the stairs. [Mil says that reminds me of my childhood, finding things in the cutlery drawer. Anthony says ‘Do you remember the crickets round the Aga?’ Of course I do….. it took years for them to disappear]
The Royal Collection 