1. Mersham le Hatch
I have on my wall in Milan a print of Mersham le Hatch. It is quite small (12x8 cm), rather dark and almost looks better on the computer screen. The drawing, by John Preston Neale (1780-1847), first appeared in black and white in 1824, in “Neale’s Gentlemen’s Seats, Vol. iii second series”, with a history of the house. For sale as separate prints, the drawing was discreetly hand-coloured.
Mersham le Hatch is an early Robert Adam building, begun in 1762 and completed around 1766 as the country seat of the Knatchbull family. The Knatchbulls had another house in Mersham, misleadingly named Newhouse although, as an 18th building with a 17th core, it was new only in relation to the Jacobean mansion that was demolished to make way for Mersham le Hatch. The head of the Knatchbull family during my Caldecott years, the 7th Lord Brabourne (1924-2005), lived mainly at Mersham le Hatch until 1933. After this date, his father, the 5th Lord Brabourne (1895-1939), undertook a series of important postings in India – ultimately that of Acting Viceroy. Both houses were tenanted and subsequently requisitioned by the army during the war years. Mersham le Hatch was rented to the Caldecott Community (renamed the Caldecott Foundation in 1997) from 1947 to 2002. Newhouse also had a brief role in Caldecott history when it was home to a reception centre for deprived children. This operated only from 1947 to 1950 and in 1952, the 7th Lord Brabourne, who had married Lord Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia in 1946, resumed residence at Newhouse. Lord Brabourne was more than mere landlord and was on the Board of Governors of the Caldecott Community for many years.
From 1961 to 1971, the Caldecott Community, and therefore Mersham le Hatch, was my term-time home. Former attendees of Caldecott report both good and bad memories, but all agree on the beauty of the house, usually referred to as just the “Hatch”, the grounds and the Deer Park behind it. The diagonal viewpoint chosen by Neale for his drawing robs the front façade of the majestic breadth so many of us remember and gives it a slightly squat appearance. Nevertheless, he was better at drawing houses than rhododendrons. If we are to believe Neale’s perspective, people were tall in those days, taller even than James King, who became a Co-Director of Caldecott towards the end of my years there and stood well over six feet. The house is not currently open to the public, but information and photographs can be found quite easily.
2. Memories and names
A history of the Caldecott Community from its earliest days until the early 1970s was written by Elizabeth Lloyd (“Miss Elizabeth”), a long-serving member of staff. Miss Elizabeth drew on diaries she had kept during her years with the Community, but seems to have destroyed them after completing the book. “The Story of a Community” is available on the Association website. The present work is not intended as history and has no scholarly claims. It is a portrait of Caldecott as perceived through the eyes of a child and adolescent and remembered half a century later. Unlike Miss Elizabeth, I have no diaries to draw upon. Yet the reader will find phrases and conversations quoted verbatim. Do I really remember all these things?
As I write them down, the speakers’ voices ring in my ears as if the conversation took place yesterday. Have I adjusted them over the years? Have I filled in the gaps so the fragments make sense? Not consciously. Since most of the speakers are elderly members of staff, long dead, there is no way to check this. I believe that what I have written is spiritually true to what was said.
Yet memory is extraordinarily selective. I would like to speak here of something I do not remember. The book by my virtual contemporary Tony Inwood, “Flying Under the Radar” (UK Book Publishing, 2023), devotes considerable space to the construction of a motorized go-cart. There is a photograph of Tony sitting in the go-cart*. I have no recollection of this go-cart, which must have been made while I was still at Caldecott. Reading Tony’s account, the go-cart rings no bell. It is not the sort of thing in which I would have taken part, but surely I heard about its daily progress and took an occasional peep at what they were doing? This is just to say that, while I remember many things with almost total recall, when I forget something, it goes for ever. This, then is Caldecott as I remember it in those years.
A word about names. In line with GDPR rules, staff are identified while children are given fictitious names (which read more smoothly than blanks or XXs). The exceptions are fleeting appearances by David Dear, Gerald Moran, Robert Clark, Tony Inwood and Katy Gordon, whose names are already visible on the unrestricted section of the Association site, with the result that their attendance at Caldecott is public knowledge, and Peta Farnell and Jane Pooler-Williams, who are deceased. The following names are invented: Alessia Small, Alastair Staines, Brian Cassidy, Cuthbert Claude, Donald Swarthington, Eustace Hevers, Fabian Doyle, Grant (“Git”) Heath, Holden Blackford, Ivan Bloom, Jethro Starling, Kendall Strout, Leonard Daley, Melissa Brown, Nathan James, Orlando Lacey, Patrick Delware, Quentin de Lisle, Ruby Driver, Sebastian Grove, Tamsin James, Ursula Stephens, Veronica Studely, Walter (“Wiley”) Todman, Xanthe Styles, Zachary Durban. I suppose that, somewhere in the world, real people exist who bear these names. It is at least possible that some of them frequented Caldecott outside my time reference. I can only apologize and assure them no reference is intended. Anybody who reads this and recognizes people and events, but saw them differently, is urged to contribute their own impressions to the Association site. It is important to achieve the fullest possible picture before these Caldecott days fade from living memory.
One final point. Some of the events related might be painful memories if I were not able to see the funny side of them. This is probably my own personal cloth of protection. Others have learnt to protect themselves by selectively forgetting, or have reinterpreted the past to ensure themselves an idyllic childhood. Gentle ridicule has always been my way. If anybody objects that I am pillorying people and things sacred to them, I can only urge them to get busy on their own memoirs.
“I am grateful to Gerald Moran, who has clarified a few dates and names and provided useful additional information, which I have duly acknowledged in footnotes”.
* This photograph may have been the victim of one of the hacking episodes. It does not appear to be on the site now.