Lunch at Secrett’s Farm – by Mildred Howes

As a family we came over to Ham, from Kew, every Sunday and often were invited to lunch with various people. I have memories of lunch at Secrett’s farm. The farmer was then Lewis Secrett and our families became friends. I remember his wife, who was a bit eccentric I think, feeding a mouse that appeared out of hole in the wainscoting while we were eating. It is difficult to […]

Trips to Scotland for grouse shooting – by HS

You said you father was a driver for someone who lived in the park.   Was he around a lot or was it a very busy job?  Very funny hours, never sure whether he was going to be there or not.  I went on trips quite often with them, in fact every year they went to Scotland for grouse shooting in August and he, of course, had to go with them […]

Perfect place to live for riding – by JM

We used to like riding, so we came to Ham because we used to ride with Billy Walsh who had these wonderful polo stables on the Common which are now part of the estate of, I can’t remember his name even, an Arab prince, right by Ham Gate.  This was the stable and we used to drive down from London, we lived right at Marble Arch in a lovely flat […]

Saturday morning cimema – by HS

Oh, there used to be, I think it was, a weekly visit to the cinema in Richmond or Kingston.  That was a bit of a regular thing. There was a Saturday morning children’s films and I remember particularly in Fife Road in Kingston was a cinema called the Super, the Super Cinema which isn’t there now, of course, and what I remember mainly about that is that they were mainly […]

Meeting my husband at a Castle Dance – by JP

We began to get dancing lessons and that sort of thing, the Castle at Richmond taught me how to foxtrot.  I met my husband at a dancing school when I was 22.  Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip had been in Canada and they’d learnt how to square dance so everybody had to learn square dancing so I went to this dance studio and he was there and that’s how we […]