Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up at Leeds Castle

by Anthony Russell

  At ten past five my mother was yet to finish her cup of China tea and digestive biscuit. I was still contemplating how Nanny was always able to remain totally unflappable whatever the circumstance, an especially desirable character trait given her constant exposure to the idiosyncrasies of our family life.

  All of a sudden the study door was filled, or at least partly occupied, by Chapman’s diminutive yet dignified presence. His head was egg shaped, his thinning hair combed straight back, and his expression imperturbable at all times. He wore a tailcoat and striped trousers, removing the coat only when he was in his pantry polishing silver, or relaxing with Agnes over a cup of tea in their sitting room, which looked out over the walled, herbaceous-bordered back garden.

  Agnes had wiry red hair, hollow cheeks, and a forceful gaze emphasized by her large and powerful spectacles. When she was cleaning the house, pushing, pulling, and twisting her heavy, noisy machinery with utter disregard for the safety of the skirting boards, she looked like a hornet with a Hoover, hell-bent on completing the task before moving on to the next.

  “Your mother is ready,” Chapman informed us and discreetly withdrew. My mother was in the hallway, immaculate in a headscarf and warm coat, making a final inspection of her handbag, which as usual looked enormously full. “All right, Nanny,” she said, snapping the bag shut with great authority and popping an Altoid extra-strong peppermint into her mouth. “Let’s bundle him in.”

  It had already snowed lightly in London, but the castle and grounds, we’d been told, were covered top to toe with thick, beautiful snow. And it was very cold. A perfect start to the festivities as far as I was concerned. If my mother felt the same way, she kept it to herself, mentioning only something about driving becoming hazardous, but Nanny and I were confident our passage would be a smooth one, and it was. Despite the blackness of night, the bright lights, and slushy roads, our spirits were high as, just before seven o’clock, we turned off the main A20 road, passed through the gates of the front drive, and entered the castle grounds.

  I immediately felt the familiar rush of excitement and anticipation that struck me each time we arrived at the castle gates, only this time it was stronger, more palpable.

  No description of Leeds’s transcendent beauty has, to me, ever sounded adequate, nor the effect such beauty had on those fortunate enough to have known it, and known it well.

  I opened the window and leaned out. The air, cold and crisp, smelt like Christmas. Despite the darkness I could see the snow all around us, a ghostly white.

  “Darling, would you mind, before we all freeze?” my mother said.

  I wound the window back up as we went over the top of the first small hill, our big tyres making crunch-crunch sounds in the snow just as my cereal used to do at breakfast. Then we started going downhill, way down, with woods all around and Granny B’s duckery over to our right. Then sharply up a steep hill, over the top, round a bend, to the most thrilling moment of the journey.

  Off in the distance I saw the castle lights twinkling, the outline of the Gloriette (the site of the original Norman keep), the battlements and the bell tower barely visible in the pale moonlight. A wondrous sight. For this child it was, and will always remain, a moment of pure heaven.

  As we made our way up the drive I remained in my private rapture, my nose glued to the window, my breath fogging it up, necessitating a rapid clearing with the palm of my hand. Much too soon the castle went out of sight as we descended again, up and round the last hill, through the gatehouse, around the croquet lawn, and we’d arrived.

  Before I knew it there were people everywhere, opening doors, rushing around. “Good evening, Madam,” once. “Good evening, Madam,” twice. Borrett stood in the open doorway directing operations like the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. “Good evening, Nanny. Good evening, Master Anthony,” he said with the same formality as if he were addressing the Queen of Sheba. “I hope you had a pleasant drive.”

  Unable to restrain myself, I pushed past everybody to get a first look at the Christmas decorations. In direct contrast to the grand formality of the castle’s usual appearance, Granny B insisted on pulling out all the stops and transforming the whole feel of Leeds over Christmas. Holy Moses! I thought, looking up at the hall ceiling, where giant multicoloured paper streamers hung in perfect arcs from all four corners, meeting in the centre at a huge forest green paper bell. Through to the left in the main hall I admired more streamers, more bells, more colour, and the glorious sensation of Christmas all around.

  Nanny took my hand and, as she guided me under the Gothic archway, up the great stone staircase over which three massive sixteenth-century Flemish hunting tapestries, of wild animals and exotic foliage woven in gorgeous greens and gold, loomed large, I heard my mother telling me she’d be up soon to “tuck me in.” My day was drawing to a close, and all further activities were to be put on hold until the morning.

  “When will David and James be here?” I asked Nanny from the bath, thinking how much livelier the nursery became when my older brothers were around.

  “Your father’s driving them down in the morning,” she informed me. “I expect they’ll be here in time for lunch. Now hurry up, please, because Vincent is on his way up with supper.”

  I liked Vincent more than most of the other footmen, whose names I would often forget. He arrived in an elevator, which I found amusing. He would deposit the food on a large tray in our little pantry, and Nanny would then bring it to us in the playroom. Later he’d come back and remove all the debris.

  My mother tucked me in so tightly that after a goodnight kiss and the lights were turned out it took a few kicks and wriggles to free up some breathing space. Then I drifted off into a sleep filled with exotic snowmen and reindeers at the gallop.

  * * *

  Nanny and I were up, dressed, and had eaten breakfast by eight. For a long time after that I became wholly occupied staring out of the tall windows, feasting my eyes on the glorious sight of the golf course and parkland covered in snow. The lordly cedars off in the distance, graceful through the ages, their presence so dignified, so reassuring; and closer in, the triangular red flag on the ninth green flapping away merrily like a clown’s foot at the circus. How many nurseries in England, spacious enough for a family of four to inhabit, could there possibly be with views to equal this? It soon dawned on me that no ducks or geese were to be spotted on the moat. “Nanny, look!” I cried. “The moat is completely frozen!”

  “My goodness, so it is,” she said, peering through her glasses with one arm around me, a look of wonderment on her face equal to my own. We wrapped ourselves up like South Pole explorers and set off for a walk. Quietly. We knew the drill. Not seen, not heard until the castle and its guests had fully awoken, breakfasted, read papers, dressed, and left their rooms. I preferred it that way. Bumping into the wrong people unexpectedly could set off unwanted alarm bells and was best avoided if possible.

  We walked for over two hours, building and demolishing snowmen with casual abandon. In the stable yard, perched atop the hill which overlooked the castle island where the horses used to be kept but were no longer because nobody ever rode, we bumped into Mrs. Brewer. She was the wife of Granny B’s chauffeur, a compact, well-turned-out lady for whom I had a soft spot, especially when she invited me into her cottage for some of her scrumptious homemade scones.

  Strolling through the kitchen garden in all its immaculately cropped, incessantly formal and, now, snow-covered splendour, we encountered Mr. Elves, the electrician (whose son, Johnny, was head footman), as always wearing rumpled corduroys and a worn tweed jacket, today with a heavy sweater underneath.

  “Morning, Happy Christmas!” he said from beneath his peaked cap, beady eyes courteous but wary, enormous red beard camouflaging his round, ruddy-cheeked face and obscuring all further expression.

  “Good morning, Mr. Elves,” Nanny and I said in unison, “Happy Christmas! What a lovely day.”

  “That it is.”

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nbsp; “See you at the party later,” Nanny added.

  The annual staff Christmas party was, for me, a combination of thumbs-up (home territory and Granny’s present) and thumbs-down (another social event with too many unfamiliar faces to contend with). A large number of estate workers, most of whom I knew, and their children, most of whom I did not, gathered in the ground-floor rooms of the Gloriette for tea and entertainment, followed by a mad frenzy of balloon popping and Christmas gift distributing to the children by Granny B (who enjoyed this annual opportunity to greet in person her employees’ children and exchange a few words), assisted by Morg and John Money, the estate manager. I knew I was supposed to be enjoying myself on these occasions but I seldom did.

  * * *

  The Gloriette was first constructed in stone by Robert de Crèvecoeur in the twelfth century when Henry I was king of England. The ground-floor ceilings were high and beamed, and Granny had the floors, once stone, laid in the finest ebony when she began the massive reconstruction work in the 1920s. The seventy-five-foot-long room where the staff party took place had been King Edward I’s banqueting hall, but Granny used to call it the saloon because before World War II she and her guests spent some serious partying time there, dancing to music piped in from hidden gramophones, drinking, gossiping, enjoying films, and, in one of the adjacent rooms, gambling with riverboat fervour. At this time the saloon walls were covered in deep red velvet and adorned by tapestries including Narcissus, which later went to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. A mighty sixteenth-century stone fireplace with carved figures, lions, and grotesque heads, brought over from a French château, looked down over silk Eastern carpets and across to the bay window, which dated from the rebuilding work undertaken by Sir Henry Guilford for King Henry VIII in 1517. There was also a Steinway concert grand piano in the event some maestro happened to be present, which was often the case.

  The prewar guest list at Leeds Castle was always kept as quiet as possible because Granny B was a private person who greatly disliked publicity. In this she was ably assisted by her friendship with the major newspaper proprietors of the day, who were happy to trade weekend invitations for maximum discretion on castle matters. But a scrutiny of the visitors’ book, kept in the library during the 1950s and 1960s and available for family and guests to peruse, revealed the ink signatures of people ranging from Edward, Prince of Wales (later Duke of Windsor), and Wallis Simpson, Prince George and Princess Marina of Greece, Queen Marie of Romania, and Alfonso XIII of Spain, to ambassadors, government ministers, an assortment of well-bred landowners and gentry, film stars such as Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, David Niven, and Gertrude Lawrence, even Nazi Germany’s ambassador to Great Britain, Joachim von Ribbentrop. In those days the gathering storm in Europe looked as if it might not draw in the British Isles, but still one wonders what he and Britain’s foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, might have discussed over the port and cigars.

  A friendly man but one of few words, Mr. Elves soon went on his way, as did Nanny and I. We arrived back in the nursery without having seen another soul, and I wondered where on earth everybody was. When David and James eventually arrived, storming into the nursery dressed in corduroy trousers and pullovers, I briefly contemplated their superior outfits to my uninspiring khaki shorts and school woolly before we all set off for the party.

  It was a journey which took us down the main stairs, under an arch, past the Yellow drawing room where the grown-ups played cards after dinner, past the gentlemen’s washroom, down more stairs, past the kitchens and Borrett’s pantry, an area we hardly ever visited, down the long, narrow, tiled corridor that connected the new castle (eighteenth century) with the old (twelfth century) and, finally, to the Gloriette, where the tea-room looked as if everybody had arrived and the party was in full swing.

  Ladies in black dresses and white aprons rushed about carrying tea, jugs of milk, lemonade, and orange squash, and serving cakes, biscuits, sandwiches, and scones. There were probably a hundred people nattering away, happy and seemingly full of Christmas spirit.

  Nanny and I managed to squeeze ourselves in somewhere while David and James went off in search of the rowdier element. I did not recognize the people around us, although Nanny gave me the impression she did, so as she chatted and sipped tea I did my best to make myself agreeable to the pretty girls seated on either side of me, an effort that strained my resources to the limit and produced no positive results to speak of. Perhaps this was because my castle status induced shyness on their part, thus rounding out the troika. Whatever the reason, I opted to make a strategic withdrawal as soon as politeness allowed in order to have a quick, private inspection of the tree.

  As always, it stood by the bay window rising up from floor to ceiling, emitting a sensational sweet smell of pine, and was garlanded with tinsel, coloured lights, and enough sweets and chocolates to sink a battleship. Underneath, neatly arranged and beautifully wrapped, were presents for all the children.

  As the former saloon began filling up, happy faces appeared wearing paper hats in all the colours of the rainbow, blowing whistles, and bearing other strange objects found in the Christmas crackers. Then Granny made her stately way into the room, accompanied by my mother, and everyone made a lot of fuss over them. Morg followed and made a lot of fuss over everyone else. No other members of the court made an appearance. Nanny eased her way through the crowd towards me, selecting, to John Money’s annoyance, one of the large, ochre-coloured cushions (made from Breton sailcloth and found on the cane chairs outside the castle front door in summer) for me to sit on, in front of my mother’s chair. He felt this was stuff and nonsense, me being silly, not participating on equal terms with the other children, and Nanny pushing her weight around. I just thought she was being kind.

  Slowly but surely we were all in place; castle grown-ups in armchairs against the wall, close by the tree; children on cushions from in front of the stage to three-quarters of the way back; and the estate parents, some standing, some sitting on folding chairs, lined up along the back wall. For a brief moment the noise of chatting stopped as the curtain swept back to reveal a very funny-looking man in black tailcoat and top hat who bounced onto the stage bellowing, “Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen!” several times before proceeding to pull a large number of handkerchiefs from both his ears. I enjoyed that. For half an hour he regaled us with tricks and stories, sometimes asking for assistance from someone in the audience. I dreaded his asking me, but fortunately I escaped his attention, and as the final rabbit was gamely plucked from the ever-faithful hat, we all waved and said farewell. Time, now, for the presents.

  Granny and Morg stood up, their commanding presence drawing all eyes. One by one John Money passed Morg the gifts and he, revelling in the situation, glanced at the card and whispered the name in Granny’s ear. She then called out the names in her deep, husky, and mesmerizing voice, each time being assailed by a happy shout of “Me!” and “Over here!” When it was my turn she lowered her voice a little because I was sitting right in front of her.

  It was large. “Darling Anthony,” the label said, “Happy Christmas and much love, Granny.” I tore away some of the paper and saw exactly what I had been hoping for. I felt a surge of excitement. It had been top of my list. I tore off more paper. Yes! Fantastic! A Davy Crockett outfit! Concentrating hard on the decimation of paper and ribbon, I almost forgot my manners. “Thank you, Granny,” I said. She smiled at me, as did my mother. They could tell they’d picked a winner with this one.

  I grabbed Nanny’s hand and told her I was going upstairs to put my costume on. Oblivious to the pandemonium all around, balloons popping, babies crying, adults getting ready to leave, and children begging to stay with fierce intensity, I rushed back up to the nursery. I opened the box on my bed and took out the heavy buckskin jacket and long pants. The moccasins. The powder horn and strap. The leather belt and holster, the double-barreled pistol and hunting knife. And the hat. The big fur hat with a tail.

 
; When dressed, I went over to the mirror on Nanny’s dressing table. It looked great. It felt great. King of the castle. King of the wild frontier.

  * * *

  It was time to hang up my stocking. Nanny had found for me a long, thick woollen sock that we hung over one of the bedknobs. I wondered which fireplace Santa Claus would come down.

  Indeed, considering his remarkably heavy load, I wondered if he might not consider putting tradition aside and come in through the front door. Mildly frustrated at my inability to assist Mr. Claus with his complicated travel arrangements, I turned out the light and tried to go to sleep. I could just hear Nanny and the boys watching television next door. Perhaps if I stayed awake Santa wouldn’t come. Help! What was he going to bring?… An orange for the bottom of the stocking, surely … and lots of toys …

  James had a stocking just like mine, and it seemed logical that David would too, although being in his separate bedroom meant waiting until the morning for comparisons. Strangely, Nanny’s stocking was a lot smaller than ours, which mystified me a bit. Why did Father Christmas bring fewer gifts for Nanny? I should have asked her, but never got round to it.

  When I awoke it was totally dark. My big toe had come into contact with something hard. Wary of making a noise, I gently prodded and explored with both feet, coming rapidly to the conclusion that Santa Claus had paid his call and left behind a full and weighty stocking as evidence of his endeavours. With reluctance I waited patiently for a while, but as my eyes adjusted to the dark, and what was lying across my feet became visible (as well as the sleeping figures of Nanny and James), curiosity got the better of me and I reached down. Christmas Day had begun, and not a moment too soon.

  By the time James’s head popped up, accompanied by a “Bloody hell, what time is it?” I was able to read Nanny’s clock and inform him that it was just past six o’clock. I had already been hard at play for about an hour, but such was my diligence in maintaining minimal noise I had succeeded in opening only three small parcels, two of which remained a mystery as to what they were, or what they did, the third being a very smart pair of slippers. Small pieces of wrapping paper were strewn across my entire bed.