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Jack Hill was born on a farm near Leicester, worked in a bank, and laboured as a Bevin Boy during the war before working for a London firm of architects. Jack continues his colourful story from the time he decided to leave Lea in Herefordshire:-
The road to Gloucester is very winding and as I disliked it so much, we searched for somewhere more acceptable. This resulted in us moving into the west wing of an Elizabethan house at Whitminster, owned by John
Teesdale, who was a portrait painter and was often away in London.
He had a very attractive wife who stayed at the house most of the time. On one occasion we were invited to look at family heirlooms, which had been given to him by his aunt who had bequeathed the house and farm. I can't remember much as I was too envious to allow myself to absorb what I was seeing.
Heating this flat was something of a problem and so we ordered a large supply of wood blocks from a chap in Gloucester. One evening we were loading up the car in Russell Street and Beryl was doing her bit but when we arrived back at Whitminster she decided she didn't feel well and went to lie on the bed.
There she had a miscarriage and we never did manage to remove all the signs from the covering to the Dunlopillo mattress {This had been acquired during her time at Dunlops.]
We were quite happy at Whitminster even though we were not allowed to walk in the garden. We could look at it but not enjoy it more closely. There were two peacocks that lived in the cedar tree and they used to scream at the tops of their voices.
The house is adjacent to two canals so there were plenty of routes for walking. It was inevitable that we began thinking about somewhere more permanent and asked the chaps at Parkers' estate office in Gloucester if they would keep their eyes peeled for a house that had a stream in the garden.
We looked at one house on the way to Newent and this had a tiny stream which passed by the house and the owner used to sit at the living room window with his rod and line fishing for small trout. This seemed a useful place, then out of the blue one of the chaps told us of a house east of Stroud which had not one stream but two. Would that be of interest perhaps? So a visit was arranged. More anon.
And so on to the next chapter of Jack Hill's interesting life.
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