CD2 

(72 mins)
 

2/1

RETURN FROM CANADA

LRH took 2 otherwise unaccompanied 9-year old twins back with her, unfortunately on a different deck, very  worrying.  Boat was full of boys and cockroaches! Uncomfortable journey.  Put in at the Azores for 3 days.  Allowed ashore 1 day.  Apparently they rescued 2 boatloads of British sailors who'd been torpedoed.  Eventually got to Lisbon, put in a hotel.  Twins given a flight back after 2 or 3 days.  LRH and children eventually flown back in a Sunderland Flying Boat.  Not allowed to sit with 2 elder children, no heating.  Got to Shannon where they had breakfast.  Hoped husband knew exactly when they were coming.  Got into Poole harbour in their flying boat  Not allowed out of enclosure so couldn't telephone to her husband.  No English money.  Train to London and there was husband and her parents on the platform.  Taken back to school in Berkshire. [Back to top]
 

2/2

WARTIME / BRADFIELD / PARENTS / ALCOMBE

Nanny was still at Bradfield and introduced LRH to rationing.  Complete contrast to Canada, everything in very short supply.  Did have chickens and eggs, everything else coupons.  Not much petrol, no motoring.  She was busy working in the college kitchen and the sanatorium making beds, helping matron, and looking after her home.  Nanny went to look after a nursery.

Father and mother in London doing St John's work.  Occasionally went down for weekends to get rest from bombing.  Mother visited tube stations and did ambulance work.  Father  was a private in the Home Guard whenever in Somerset, very old by then.  Mrs Luttrell did war work.  Mother did St John's in Somerset, driving difficult , no signposts.  They had evacuees at Aldersmead at one time.

LRH was going to visit Aldersmead by train, but threat of rail strike.  She bicycled from Reading all the way down to Minehead and back, didn't want to get stuck. [Back to top]
 

2/3

GUIDES / ALCOMBE

LRH was doing her Guides when still at Eton.  She had a company; took them to camp twice.  In order to take them swimming, she had to pass a swimming test each time in the Thames.  Camped in Berkshire and near Swanage.  Had a lieutenant who went down.  Tents sent ahead.  Campfires and singsongs in the evenings, invented games, wood law, nature things.  All did the cooking, lived quite a lot on tinned things.  Husband was working, camped during his term-time.  Girls were from the town.

Tremendous number of Guides at Alcombe now.  Didn't camp with Alcombe Guides, too young.  She was acting captain.  Lady Margaret Ryder and Lady Audrey Anson, sisters who were Guide and Scout Commissioners living at Timberscombe.  Now a riding stable.  Edgar Lammercraft had a rough and ready stable in Dunster, his younger brother killed on Porlock Hill; his son now has Timberscombe.  Hired horses at times and she and her sister managed to save up to have 2 ponies.  Went out cubbing. Kept a pony one winter.  She and her sister rode for miles. [Back to top]
 

2/4

CLIMBING WITH HUSBAND / OPERATIONS / NORTH WALES  / HANOVER COURT / FAMILY

Went on climbing until her husband got too old.  Took a cottage on the coast in north Wales for several years close enough to the mountains.  Her husband was 14 years older. 

LRH broke her ankle twice playing squash and in old age has had 3 hip operations.  Played other sports as well as climbing, squash at Eton.  Just before the war she broke Achilles tendon and the other one when she came back from Canada.

Climbed in Corsica with husband and 2 Eton boys, 2 Aprils.  Lot of rock climbing in Wales after that.  Gave up gradually.  Eldest daughter did certain amount of climbing.  LRH and husband loved birds.

Hanover Court perfect for her age.  Son and daughter-in-law quite close, near Tiverton.  Still got her car and still able to drive.  Once through Bampton, wonderful lanes.  Very happy at Hanover Court.  Friend in Minehead.  16 years at Bradfield, then her husband retired.  They rented a gardener's cottage belonging to her first cousin in North Wales on  Chirk Castle Estate. Husband eventually died there.  In her old age had nothing to sell and nothing accumulating. [Back to top]
 

2/5

WEST COUNTRY / HANOVER COURT / EARLIER MEMORIES

LRH moved to Dulverton nearly 2 years ago because she has always loved the West Country.  Hanover Court is sheltered, own flat within a group.

She kept a diary whenever doing something interesting.  Seen quite a lot of the world, presented at court by her mother and had 3 feathers.  Father, Lord Chamberlain, called out the names.  She was a debutante. [Back to top]
 

2/6

MINEHEAD / GUIDES

Daughter of a woman who was living at Hanover Court now lives in one half, the newer part, of her old house, long low house; LRH fascinated going along and seeing it and the trees.  Alcombe Combe is still absolutely unspoilt, no other houses at all.

Minehead has changed so much..  Wonderful long days on Minehead beach when she was a child.  They prawned and shrimped.  Had Aladdin's stove in the hut on beach and cooked lunches on that.  When parents didn't want to drive them down, booked a fly kept by somebody in Alcombe to take them  from Aldersmead to the hut.  Wore gym tunics and sometimes little shorts.  Never went on paddle steamer to Lundy until her old age.  Shopped in Minehead, but the Avenue wasn't crowded at all;  PO in different place.

LRH recently attended a Guide reunion in Alcombe, because one of the Guides had won a Queen's Guide Award, and she handed over the award to the girl. [Back to top]
 

2/7

WEDDING / HONEYMOON / CLIMBING ON SKYE

LRH got married in Dunster.  Guard of honour by her guides outside Dunster Church.  Father arranged for choir of Chapel Royal, St James', to sing at her wedding.  In Dunster, there is a bible on the lectern, which her mother gave in memory of her father.   Although lived in Alcombe, always went to Dunster Church.  Reception was at Dunster Castle; the Luttrells very kindly let it be there.  From the castle, they drove to Clovelly; she was lent a lovely place, several days there.  Then drove back to Kent for some more honeymoon in Hever Castle which belonged to her aunt.  From there, drove up to Skye where they were in most primitive little place her husband knew of, the old post office.  Lot of honeymoon, as husband wasn't taking on the Eton house until Christmas. 

Did some climbing on Skye.  Very difficult rock climbs.  Roads very narrow then, but so little traffic it didn't matter.  Eventually, her son took a job in Skye. [Back to top]
 

2/8

CHILDREN

Son lives near Tiverton, an old farmhouse.  Both very keen gardeners.  He works at Taunton Racecourse. 

Her eldest daughter has got Alzheimer.  She had a very interesting life.  Her husband was in the Coldstream Guards.  They had a house in Berkshire.  When he came out of the army, he deserted her.  She wanted LRH to live with her after he left, which she did, why she left north Wales.  With Alzheimer coming on, she needed better care and so moved up to be with her son in Scotland, 2 daughters up there. 

LRH other daughter lives up there (Scotland).  She has a son who lives out in Hong Kong, her daughter lives in France and 1 unmarried son who lives and works in London.  LRH daughter works for St John's Ambulance. [Back to top]
 

2/9

CLIMBING / NOEL ODELL ON EVEREST / LADIES' ALPINE CLUB

[REPRISE, A FEW WEEKS LATER]

LRH met Noel Odell at a camp out in Canada when she was 20.  He and another mountaineering friend were going on further than the Rockies to the Selkirks and she was invited to join them.  Did some very good climbs; 1 was 22 hours and first ascent up that side of the mountain.  That was beginning of her friendship and went on being his friend until he died.  She did quite a lot of climbs in Britain with him.

Odell had been on Everest with Mallory and Irvine in '22; LRH met him in 1930.  He didn't talk about it; he was the most modest of men, very wise.  Crawford was a very good friend to her, an Everest man.  Noel Odell waited for Mallory and Irvine, friends of his, at top camp 6.  They never came.  He had to go down all by himself, for a single man not roped to anyone else must have been very dangerous indeed.  He had to pass on the news.

LRH was invited to join them from mountaineering camp at Banff for first route up Mount Louis [CHECK], very steep; foggy early on so stopped at bottom until mist cleared.  Late starting so by the time they got to the top, it was night.  Pitch dark so spent night on ledge roped together.  Not all that cold, midsummer.  Had to keep awake; most exciting night she has ever had.

She belonged to the Ladies' Alpine Club for several years, very proud to be asked to join and elected a member.  She joined the Canadian, English and the Swiss Alpine Clubs. [Back to top]
 

2/10

MOTHER / PARENTS TRAVELLING / KENYA

Mother always kept good diaries from early youth; LRH has many of them.  Published books - Lamuriac, Such Were These Years, which is a lot about the West Country, and a third.  They were biographical; one was illustrated by her sister.

Mother travelled a great deal.  Her sister lived in Kenya, went twice for 6 months, round the Cape.  During that time LRH was left up in Scotland with her grandmother.  Father did all sorts of things for the Prince of Wales in India.

LRH went to Kenya to stay with her first cousin.  After WW1, her cousin's father, Lord Francis Scott, had been very badly wounded. They took a farm out in Kenya when cousin was only 3 years old and she lived there for the rest of her life.

Last time she visited Kenya, somebody she knew as a boy from Bradfield asked her to stay.  Went on first safari, one of highlights of her life. [Back to top]