Category: Family

Naughty Frances

Fiona Moorhouse’s recent comments have started me thinking about the four Lord Bellews of the First Creation.

Batsford

It is sometimes instructive to judge a book by its cover. Nobody could mistake the E Phillips Oppenheim cover in yesterday’s post for a treatise on bee keeping, unless the protagonists are being stung.

Strangers on a Train

It is April 2015, so pre-blog, I take a train to Berwick-on-Tweed to meet friends who have driven from East Anglia. So you are in the picture, as the army is fond of saying, we plan to walk down the coast to Alnwick.

The Hon Mrs Ronald Greville

You are looking at a spectacular tiara – natch, it belongs to the Royal Family. Was it plundered from a Maharajah, “borrowed” from a nabob? No it wasn’t.

Strange Stories of the Chase

The Countess of Feversham cut a dashing figure in the hunting field in a red coat and a top hat, as Millais’ portrait would bring out if I could find a colour version.

A Brief Alliance

Today it is a short blast up the motorway from Barmeath to Gormanston. It’s about twenty miles if you don’t mind paying the toll (my brother does). This was not the case in the 19th century.

Playing Footsie

If I had a thousand bucks for every time I have been told or, more usually, read that stock-picking is a mugs’ game and a low cost tracker fund will, in the long run outperform stock picking.

The Creations

After my ancestor, Patrick Bellew, was created Baron Bellew in the Peerage of Ireland in 1848 only three more Irish Peerages were handed out. That doesn’t sound quite right, but you know what I mean; namely Lord Fermoy (1865), Lord Rathdonnell and the Duke of Abercorn (both 1868).

Bertie Goes to Bungay

Only one’s closest friends welcome Bertie as an overnight guest. This is his fourth time away, and two of the previous stays were in France. So far, it has gone well.