Category: Family

66 Mark Lane

My life in the City began on the first Monday in August 1976 and looks as if it ended at 5.00 pm on the first Monday in August this year, 39 years later.

Don’t Expect The Orient Express

It is hard to convey how much pleasure I take in train travel. I think it may be because I didn’t get much exposure to it as a child, although the Dublin – Belfast line passed close to Grangebellew (by Mrs Kelly’s excellent snipe bog, shooting by permission and always granted).

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Categorised as Family, Travel

Walled Gardens

Walled Gardens is the title of Annabel Goff’s memoir about her childhood in the south of Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s. (Since describing William Waldegrave’s book as a memoir I now find that it is an autobiography: the former is a description of one part of a person’s life, the latter the whole thing,… Continue reading Walled Gardens

To Jeremy In Islington

This summer I have been trying to interest Jeremy Corbyn in this blog. No good hoping that he will like my politics so I have put in pictures of manhole covers on three occasions. So, Jeremy, now that I have your attention I have some advice for you.

Woodlouse

There is a curved wall at Barmeath where the height of children is recorded and on the opposite wall of visitors thought to be of interest. Amongst the latter I remember Sir Denys Lowson, Lord Mayor of London in 1950/51 and rather a tall chap as his picture, above, shows.

Russian For Beginners

First, and only, visit to the Proms this week; the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra playing under the baton of spritely, septuagenarian Yuri Temirkanov a programme of sophisticated Russian music. Or as I subsequently found, a programme described by the condescending BBC as “classical for starters”.

A Grave Matter

On Sunday I went to check up on the family plot in Mortlake. It was last used in 1935 when Uncle G (my grandfather’s uncle, George Leopold Bryan, later Bellew), was buried there and again in 1940 by my great-grandfather’s second wife.

A Spy in the Family

In the 1980s I was introduced to Patrick O’Brian’s novels about Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin (it’s curious that the series does not have a title). Like so many others, I became hooked on the detailed descriptions of life on board a Royal Navy ship in the early years of the 19th century. The depth… Continue reading A Spy in the Family

Sisi

The Empress Elisabeth of Austria is known for championing Hungary and being assassinated by an Italian anarchist in Geneva in 1898. In Ireland she is remembered for hunting with the Meath.