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.
Brought up on a diet of Dick Whittington and pageantry in the pages of The Illustrated London News, Lowson sounded a pretty good egg to me. Not to my grandmother who always referred to him as Lousy Lowson and her judgement proved correct. He ran a clutch of Unit Trusts and enriched himself by day-trading profitable trades for his own account and giving the investors the shares that went down. The old fox was finally run to earth but not until the 1970s. Well, there were plenty of other crooks in the City in those days so, perhaps, it’s a bit unfair to single him out. But I have had daily reminders of him as an infestation of woodlice saunter across my carpets with all the insouciance of Lowson accepting the Lord Mayorality. I just know that one of them is Sir Denys reincarnated.