Tag Archives: Mr. King

Pat Burt :Early Days living in ‘Kevack’

When we lived in Kevack in the High Street, we had an outdoor loo.  You went across a small yard, and there were 2 loos side by side. One belonged to our next door neighbour, Mr King, the head gardener at The Mount, and he had to walk through the bottom of our yard to get to his loo. They could be sat in theirs, right next to us,  –  but they were flush, those loos.

My mother was cook to the Hamiltons in the Wight/White House for some years until she was taken very ill.  When I was very small, I used to have to go with my mother when she went to work while she was cooking in the kitchen. I always remember the smell of the lovely rubbery green staircase they had.  Instead of carpet the stairs were covered in this lovely pale green rubber and it smelt beautiful.

I was knocked down by a car, when I was 7 and there were very few cars about. I was running home from school for lunch. It was a very rough day and I could see the sea  blowing up at the end of Pier Shore Lane  down between the Yacht Club and The Towers. I was coming along South Street and I ran straight across the High Street. Of course the High Street was a main road then, and there was a car coming, driven by one of the Miss Creagh Osbornes and it hit me. Luckily it didn’t hurt me much, just my ankle. It was my own fault , I was so excited, I wanted to see the rough sea.  I didn’t go back to school that day, and later Miss Creagh Osborne knocked on the door and brought me a black and white china dog as a present. Pat Burt nee Adams b 1929

Ruth Mills: Early Days

My aunt Ena was housekeeper at The Mount and lived in, in the servants’ quarters. She was the only live-in servant left and was responsible for the housekeeping, and did all the cooking. My mum used to go in to help, so I was often there when I was small. Mrs Lansdowne and Mrs. Dye used to come in too, to help. It was a huge house – 32 main rooms as well as servants’ quarters and all the outbuildings.

The Mount photographed by Ruth Mills c1960

The Mount, home of the Dashwood family, photographed by Ruth Mills in 1960s. Ruth's mother and Aunt Ena worked at The Mount, with Ena ( Doe), last live-in servant. Miss Constance was last surviving member of the family, all of whom died childless. The House was pulled down in 1966 to make way for the new road.

The Mount, home of the Dashwood family, photographed by Ruth Mills in 1960s.
Ruth’s mother and Aunt Ena worked at The Mount, with Ena ( Doe), last live-in servant.
Miss Constance was last surviving member of the family, all of whom died childless. The House was pulled down in 1966 to make way for the new road.

Miss Constance, who was the last surviving Dashwood, was very short, quite tiny but rather dumpy.
She came down to the kitchen to see Aunt Ena at exactly the same time every day, to give her the menu for the day. If I happened to be there, I had to hide in the scullery and not be seen. Whether my mum and my aunt had decided that children shouldn’t be seen, or whether Miss Constance had made that rule, I don’t know.  I was certainly discouraged from going into the main part of the house.

The main rooms in the house seemed to be just as they were when the Dashwood family first lived there – very Victorian. The furniture had to be polished every day – one of the jobs I did to ‘help’ Mum.

There was a massive cupboard in the kitchen full of sacks of dried food like lentils and haricot beans. On one wall there were rows of bells to show which room you were being called to. The back stairs for the servants were steep and had a rope instead of a handrail, and there were long dark corridors with stone floors leading to the main house.

I used to go down into the cellars, lots of dark rooms with high windows with grills over them, where there always seemed to be lots of toads. There was an enormous boiler down there too, which I don’t remember ever working.

The smell of the stables is still easy to imagine, musty, with strange smells coming from the canvas hood of an old invalid carriage. The horses had all gone and there were no cars there – the stables wouldn’t have been big enough.

Mr. King, the gardener, grew all the vegetables for the house and there was a wonderful apple store with racks of apples that smelled really good.

I spent a lot of time wandering about outside on my own, quite happy. Once I was sent to pick daffodils – there were thousands growing there. Outside the back entrance there was a big old laburnum tree. If I climbed up and sat in the branches, I could see over the wall everyone coming and going in Back Lane, and they couldn’t see me. It’s left me quite content even now to be on my own.  Ruth Mills nee Kelleway b 1945