The "Great" and the "Good".....

From 1977 to 1990 I lived in Stoke Poges in Park Road where alot of  rich people with big houses exist. A well-known family who used to live there were the Ramsays. Their son Alasdair by chance used to go to the same school as me...the Tutorials. His  brothers though were doing very well in life. One of them was a doctor, and the other a merchant banker who was for a while married to the actress Fiona Gray.  Mrs Lillian Ramsay who headed the family did a lot of excellent charity work. But she tended to be somewhat arrogant, and I found her difficult to get on with.


Apart from the Ramsays I had a connection with the vicar Reverend Cyril Harris whose vicarage was nearby. He was an affable sort of person, and bit on the trendy side. He had a large family of  grown up children*. He was also an author of s short book on the poet Thomas Gray who wrote the Elegy in a Churchyard, and is buried at Stoke Poges Church. Incidently, the wonderful Gardens of Rememberance can be found nearby.



I met quite a large number of wealthy people in Stoke Poges, and its  environs (eg. Gerrard Cross, Beaconsfield, Fulmer, Farnham Common). I will give reference to a few here. I came to know number of them via my gardening activities. They were usually women who in the main looked after their husbands, or partner's property. One such person I knew for years was Mrs Hall. After I did a stint of gardening I would enter her kitchen for tea, or coffee  plus some toast, and jam. I always felt relaxed with her. She was a creative woman by nature. She had two children who were grown up. Her husband owned a superstore in Burnham, and I  recalled him complaining that his cashiers would always  try to steal money from him!


There is one story I recall about Mrs Hall. In the garden a certain friendly robin would often, or not appear to her again, and again, and stand on her hand, or on her shoulder. Then, one night she had a dream of the robin in black, and white. The following day she went into the garden.... and found the robin dead on the lawn.


She also said something which was a bit amusing. She claimed that she knew a author who was writing a book entitled Park Road (along which I lived in Stoke Poges) . It  though was supposed to be a "fictional" work but the characters in it were "thinly" disguised, and a certain amount of "libellous" material was involved in connection with them. On finding  out about this, certain residents in Park Road got wind of it, and it was never published ....!  So, much for the "great" and the "good" in this case. Ofcourse, no one is above suspicion of any form of "criminality" irrespective of how "credible," and "respected" they may be. This is why I do not take people/society too seriously....



Anyhow, the other ladies I knew who treated me well were Mrs Griffiths (whose husband was in the dairy business), Kathie Webber cookery expert, and author, Mrs Pollard  of Gerrards Cross...etc.


Another individual I recall lived close to me at the corner of Park Road. She was Pat Wraight. She was interested in a book/novel I had been writing about metaphysics, and the afterlife. I was 17 at the time. She was also a writer of sorts. Anyway, I visited her, and it turned out she was an Evangelical Christian! She also seemed to have a "problem" with a well-known healer in the Spiritualist tradition called Harry Edwards. She also mentioned something about her daughter as  being a presenter on some Christian radio.


In 1987 I worked as a gardener for a while at Spirit Records based in Fulmer. However, I did not like the Findons particularly who ran the place. I am glad I left. But Miss Lewis who was the housekeeper was interesting as she was a Spiritualist. She was also impressed by Sathya Sai Baba the so-called "man of miracles".





* One person who visited  the vicar's offspring was Bill Readings who I met only once. He was an Oxford graduate, and was an expert on Communism, and Marx. When I met him I found him to be "too brainy" and "too intense" for my liking. He went to America to teach for a while, but tragically died young (34) in a airplane crash in October 1994. I remember seeing a pic of him in a well-known national  newspaper with his mortarboard, and gown on graduation day in Oxford. Sad.


Some notes

Kathie Webber wrote a number of books, and articles (especially in TV Times)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=la_B001KMJP0I_B001KMJP0I_sr/260-5584071-9475940?rh=i%3Abooks&field-author=Kathie+Webber&sort=relevance&ie=UTF8&qid=1527756950

I recall once seeing Kathie in connection with an article (circa 1981) she published in TV Times, and it was on vegetarianism. She admitted that she was a veggie at heart but she would loose her job is she kept writing articles, and recipes on that subject. Ofcourse, I had great leanings towards vegetarianism, but I was only free to indulge in it when I left my mater, and pater in 1990. Since then I never turned back. Also, I knew her partner who was a very pleasant unassuming man called Ian Berry. He was a noted photo-journalist.

 


An obit on Lilian Ramsay
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/medicine-obituaries/7756804/Lillian-Ramsay.html


Some religious books by Pat Wraight
https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=Pat+Wraight&search-alias=books-uk&field-author=Pat+Wraight&sort=relevanceran


PS. One person I worked for had a "carer" who claimed that she used to work for the Koestlers, and was the person who raised the alarm of the their double suicides. Arthur Koestler was a well-known writer 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Koestler