Our Home Treventon was a solid granite house in Cornwall England. We moved there when I was four years old from a smaller house less than a mile away. Our new house was certainly bigger and colder with a large garden and apple orchard at the bottom of the garden. My father was the local doctor, and our house was not only our home but also his surgery, pharmacy and office. Those of you that were lucky enough to see the BBC series “All Creatures great and small“would recognize the structure and the type of house that was both accommodation for a Vet or a Doctor. Surgery hours were from 8.00 to 10 O’clock in the morning and 5-7 pm at night. There was large space in the front of the house for parking cars but most came by bus which meant they all arrived at once and had to spend a considerable time in the waiting room. Many of my father’s patients were older and many were widowed having lost their husbands during World War II, The waiting room became a social club and a perfect opportunity for the lonely to socialize, talking to the doctor was a lot less important. The government had recently instituted the National Health care service which meant it cost nothing to visit the Doctor.
The house was big with six bedrooms, two of which were in the servant’s wing of the house at the top of the backstairs. In the middle of the house was a swing door which separated the main house from the Kitchen and the back yard where the washing was done and hung out to dry on a clothesline.
One day there was a lot more activity than usual. Mrs. Orchard who ran the kitchen and supervised the maids was darting around issuing orders and demanding that everything needed to be spotless. All the silver needed to be cleaned, the kitchen needed to be spotless and Mr Hainz, the local grocer needed to be summoned so a special order could be place. Mr Hainz was an avuncular man always cheerful and caried an enormous basket of groceries which he always delivered personally at the back door (the servant’s entrance). He always had specials and was excellent at convincing Mrs. Orchard on their exceptional quality. Food Rationing had recently ended so the variety, quality and quantity had improved significantly. Mr Hainz arrived without his usual panier basket instead he had a notebook to write down the ingredients that were going to be needed for a very special guest, no one was to know who this guest was going to be but he had a special diet and his favorite food items needed to be procured. Mr Hainz wrote copious notes which went into many pages, but he reassured Mrs Orchard that everything would be perfect for the big day. Whenever I think about this, the BBC show Downton Abbey and scenes from their kitchen come to mind. Although this was on a much smaller scale the importance of the visitor ranked right up there.
Who was coming to dinner and also staying the night at our house? It must have been someone special, but my parents would not let us know. We would get to meet the special guest briefly during the cocktail party but would not be invited to join the adults.
The big day came, the gate to the lane leading up to our house was opened and a large limousine slowly entered the driveway. It was an Austin Princess dual colored black on the bottom and grey on the top. This was a real limousine with a uniformed chauffeur. Most of the other guests had arrived early to prepare for the special guest’s entrance. My bedroom looked out over the front of the house, so I had a bird’s eye view of his arrival.
The limousine stopped and out popped the chauffeur to open the passenger door. The special guest slowly emerged from the Limousine and hopped down onto the gravel driveway. I was finally going to meet Prince Chula.
Prince Chula was dressed in a perfectly tailored dinner jacket (Tuxedo) the suit was double breasted and had a barely noticeable bluish tinge to it. This was the most fashionable color of the day midnight blue. Prince Chula was only 5ft 2 “tall but his regal bearing made him seem a lot taller. This time he was on his own, his wife Princess Elisabeth had recently had a child Narissa and apparently was indisposed. I quickly rushed to the top of the stairs to watch Prince Chula come through the front door and join the cocktail party in the drawing room.
His Chauffeur followed him with a number of suitcases which he brought upstairs to the guest room at the top of the stairs. How long was he staying, I had no idea, but I knew I would be having someone very important staying in the room next door to mine.
It was an eternity before my mother came up to get me so I could come down and meet the Prince. My mother looked very elegant in a long evening dress, she had a different glow about her and seamed very happy to be entertaining the Prince in her house.
As I entered the drawing room the guests seemed to part and there standing by the fireplace with one foot on the hearth was Prince Chula. His smile was electric and with genuine warmth, he leant down and said “Hello Michael my name is Chula. Some of my parents guests looked shocked at his informality but here was Chula completely at ease with his long black cigarette holder. Chula smoked Sobranie black Russian cigarettes, they were black with a gold-colored filter. The combination of the Sobranie and the holder looked straight out of Hollywood.
After only a few minutes my mother whisked me out of the room and took me upstairs, I had met Prince Chula a real live prince. What I did not know was the following day I was going to spend some special one on one time with Prince Chula.
Our House was in the village of St Column Major, once a year near the date of Shrove Tuesday before Easter, all the windows in the entire town were boarded up for the annual Hurling. This a epic battle between the people of the town (Townsmen) against people who lived outside the town boundaries ( Countrymen). On opposite ends of the town were horse troughs . The objective of the game is to get a silver ball into the opposing trough for a score. The troughs or goals are exactly two miles apart.
The rules are fluid with no referees, and it is started a the center of the town by the person who scored the winning score the previous year throwing the silver ball from the top of a step ladder into the baying crowd. There are scrums and tackles and no part of anyone’s property was out of bounds. As a side note this was a very busy time for my father who kept his surgery open to tend to multiple bone fractures, gashes and assorted facial injuries caused by this uncontrolled mele.
Prince Chula came down to breakfast the next morning and announced that he would like to see the hurling match that started at 4 pm later that day. “I will take Michael with me so he can explain the rules “. So there it was, I was the official escort to the prince to watch the hurling in the town center. The local superstition was that if you touched the silver ball it would bring luck to you for the rest of the year.
I was not nervous around Chula at all and my normal stammering miraculously diminished. The allotted time of 3.30 pm came quickly as I got prepared for my big adventure. There was Chula immaculately dressed in a casual shirt, jacket and a yellow cravat. He held out his hand and said, “let’s get going young man, this is going to be fun”. Six years old and I was escorting a prince to see the Hurling match. We headed towards the center of the town only be met with a tidal wave of hurling players trying to grab the silver ball. The melee soon parted, and the silver ball emerged as if on cue, the action stopped, and Prince Chula was given an opportunity to touch the silver ball for good luck. As soon as we both stepped back the bedlam continued. It was moving too fast to keep up but at least Chula had touched the ball and he had seen Hurling up close. I have no idea who won that year but as is custom the celebration by both the winning and losing teams went on until the pubs close ai 11.00 pm.
As we slowly walked down the hill to our house Chula smiled and asked if I liked racing cars to which I replied with an enthusiastic yes. Did you know my cousin Prince Bira was an excellent racing car driver and has won a number of races. Prince Bira was Chula’s cousin and the son of King Mongkut of Thailand who was made famous by the musical the King and I. Prince Bira had followed Chula ‘s footsteps and went to Eton and Cambridge in England.
Bira first became interested in racing cars at the age of 19 when he went to watch a race at the famous British race track Brooklands. He was very taken by a small women race car driver called Kay Petre who was a very successful race car driver in the 40’s and early fifties. She was 4ft 10 “tall which was perfect match for Bira who was about 5ft 2”.
It was at that moment he decided to become a race car driver. Chula and Bira formed a racing team called the white mouse a nickname Chula had when he was younger.
As we walked up to the front of our house Chula asked me if I would like to come to tea at his house and meet Princess Chula. After tea I can show you all my racing cars. This was beyond anything I could dream of and when he left, he reminded my parents that he wanted me to come over for tea.
