I’m standing in the drawing room of a grand 17th century mansion, where the glassy eyes set in porcelain-white skin of the many portrait subjects seem to gaze over my head from every wall. Henry VIII is tucked up there in the corner, an 18th century general takes up more space by the window. A slim young man with fabulous long wavy locks reminiscent of Charles II is in front of me – and if it were not for his facemask and an English Heritage lanyard I could have believed he’d stepped straight out of one of those paintings. But no, he’s very real, and also extremely engaging, recounting the history of this 100-room country pile and its occupants with such meaning, enthusiasm and a charming dash of dry humour that I’m captivated - if only he’d been my History teacher at school! (He also looks as if he should be in a band, which is rather appealing...)
Is it a "thing", I wonder, that history becomes more intriguing
as we get older? It's a subject which failed to engage me in my youth, yet now I find myself increasingly fascinated. And that never happened in the school lessons
delivered by Miss Jones! She was quiet
and timid – inoffensive enough but without any spark. In soft monotone she’d read out long paragraphs
for us to write in our exercise books, about Parliamentary Acts and… and… and
what? Proof of my lack of attention is that I
honestly can’t remember. Where was the human
interest angle? I’m sure my adolescent ears
would have pricked up if only she’d thrown in a few gory executions, egregious betrayals
and definitely a dose of syphilis or two.
So at school I responded to the tedium of writing out these passages, parrot-fashion, by trying out different ink tints in my fountain pen (remember Quink?)
There was black, blue and blue-black, and my favourite was a fancy turquoise. Ooh, the satisfying thrill of filling a real pen, squeezing the sides of the squidgy ink barrel, watching it suck up the kingfisher-coloured liquid. Then I experimented with different handwriting styles - a lean to the right, a lean to the left. Curly loops on my f’s, g’s and j’s one day, vertical mouse-tails the next. Scratchy italics versus smooth cursives. My History exercise book became a gallery of calligraphy and colour, and each lesson a place to drift into daydreams as Miss Jones droned on about whatever she droned on about - it’s just a shame I don’t remember a thing about the actual words with which I decorated the pages.
Anyway, later on at the grand mansion last Monday, there were Capability Brown gardens to enjoy, a Victorian nursery and dolls house, one of the country's first 18th century flushing toilets to peer into (I said peer...) a painting of George II which led to a conversation about Elvis (seems they died in similar circumstances), huge glass cabinets of stuffed birds and mammals which sort of horrified and enthralled in equal measure, and a café which served wine and gin (yes, of course I did) - but best of all was the much appreciated companionship of two long-standing pals whom I’ve known since school, since Miss Jones' dictation and turquoise Quink. God, I needed to get out, I've really been missing seeing my mates and in this instance it certainly is a lengthy friendship - we go back to 1974. There’s a lot of history there too.
