Country life
Open house
Leanda de Lisle Aweek in the life of a country house began with an auction of promises to raise money for the Countryside Alliance and the local hunt. A couple of people had offered their services as cooks; another would rasp your horse's teeth; and you could bid for a crate of champagne to go with the dinner, or hay for the horse. The end result was one exhausted auctioneer and £10,000 of funds raised.
I had had no idea how much money the auction would make. People don't care to make a splash with their cash in these parts and about 200 people had paid a mere f10 a head for a hog roast (donated by a local businessman) and piles of meringues (made by hunt supporters). However, I should have guessed at their generosity when I saw the pages of promises gifted by dozens of individuals and small businesses. Besides the hay and the champagne (which, I noticed, was drunk by the buyers then and there) you could take a ride on some- one's motorbike, or have a go in a sports car.
There were weekends in Dartmoor and the offer of a manicure in Ibstock (for which I bid innocently, but successfully, against myself). The gifts just went on and on, and almost as soon as they had been taken up another auction began, this time `Sarah, I'm afraid we're not your real parents, you were made with sperm from Germany and an egg from Denmark from an Italian man and a Swedish woman, born to an English surrogate mother, rejected because you were a girl, adopted by Californian lesbians, looked after by a Cuban nanny and found by Derek here in a skip when you were three.' for the NSPCC. As with the hunt's dinner, the NSPCC lunch two days later (another hog roast, this time followed by apple-pie) cost only a few pounds. The bulk of the money raised came, on this occasion, from those who had paid to compete in a clay- pigeon shoot. Most of the people looked very professional and I worried for the home team, made up of my husband Peter, his uncle and my in-laws.
Tor God's sake don't come last,' I told the de Lisles encouragingly, as they headed for their first stand. But even my mother- in-law — a woman who will look at a Gainsborough and say, 'I can do that' looked nervous. She muttered about side- by-side shotguns (like her own) being less efficient weapons in a clay-pigeon shoot- out than over-and-unders (as seen in the hands of others). Then, with her jaw set firmly, she called to a man hidden in the bushes by the lake to fire his clays. A bright orange disc shot into the sky and was shat- tered. Unfortunately, however, other clays were to survive the day. As I gazed at the scorecards at the end of the morning I said to the team, 'Ooh, it's like a game of noughts and crosses, and look — you've won — there's a row of zeros here.' In fact, of course, they hadn't won a thing, not even the prize for being bottom (which was something of a relief).
But Peter, at least, was to prove himself a star at another event a few days later. Our house was opened to the public for the council's Heritage Open Day, something the other two owners of historic country houses in the district had declined to do, either out of antipathy to the council or a fear that burglars would use the opportuni- ty to case the joint. At least, I guess that was the reason since that was how I felt.
What with old friends warning me about men with macintoshes over their arms tak- ing nick-knacks from side tables, and the council sending me a mountain of paper saying that if anything went amiss it was my look-out I wasn't feeling particularly wel- coming on the Saturday morning that the public were due to arrive. I greeted the council man in charge of open days with the warning that if he, or anybody else, should roast to death in a fire in my home that morning it was just too bad and I refused to take responsibility. He laughed — perhaps because he'd already spoken to a lawyer, perhaps with relief that Peter had agreed to do the tours.
We were told to expect two groups but, despite the petrol shortage, four tours became necessary. Peter talked about architectural features, he told amusing anecdotes about the characters in family portraits, he gave the history of things we had bought, but had no value beyond liking for them — and he was a hit. His public have since sent us tickets to musical evenings, diaries belonging to previous owners of the house and thank-you letters. It was a good week for the house and for us, as well.
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