A Spectator's Notebook have the great good fortune to live

at Harnpton Court where my house was built by Christopher Wren as part of the development of the Palace put in hand by William III at the end of the seventeenth century. The courtiers Were provided with a bowling green and attached to the bowling green were four Pavilions for the use of courtiers when not Playing bowls. One of these pavilions — mine — was made into a small house in 1718 and the other three were demolished at the orders of Queen Victoria. Perhaps mine was Preserved because it had been the home at ?Ile period of the Duke of Kent, Queen Vic,Lona's father. It is said also to have been the aculle for a short time of Louis Philippe, aftelyvards King of the French, when he was in rile in England during the Napoleonic Wars. PitY address being The Pavilion everyone supposes I live in a wooden cricket pavilion until theY see the house, made of red brick, looking across the river to Thames Ditton and surrounded by Hampton Court Park. ,‘ There is a large garden and the proximity of Iltishey Park and Richmond Park means that °lir quota of wild life is surprising for an area Within fifteen miles of Charing Cross. Our Ipost conspicuous wild life are the Queen's 'allow deer which look over our fence and are %JAWly on show at breakfast time. They are ntonnally quiet, graceful creatures but in Ocbce'ber, in the breeding season, the stags come aggressive. This is hardly surprising Jt they also start grunting and this goes on

„ night and all day for about a fortnight. It is got clear whether this pig-like noise is to charm the hinds or to warn off rival stags. After a very short time it is all over and our deer return to normal.

tt)rd life Though I am no bird-spotter I cannot help n°tIcing the wide assortment of birds whose' et'?Inpany we enjoy. Apart from all the usual orushes, starlings and so on we have a °ftident green woodpecker, the most beautiful cl all British birds with its green plumage xicl red head. It is said to have a tongue six hes in length but on this I have no 'vldence to offer. We also have jays that nest lo our trees every year. Their Latin name is tgict:ru/us and indeed garrulous they are. But L'eY are not the only birds with apparent. `unversational powers because our magpies

• very talkative and the woodpecker has a Y convincing laugh. The magpies are

a.utiful in the breeding season with their nite and blue-black plumage but fell out of iavour this spring by raiding our yew hedge tIr Young blackbirds recently hatched and gobbling them up in full view of one and all. jhe river birds are not so varied, mallard all a...4'e Year round, gulls scavenging for scraps tis'4cept in the breeding season, dab-chicks and ncasionally wild geese. We even had a rater crested grebe on one occasion. ?..,0Wever, I must not let my piece degenerate

a mere catalogue but we have bustards Zu owls nesting with us and innumerable

all birds of which the gold-finches, greentilciches and nut-hatches are the most beau,,..1111, while a variety of tits are the most ap brWhile I am devoted to the birds, my wife tk°cKls over the animals—the occasional fox, IZe hedgehogs and the ever present squirrels.

e latter are supposed to be very damaging

t ln a number of years have only concen

trated their destructive qualities on the chestnut tree planted by the Prime Minister to commemorate my seventieth birthday. They are charming little beasts though most im: portunate when at breakfast time they see us eating the toast they are longing for.

My wife's greatest triumph with the small animals was when she found a tiny hedgehog on the lawn. It was fed on milk and later on cornflakes and, over a period of some months, grew to its full size and was a great pet. To give it more room we sat it in a wired-in compound in the wood. After some days it must have heard the call of its brethren and burrowed under the wire-netting and escaped. Hedgehogs are active at night-time so we used to take the little beast for walks at nightfall, and when doing this we learnt we had glow-worms in the garden. The hedgehog ate them, which seemed a sad fate for what Andrew Marvell calls his 'country comets.'

Fewer trees But the beauty of our surroundings has been diminished and will be still further affected by the onset Of Dutch elm disease. In our immediate neighbourhood 200 trees are being cut down and it is likely the disease will make further advances next year. In the park this may leave only the lime trees, though there are some wych-elms which do not seem to be susceptible. In my garden several of my finest trees have gone, but mercifully I have a number of very fine oaks. For some inscrutable reason these are Turkey oaks. They look almost identical with the good old English kind but I fancy they grow faster and the timber is not so good.

Another amenity of our little house is our ghost. I am not psychic myself but a number of our friends are and they sense the presence of Charlie, as we call him, as soon as they enter the house. My informants tell me he is a happy cheery soul, a seventeenth-century figure, charming and chivalrous and pleased that the house is now occupied after a long period of relative neglect. He first came to our notice when were moving in and the painters complained that their tins of paint were rearranged when they were out and the house was empty. This happened often enough for them to seek, but not to obtain, 'short money.' No one has seen Charlie but he is to be heard on occasion walking about the house. He does

Limiting ambition

One cannot sit and doze by the fire all day so I find my occupation is largely gardening — not, I must confess, the skilled work of making rare and reluctant plants grow where they have never grown before. My ambitions are limited to keeping my two-and-a-half acres reasonably tidy with a few easily grown flowers to brighten up the house in spring and early summer. To one as unskilled as I am bulbs and flowering shrubs are a godsend, though tulips are not possible as they are eaten by the squirrels; roses are no trouble and are fun to prune; hedge-clipping is all very well as one can stand up to the work; lawn-mowing is at least movement, but unfortunately most time has to be spent weeding. This is dull work by any standard and whatever does well or ill throughout the year, the weeds always flourish, including two which I believe were inadvertently introduced into this country by soldiers returning from the Mediterranean area in the last war. The worst of weeding is that the ground is such a long way away. I am six feet four inches but the distance from the floor is measurable more by one's age than one's height in feet and inches. As one gets older one finds it harder to get down to ground level and almost as hard to get up again. I have never had any wish to live to a great old age but I am in such good health at seventy-two (rising seventythree) that my doctor tells me I shall live for ever — a really daunting prospect. The only sign of advancing age is that I get tired sooner; I cannot walk so far; and I find working at ground level increasingly uncomfortable. My knees are giving signs of wear and tear, as well they might, having carried round the great weight of me for many years, now only sixteen stone but once more like twenty.

The part of my gardening I enjoy is sawing wood — a rhythmic form of exercise that is conducted standing up. There is plenty of dead wood in the garden and all around and I do enjoy an open fire. It makes the centre of a room and of a house. Is not 'focus' the Latin for a hearth or fireplace? Without an open fire a room loses its centre and no imitation will do. Central heating may keep the family warM — usually too warm — but it does not give the house a living centre. A wood fire is 'not as hot as a coal one but it gives off a pleasing aroma and apparently is permissible in a smokeless zone.

Whatever may develop in the fuel crisis — no central heating, no hot baths — I shall at least be able to cower over my wood fire.

Cecil King