When Daddy bought The Haynings, mains gas was connected. In fact it had at one time been lit by gas lamps and whenever work was done to the walls or ceilings, yards of lead gas pipe was removed. Daddy, a bachelor at the time, did not like gas and so had it disconnected. Disconnection consisted of cutting and capping the steel gas pipe where it entered the cellar leaving a shoert stub sticking up. From that day in 1934? Until the house was sold in 1967, no member of the gas company came to inspect the very rusty pipe!
Mummy always claimed that her earliest memory was of breaking her china potty - no plastic in those days - how she achieved this while sitting on it was never explained but Granny Garrett was "not amused".
Another of Mummy's memories was of meeting Elizabeth Garrett Anderson at a gathering of cousins at Aldringham House - Mum was only four at the time - she described Elizabeth as "a rather forbidding old figure dressed in black".