In last years Skirmisher I was asked by the Overseas Editor to reproduce the following article regarding Lady Phyllis Grieg and Mrs Beryl Colbert who are related to Mrs Blyth Harvey.

WITANHURST ROOTS

If the Development plans for the 14-Acre Witanhurst estate are approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr Peter Walker, hundreds of people who love the area will grieve.

But for two old ladies now in their eighties, the bulldozers will be destroying not only pleasant green acres but the roots of their childhood as well, for from 1892 to 1910 Witanhurst – or Parkfield as it then was – was their family home.

The tobogganed down the slopes where luxury houses are now planned, they rode their decorous bicycles round the park and stabled their horses in Millfield Lane and the thought of it all being ploughed up for development, however tasteful, upsets them very much.

I went to talk to Mrs Beryl Colbert and her sister, Lady Phyllis Grieg, at their present home in Gloucester Square, Marble Arch, hoping they might remember some details of how the old house looked. As it turned out they had not only kept the catalogue of the sale of Parkfield, "a fine Stately mansion" together with "three charming residences known as No 9 the Grove, The Limes and West Hill Lodge", but also a hilarious memory of growing up in a prosperous turn of the century setting.

Their father, Stockbroker Walter Scrimgeour, bought Parkfield from his brother-in-law, Mr Alan Block when their own home at No 6 The Grove became too small to house eight children.

MONSTER

It was then an exquisite Georgian country house to which they added their own extensions. "we tried to keep things in scale – not like the present monster" said Lady Grieg with characteristic bluntness.

When the Scrimgeours sold Parkfield to Lady Crosfield, wife of the soap magnate and Liberal MP Sir Arthur Crosfield, its name was changed to Witanhurst and altered beyond recognition. It is now the subject of a preservation order.

While the Scrimgeours lived there an architect friend of the family, John Malcolm, designed a new wing, including the celebrated billiard room, a schoolroom, nurseries and a gymnasium. "Oh yes, we all did gymnastics in our long skirts – trapeze, parallel bars, that sort of thing" said Mrs Colbert. "We were rather good at it.

Phyllis and Beryl, aged 87 and 84 respectively, and their brother Humphrey, who lives in Suffolk, are the only surviving members of the enormous family. "Margery’s dead, Karen’s dead, and I was the next." Said Lady Grieg, "then came Stuart, then Beryl – that’s her. We’re both widows but we don’t like that word – we prefer wife, the next brother is Humphrey, who’s 82, and then Michael who was killed in the First World War, and last was Elsie who’s dead too. Mother lived to be 101."

Elsie, they called her Egg, was born at Parkfield and cried bitterly when they left the house and moved to Norfolk. Though Parkfield was very up to date and had h and c porcelain baths, they brought a special tin bath from The Grove for Elsie as she had fits and plunging her into this seemed to do her good.

"We did so enjoy life at Parkfield." Said Mrs Colbert. "We weren’t a bit fashionable but with eight of us in the family we made all our own fun and entertained ourselves splendidly."

One of their favourite pastimes it seems was gambling- "bridge, whist, loo, all sorts of games" – and especially long poker sessions in bed in the mornings. "They were great fun. We kept our winnings on the mantelpiece," she recalled.

"Oh shut-up, stop gossiping, she doesn’t want to hear stories like that," butted in Lady Grieg playing elder sister. "She was a mere child at the time," she explained.

The girls started off doing lessons at home with a governess, but later went to St Leonard’s in Scotland, one of the first girl’s public schools. "I was captain of games," said Lady Grieg, a trifle smug. "I was captain of the whole school," retorted Beryl.

They were not much for scholarship but played games with enthusiastically until they left and came home until they married in their early thirties – Beryl to an army officer and Phyllis to the controller of George VI’s household. "She was presented at Court, I wasn’t," Beryl added.

The years between school and marriage seem to have passed in something of a haze. They were not political and kept well out of the suffragette movement. "Mother was all against it – she believed in home and husband."

They were never encouraged to cook or sew or do anything much in the way of practical housekeeping. "We had a dressmaker, Miss Lawrence, to make our clothes, though they were really very dull. It was a case of black braid for winter and white for summer. Now we knit like mad – for the grandchildren."

With 13 servants running the house there was not much for them to do in the way of chores. "There were three in the kitchen, a housemaid, parlourmaid, butler, page, nurse and nursemaid. The nursemaid was for her – I had a lady’s maid" says Phyllis, swanking again.

They tried good works once – their Mother had founded the Working Ladies Guild which used to meet in the dining room – but were not entirely successful.

"We got the giggles – they kept asking me to do things but I couldn’t hear a word they said – we never went again," said Beryl. But she did her bit during the war when the brothers were called up. "I ran the farm in Suffolk. I didn’t know a lot about farming but I did a lot of hoeing"

Phyllis was a VAD and at one time claims to have been a Guide Commissioner for 27 years – but to look at her now, an elegant old lady with exquisite bones and beautiful upswept grey hair, it is hard to imagine her in sensible shoes making rice puddings.

But if they did not have full time jobs, their days were full of outdoor activities, golf, fencing and venturing forth in grey flannel knickerbockers on some of the first bicycles.

Phyllis had her own horse which she hunted down in Kent. "We used to go down on the train and then hack for miles through the dark to find the village where the hunt was to meet. Great fun but the journey was rather frightening."

Every Monday evening during the summer there was a dance at the house with Carl Knapp’s Blue Hungarian Band playing the Lancers, quadrilles and cotillions.

The girls were never allowed to wear powder or lipstick and maintain that their parents were very strict in some matters though very liberal in others. "The punishment was to be sent to bed. I spent rather a lot of time in bed I remember," said Phyllis. "I was rather good I think," said her sister.

At Christmas there were always at least 13 for lunch and the pudding was stirred by every member of the family on Christmas Eve. "Mother used to put in half a crown (she was afraid someone might swallow a sixpence) a nutmeg and a pearl button."

Occasionally there were masked balls – "Father went as Faust and Beryl was a Turkish lady once," said Phyllis "I was Portia."

"Another year all the sisters went as Britannia, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. I remember having my kilt fitted for Scotland, "said Beryl. "You’re romancing again," Phyllis interrupted, "I don’t remember that."

Once a year the children would hold a committee meeting to decide who would approach their father to ask if they could go to the play at Drury Lane. "We saw the Mikado once. I loved that," said Beryl.

Daytime trips to town were in the open Victoria, Phyllis driving and the Coachman sitting beside her. When they went to dances they took the closed Brougham, "I must show you the brougham," said Beryl producing a family album full of sepia tinted family groups with little boys on sailor suits and ladies with parasols.

They had a dog cart and a pony cart too, and also one of the early motor cars, one of the few in Highgate at a time when public transport was horse-drawn trams and buses.

PLAQUE

Their father bought the Fox and Crown on West Hill and turned into a stables. "Queen Victoria rested there once after her horses had bolted down the hill and she had had rather a shock. There use to be a plaque there commemorating the event."

On Sundays the family would go to St Michael’s for morning service, "followed by the butler and his six children, all rather better dressed than we were.

"We had lots of friends in Highgate then and it was a lovely place, very peaceful. The village itself doesn’t seem to have changed much though of course Holly Lodge, which was Baroness Burdett-Courts place, is all built up now," said Phyllis.

"The thing I remember most was Atkinson’s sausages," said Beryl, "They were absolutely the most delicious sausages I have ever tasted and I have never found any others like them."

"I would be so sad to think of a great development of Parkfield," Phyllis said, "I don’t much care about the house itself, it is such a monster now, but those lovely grounds ought not to be ruined – and of course it would spoil not only the estate but the whole of Highgate with all that traffic. I hope they don’t do it."

LIZ FORGAN