Country Life.
Hi there! First, an introduction.
My name is Peter, Peter Banks, and I live with my family in a village in south Gloucestershire near Bristol in the west country of England. The rural life: in many ways idyllic. A real cross-section of village life with the vicar, the policeman, postman, a pub and all the local characters; and quite a few children.
We were all at the local village school, where my Mum taught ages 6-10: sixteen children in one room. We knew each other well. In the last year 3 of us were to take the 11+ test so this was our last year together.
After school we 9 year-olds often played Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers in among the tall ferns in the copse behind the school. Sandra, my twin sister, Jeff and his younger sister Mandy, and sometimes Sophie. Usually Jeff and I were the cowboys and the girls were the Indians. We tied them up with scarves and soft cotton rope -- bits of old clothes-line - and pretended to rescue them. Just the five of us: Sophie's younger brother Mark was away at boarding school -- 'prep school' -- ready for public school in 3 years.
The ferns were taller than us in the copse and we used to build 'nests', 'forts' or 'dens' between the trees, depending on the game we were playing. You could hide easily. The girls used to moan and scream when we caught them, but they always wanted to play the next time. Mandy put up with it, rolling her eyes, until we released them all after the 'ransom' had been paid. My sister Sandra just complained about "how was it that it was always the girls who got caught?" But Sophie would groan and twist about often looking at me with a strange expression, her eyes glazed.
Those were good times. Carefree times.
Our lives changed the following year after the 11+ exam. Jeff and Mandy went on to the local technical school. Sandra and I went to Bristol girls' and boys' grammar schools and a year later Sophie went to Cheltenham to the Ladies College.
What a change from junior school! Latin, ancient Greek, modern languages, sciences, music, drama, and of course rugby: all new to me -- and all the others in my class of 32. I struggled with some subjects, did better in others. Being taller and stronger than average, I did well at rugby. Cricket and I did not fit well together. I was known as 'Banksy', not to be confused with the other, better known, Bristolian.
The summers were glorious: six weeks of freedom and many of us helped out harvesting around the village. You had to be up early if you wanted a ride with the men, or we went on our bikes when we missed the trucks. Often we were tired by 3 o'clock and would make a fort of the straw bales from combining, or sit on the hay wagon going to the rick.
As it happened my Dad, an electrician, decided at that time to buy a small garage closer to the motorway and Bristol. So we moved to live at the garage towards where Sophie lived at The Manor. Dad's older brother Sam worked at The Manor as a gardener: this was small community. Uncle Sam was a bit slow but he was very good at the jobs he knew and I learned a lot from him
For several summers I helped Uncle Sam up at the Manor, my first real job, and Sam paid me. I didn't realize it at the time but Lady Margaret, Sophie's mother, had arranged it through Sam. She had seen me mending the stone wall with Sam on the edge of the grounds while she was out riding. The Manor grounds ran alongside the local B-class road for about a quarter mile or so and many sections of the wall had collapsed or just fallen over. These were Cotswold dry-stone walls made of sandstone slabs but made without mortar, a bit of an art-form
The Manor had four stables and three horses, where Sophie and her mother often rode in the mornings. Those years raced by and those days Sophie rarely spoke to me: it was as if our junior school times never existed. We were both in our last year of school before University. I was turning 19.
I mentioned this at home one dinnertime. Dad said he wasn't surprised because the school Sophie went to was very exclusive and she had probably been taught to behave that way.
When I was doing the washing-up I heard Mum and Dad talking about the odd situation at The Manor, with Lord Humphrey living at his club in London and just visiting The Manor at most one weekend a month. Just 18-year-old Sophie and her 36- year-old mother Lady Margaret, with Mrs Bradshaw from the village cooking and Mrs Bradshaw's niece helping out. I think someone else did some cleaning.
Apparently Lord Humphrey was a 40-year-old Lt Colonel in The Grenadiers when he met the 18-year-old Margaret. He swept her off her feet, and they married within weeks. Sophie was born the same year and her brother a year later. Lord Humphrey was known as a 'town' person and Lady Margaret preferred to live in the country.
Later that summer Lady Margaret introduced herself to me. I still remember her subtle perfume: Chanel I think. She asked if I would be willing to help out with the horses as well as the gardening at weekends. I was smitten with her looks and understated glamour.
I told her I knew nothing of horses but Lady Margaret said that she and Sophie would be around to help me at the beginning and that it was just cleaning the stables and saddling and wiping down the horses after exercise. Apparently while there was no shortage of money to run the estate at that time, the ostler was underused with Sophie away at school and he had found a more lucrative position elsewhere. He was not interested in gardening. I got a raise.
That was my routine for a while; Sophie seemed strangely shy but we chatted about the stable and horses. The phone would ring about 9.30 to tell me the ladies would be coming to ride and I would saddle up the hunter and the mare. The ladies would check the leatherwork and be gone for an hour. On their return I would remove the saddles wipe the horses with a sponge, then a towel, feed them and let them out to pasture. It was all rather idyllic.
During the winter I played rugby every Saturday morning for the school first fifteen. We had a good team and a good season. I was 6'2", 186 lb, and I could play second row or back row. Lady M. -- she asked me to call her this after I refused to call her Margaret -- asked if I had any time to help at The Manor at weekends. I didn't really want to because I could often get a second game of rugby (for the school Old Boys 3rd team) on the Saturday afternoon if the school game was at home in the morning. But I agreed to fit in when I could around the fixture list.
That was when it happened - one Sunday morning. I saw Sophie walking over from the house so I got her saddle, blanket and reins ready. She walked up to the bench ready to put the saddle on the mare.
"Hold on Sophie, I can do that for you," I said.
"No, I can manage -- and that is Miss Sophie to you!" she replied.
I said nothing and left her to saddle the horse.
