Wot I learned today.

Wednesday 17th October 2018 - Henley on Thames.

Since arriving at the site our memories of Ferry Meadows have been flooding back, especially our memories of the warden Alan, we probably won't sleep tonight!  This is a two couple site, there is no early bin run as the bins are large commercial wheelie bins.  The Assistant Wardens seem to be in the 'pink and blue' job routine.  The female works in the office and the man does the outside work.  Sexual equality hasn't extended to the Caravan Club yet!  

Today we have had a day of cycling to National Trust properties.  It has been really interesting.  We went to two properties, Nuffield Place and Greys Court, both are within striking distance of Henley.

Nuffield Place is a large 4 bedroom house built in the 1930's, so it's not a stately home.  It was the home of William Morris who built the Morris car company and several others.  He became Lord Nuffield.

Here is a Wolsey car that had belonged to Mrs Morris.

Janice's recent skills as a tractor driver meant she couldn't keep her hands off this beauty.

Morris had started from humble beginnings.  He was a cycle repair apprentice for 6 months and apparently asked for a pay rise and was promptly sacked.  He started his own cycle repair firm and developed into motorcycles and then building Morris cars at Cowley, near Oxford.  He was responsible for many famous cars, including the Morris Minor, the Mini, Wolseys, Morris Oxford and MG sports cars.

He moved to this house because of its proximity to a golf course next door.  He had no children and was very philanthropic with his wealth.  He donated money to education and health charity, notably creating the Nuffield Health Trust which has now got many hospitals around the country.  When he started the Trust it was pre NHS and it was purely charitable rather than a private health company.  He bought 'iron lungs' for 1700 hospitals all over Britain and through the Empire.

This is an Iron Lung!  I'm not sure I would want to go in one.  I suggested that Janice could go in and I would saw her in half as part of a magic trick!  I understand that the head pokes out of the red hole on the right and the air pressure is reduced inside the box so that it makes it easier for the chest/lungs to function without external air pressure.

I constantly ask myself why we (as a nation) do not celebrate these people.  Our media are more likely to find reasons to denigrate our history than support our achievements.  I'm sure you can tell that I get cross about these things.

From here we went to Greys Court.  

There were several outbuildings, towers, barns and a lovely garden too.

The most interesting facts about the house were that in the early 1900's it was owned by Ian Fleming's mother.  He is the man who wrote James Bond.  We don't think he lived there because he would have been an adult at the time of the purchase.  The next thing was that the last owners were the Brunner family.  The Brunner's money came from chemical production of ammonia from salt in Cheshire and later in Billingham and London.  Their company, Brunner, Mond & Co sold up in 1926 to become The chemical giant ICI.  ICI folded in 1991 and the Brunner company reformed until 2006 when it became Tata Chemicals.  I hope you are interested too!  Anyway, it was a lovely house of its age and well presented as you would expect from the National Trust.  I especially enjoyed seeing the Izal slippy toilet paper on display.  It reminded me of my childhood.....don't ask why....too much information already.

We were rewarded for our cycling by getting complimentary tea in both NT cafes.  What a nice touch.

We returned to the site for the evening.  What an enjoyable start to our trip.  We may also fit in another NT property before we sail tomorrow evening.