Hello lovelies and welcome (or hopefully welcome back) to
Positively Packwood. I hope this Thursday finds you all terribly well!
I promised I would come back with my story about how I came
to be here, and ‘here’ it is and it also comes with a slight confession; ooooh intrigue!
Now like all good stories from the psychologists couch this story begins in my
childhood. Sundays were ‘family days’ and that meant my younger brother and I would
be taken out by my dad in the morning so my mum could cook Sunday dinner whilst
listening to The Archers; and presumably get some alone time to remember what
her house and life were like before two small children turned up who never got
tired of asking questions, making mess and needing to be entertained.
Sunday afternoons were about going out together as a family,
the ‘big walk’ was mums favourite and often involved driving out to a local
beauty spot like Kinver Edge and my brother and I would race around building
dens, collecting sticks (often far more disgusting objects) and climbing trees.
We would often go to a National Trust property and what I now understand to be
serenity and happiness would bewitch my mother. As a keen gardener and antiques
dealer these places held a special kind of magic to her and she would share her
knowledge with us for as long as we could keep our attention.
I suppose my love for these places started there. My mum had
taught us to place a value on these places and to see what she saw.
Fast forward many years later and at 30 I am looking for
something important to do with my life. There’s a back story, isn’t there
always? What struck me as particularly inspiring on my first induction day was
the variety of people who were volunteering at Packwood. The common theme
amongst us all was ‘common values’ often developed as the result of a
significant life event. I spoke to a cancer survivor and a woman forced to take
early retirement from the job she loved (as a Macmillan nurse helping people to
die) after breaking her neck whilst head teachers, artists and students were
also in the mix.
All of us drawn to service; service to The National Trust,
to Packwood and to the visitors, because we recognised the value of the work
being done and the importance of the work still to do. We wanted to be a part
of that.
The National Trust was started by 3 volunteers. 3 Victorian
philanthropists had the presence of mind during a ‘forward looking’ and
industrial age to want to preserve this nation’s great history and special
places; undoubtedly not a popular viewpoint at the time. Heritage a dirty word
they started the National Trust and volunteers are still central to the work
the NT does today.
My confession is that when I applied to volunteer way back
in November I had actually never been to Packwood! I visited for the first time
on a cold and dark early January day with a friend who said “I don’t think
there’s much on here but we can always go to Baddesley Clinton after; they’ve
got priest holes!” (Yes, that’s the kind of friends I have?!) Upstairs was
closed for conservation work and I never even looked at the Yew garden. We had
a little nose around, drank tea from flasks and caught up on each others news.
But the energy of the place stayed with me and when I returned
for my interview I realised what an idiot I’d been in not realising all that
Packwood is on that first visit. Packwood is quiet and understated. It’s not
the oldest or the richest in history of all the NT properties. It is a hodge
podge of different times and even buildings and the ‘purist’ amongst you will
be horrified to realise that much is not ‘original’ to the building. It has brief
links to royalty but no great ‘love scandal’ or ‘traitors plot’ to hang itself
on. It cannot be ‘set’ for the ‘living history’ feel due to the Trust’s respect
for the agreement made with Graham Baron Ash to present it as it was left by
him.
Packwood is a dream. True it is perfectly ‘dreamy’ place,
but more so it is a place where one man's ambition and ‘dream’ came to fruition.
It encapsulates the ‘new mood’ of 20s England. ‘New money’ from hard working
industrialists with glamour and style have their country seat without names or
titles. It is the beginning of a new age where ambition, hard work and drive(money)
can alter your status, for the first time it is possible to change your social
standing in a way that had not been before. It was an important cultural shift
and a significant time.
Packwood is both very of it’s time and completely timeless.
It makes complete and no sense all at once. It speaks of ambition and dominance
and ‘ownership’ of things that would have previously been out of reach but with
a gentle, thoughtful and conservationist hand. It both protects and challenges
heritage and style.
Packwood’s blend of roaring 20’s glamour, en suite bathrooms
and sprung dance floor seem initially at odds with the Tudor wood panelling and
intricate tapestries. But then we humans often have contradicting elements to
our character. We are all a unique blend of where we have been and where we are
going, a product of our pasts and our dreams for the future.
