Queen Mary

Hello Packwood Lovelies (as you shall henceforth forever be known!) and thank you once again for joining me over here on Positively Packwood.

Today's post is a little shorter than usual as I am bringing it to you from my phone!? Whilst the ability to do this is a godsend after the hard drive on my laptop packed up (no pun intended!) whilst trying to write a Packwood blog, it isn't exactly the smoothest of writing methods and does feel like I'm writing a rather long and involved text message!

However in the words of Freddie Mercury and Miranda Hart 'On with the show!' ***what a dream team that would have been!***

This week was a return to volunteering after last weeks illness and it was wonderful to be back. The weather gods honoured us with another day of glorious sunshine and I got to work some of my very favourite rooms again. Queen Margaret (with my favourite painted knight window), the Parlour (with my favourite fantasy tapestry) and the Drawing room with Queen Mary's teacup.

I had some wonderful conversations with visitors again this week and it's always so interesting to hear their stories about Packwood and the occupants. In the drawing room I often share with people the 'lesser known facts' about Queen Mary and her visit to Packwood (you're almost always guaranteed a laugh!) and it's the personal tales that people enjoy most.

For those that haven't been to Packwood (why not?!) Queen Mary visited Packwood  and Baron Ash in August 1927. She stayed for tea but had a room made ready for her for 'resting' should she require it, which is why we still have 'Queen Mary's Bedroom'. As a non titled man Baron Ash was understandably terribly honoured to receive a royal visit and had the cup and saucer she drank from, the pen she signed the guest book with and the chair she sat in authenticated and plaques applied almost the minute she left! 

We have them here to show you at Packwood House and continue to share with visitors all the stories from that day.

One visitor on Sunday offered to share with me his own Queen Mary story and I loved it so much I thought I must share it with you. I shall tell it to you as it was told to me...

"Apparently Queen Mary did not have much in the way of a sense of humour but there was one thing that she had found incredibly funny. She always carried a letter about her person. This letter had been sent to her by a little girl and was addressed 'To The Queen Mary (Not the Ship)' apparently the Queen found it hilarious that not only was this how she was addressed but that it had made it to her."

I must confess I loved that story and although it doesn't relate directly to Packwood I'm sure it has become a fixed part of my knowledge of Queen Mary.

Hopefully by next week I shall be back to the keyboard, equally hopeful I haven't lost several thousand words of novel since the last back up! Trying not to think about all those photos...life...that is contained in said poorly hard drive. Today's lesson, go forth and back up!

Until next time lovelies!

 

Queen Mary's teacup - from an out of production Rockingham set. The queen wanted to take this one that she'd used and Baron Ash refused offering her another from the same set.

The chair Queen Mary sat in