Sidney Doggett's grandchildren

Interviewer: People remember Knole for a variety of reasons: sometimes it’s the cold, it’s the dark or it’s the smells. Any particular smells that you associate with visiting Grandad and Granny?

Sue Thomas: Well I just love wood smoke which takes me straight back to Knole every time I smell wood smoke. That is because of the fires that they had. They had a chair at each side of the fire and Granddad was on the left and Grandmother was on the right. And I remember she must have done a lot of knitting. She used to have the great big reams of … you used to have to wind your wool.

Interviewer: Yes, skeins of wool.

Sue: Skeins of wool. And I remember me holding them while she used to wind up the wool and I remember being in the kitchen and helping her bake cakes and, at those times, you could eat the mixture! And we used to eat at the big table downstairs.

Anne Duggan: Daisy chains in the Green Court are my biggest memory. I made very, very long daisy chains and I remember going to the neighbours, into their apartments who lived next door and I think they were spinster ladies and they did have a big fire on, so whether that was more autumn time, I don’t know. I do remember a big roaring fire in their apartment.

Interviewer: Did you have anything to do with the deer at all when you were running around in the park?

Anne:  I’ve got photos of me looking at the deer – standing very close to them and I was only five or something. Yes, I remember the deer.

Gerald Bodily: Yes and the other thing I really remember very well from there was the man trap which was like an enormous gin trap. Do you know how a gin trap works? It was a small trap with two jaws for catching small mammals. This thing was designed to catch poachers. It was like an enormous gin trap with two great big jaws and it had a plate in the middle and you step on it and wallop: it got you!

Interviewer: They didn’t want poachers to come back, did they?

Gerald: I’m sure they didn’t.

Interviewer: Do you remember anyone or hearing a story of anyone being caught?

Gerald: No. It was already very old and it was Grandad that told me about it. 

And like Sue, the smell of wood smoke is my abiding memory of this place. Also, Grandad tinkering with his clocks. I think he liked anything, small mechanical sort of things, he always had something on his bench and this was the bench which was just in the window of their apartment. He had a proper workshop in the boiler room. And my memory is that his workshop was on one level and I think you went down a couple of steps to the level that the boiler was on which again to me now, it seemed absolutely enormous, I don’t know how big it really was. There were stacks and stacks of firewood.

Gerald Bodily: I think I was here mostly in the winter whereas Sue and Anne were mostly here in the summer.

Interviewer: Was it cold?

Gerald: Freezing! Absolutely! I can remember being up here and cowering under this, Granny had this – because there were no duvets at the time, they hadn’t really sprung upon us – featherbed which was like an enormously thick eiderdown and it was really heavy and you felt quite safe and cosy when you got into it but God, it was cold. I can actually remember seeing my breath and it was kind of weird, you weren’t used to that happening at home.