Man about town - interview with George Cazenove of An Officer and a Gentleman

When did you last wear a well-tailored jacket with a fascinating history in its pocket? Man-about-town GEORGE CAZENOVE has relocated from London to Hungerford to open vintage clothier An Officer and a Gentleman. “Vintage clothes look good, and tell a hell of a story,” he explains to CATRIONA REEVES.

I FULLY expected An Officer and a Gentleman to be a treasure trove of vintage delights, but on visiting the shop in Charnham Street, Hungerford, it was a pleasure to discover that its proprietor George Cazenove is brimming with old-school charm and bursting with fabulous stories, both about the clothes he sells, and his own adventurous life.

Descended from a family of “rakes, boozers and fornicators” who lost most of their fortune through death duties, Cazenove turned his back on the traditional family profession of stockbroking to set up a clothier called Bertie Wooster - named after PG Wodehouse’s most famous character -  in late 1980s London.

Feted by the Chelsea set, Bertie Wooster’s vintage finds and bespoke tailoring graced the bodies of the bold and the beautiful across the pages of society magazines, and the business expanded to seven branches across London and beyond, before Cazenove closed up shop in 2005. “I’d moved to Africa two years before, and it was too difficult to run the business from over there.”

Cazenove’s Africa move came about rather by accident - bet by an SAS soldier that he couldn’t drive round the whole of Africa, he did just that, down the east coast and up the west; and rather liking it over there, he set up a property company in Angola. He spent the next nine years dividing his time between there and Cape Town, where he made rather a name for himself as a campaigner against the hangover of Apartheid.

Back in the UK and “having lost a lot of money” during a divorce, Cazenove was “in limbo and seriously considering going back to Africa”, when one day, driving through Hungerford, he spotted a for sale sign outside a near-derelict Victorian building, the town’s former gasworks, and made the decision to set up shop once more. “I’d sold the Bertie Wooster name, so had to decide on a new one - I heard the theme song for the film An Officer and a Gentlemen on the radio, and thought that would be perfect.”

Opening his doors in July, Cazenove has felt fully welcomed with open arms, both by his old contacts in the trade - “They always said that I had a nobby background, but a barrow boy mentality” - and by the community of Hungerford. “The mayor’s been fab; I’ve made so many friends in a very short time, and James Podger at Great Grooms has sent me lots of clients - it’s almost like a marriage; he sells them a dining table, then passes them on to me for dinner jackets so that they can sit down at their table in the proper style.”

The shop’s stock is entirely men’s clothing: Savile Row tailoring, accessories, military uniforms and sporting memorabilia, but fashionable women often pop in to snap up military tunics, hunt tail coats, velvet smoking jackets, Barbours and tweed. “If I had a motto, it would be ‘You must be seen in vintage tweed’, says Cazenove. “It‘s so much better than the new stuff; it doesn’t have that shiny look to it, and it can be worn smart or casual - a tweed jacket looks great with jeans.

“The coat I’m wearing in the Out & About photographs is from the 1930s. To build it now would cost £5,000, but we’re selling it for £150, and it’s got that fabulous vintage look.”

So, how can he identify the pedigree of the clothes he sells so specifically? “Easy,” he says, rushing out of the kitchen and returning with a tweed jacket. “This is a rabbiting coat, made for the British Army General Adrian Carton de Wiart in the 1940s. Look - when something is made by a tailor, there will always be a label in the inner pocket, with the date and who it was made for.”

The Chelsea set have started flocking back to Cazenove’s door, following in the footsteps of Pippa Middleton, who visited in August and left with an on-trend mid-century military tunic. Another recent visitor was an unnamed “horsey lady” who bought a jacket made by Savile Row tailor Bernard Weatherill, and wore it on television the next week. I think we can all guess who that was...

Cazenove is also welcoming a new generation of customers, many of them the children of those who used to shop at Bertie Wooster. He is delighted that they, like his assistant, local farmer’s son Freddie Walker, are learning to appreciate the delights of vintage clothing - “why pay £100 to hire a dinner jacket when you can buy a beautifully-made vintage one for the same price?” Everything is cleaned before being put on sale by Best Western Dry Cleaners in Newbury, although Cazenove advises against the use of mothballs to store clothes, “because you can never get rid of the smell. The modern solution is vacuum bags - the moths can’t get in there. But really, clothes are made to be worn”.

For someone who has such a love of items with historic value, Cazenove is surprisingly unmaterialistic. He is adamant that he has no plans to build another clothing empire - “there will only ever be the one shop” - and says that his own wardrobe (he lives above and behind the shop) is simply an extension of the stockroom.

“I have between one and 50 coats that I wear at any given time, but I always end up selling them. I’ve just sold my own dinner jacket to a young man for the Feathers Ball (a major event in young London’s society calendar). His mother was desperate, and I knew it would fit him. I’ll find another one for myself before too long”.

Unsaleable - but wearable clothes - are given to homeless shelters for ex-servicemen, and Cazenove has donated particularly special items to museums in the past. “Back in the ’90s, I got a phone call from a man living up a tower block in Tower Hamlets, saying that he had a load of stuff in suitcases with fleur-de-lis on them.

“I was a bit nervous - it wasn’t a nice area back then - but when I got there, it turned out that he was a descendent of Tsar Nicholas’ surgeon, and he had all this amazing Russian gear - suits, minks and Vuitton luggage, as well as letters of correspondence from the Tsar. I valued it fairly and took the whole lot.

“Of course I sold a lot of it, but some, I gave to the Victoria & Albert Museum. It only seemed right, as I’d got such a good deal. There’s leopardskin-lined coat from that collection still on display there to this day.”

Cazenove is always happy to meet potential sellers, citing An Officer and a Gentlemen’s first “big break” as the day that someone brought in their late father’s “lovely old clothes”, and to provide advice - being particularly pleased that he recently assisted someone in selling sashes from the Crimean War for £18,000 for which the seller had originally been offered £60 by a generic antique dealer.

He is also happy to be consulted on potential purchases from elsewhere, particularly if it helps people avoid fakes: “There’s a lot of Edwardian military coats around which are actually copies from China. Swords as well. People are pleased that they’re getting a bargain, but it may not be what they think.”

Up since 2am on the day I interviewed him for a flying visit up to London, Cazenove had already had a successful morning, selling a fur-lined coat, made for the British ambassador to Russia before the Second World War but never worn, to fashion house Ralph Lauren, who will be copying it for a future collection, and displaying the original in its New York flagship store. So, there’s plenty of highs to be had in the vintage clothing game - but how about the lows?

“It’s heartbreaking when you go into the attic of a stately home and see clothes which could have been worth a fortune, and they’re threadbare or moth-eaten. I once visited the Dashwood family, whose ancestor had been a pageboy at the wedding of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1840. Sadly, his outfit was shot through - totally destroyed by moths. All I could rescue were the silver buttons.”

At this Cazenove jumps up and pulls a plastic tub full of the buttons out of a drawer, insisting that I take away with me a small but amazing part of history. I don’t need much persuading, recognising the intrinsic beauty in the small, but weighty nub of tarnished silver, stamped with Queen Victoria’s crown, and immediately deciding that I will get a chain to hang it on.

“Vintage clothes are a talking point; they look good, and they’ve got an artistic and conceptual value; a history, and a hell of a story,” says Cazenove. “Just think about it - the violin from the Titanic’s band has just sold for nearly £1m, and it’s totally unplayable; but clothes you can wear. It’s not about the money for me; it’s about the passion. I would rather spend £100 on a story I can wear on my back than buy a new BMW.”

• First published in Out & About, 2013

A wheely good time - feature on Beaulieu National Motor Museum, House and Garden

BACK in the 1990s, Beaulieu National Motor Museum, House and Garden promoted itself in a television advert with the jingle “You’ll have a Beaulieu-full day at Beaulieu". The jingle may have been long discarded (possibly because it was the clunkiest play on words ever to be used in an advertising campaign), but Beaulieu itself is still going strong, having been voted VisitEngland’s Best Large Visitor Attraction for 2013.

It may be a bold claim for an attraction to claim that it has “lots for everyone to enjoy”; but Beaulieu comes nearer than most in fulfilling such a promise; with the ruins of 13th century Beaulieu Abbey, Palace House, the ancestral home of the Montagu family since 1538, and its stunning grounds, including the well-tended Victorian flower and kitchen gardens.

Such tranquil surroundings may seen like a rather incongruous setting for a museum dedicated to cars and automobilia, but the founding of the National Motor Museum was no cynical tourist ploy; the current Lord Montagu started his collection in 1952 as a tribute to his father, a motoring pioneer as far back as the 1890s.

Despite the appeal of these historical attractions - on our visit to Beaulieu last month, we got no nearer to the house, abbey and gardens than via an aerial view from the mile-long monorail that circuits the site. We did go on it twice though, to get a good look. Not through laziness though - there was simply so much to be seen in the motor museum itself, and the adjacent World of Top Gear display. We even got a bird’s eye view of the exhibitions from the monorail, as during its journey it passes through the roof area of the museum, giving an unusual perspective on the vehicles on display, some of which are staged, staggered or suspended to make the most of space and viewpoints.

In addition, the weekend we visited coincided with the annual Beaulieu Custom & Hot Rod Festival, meaning that there were plenty of sleek cars, vans and bikes bedecked with shimmering chrome, in the event area next to the museum. Pleasingly, despite the increased visitor numbers - which we were warned about when we booked - everything was well organised, with no enormous queues or difficulty viewing the permanent exhibits, with the custom car interlopers simply adding to the atmosphere. The free fairground dodgems were most welcome as well.

And so into the museum itself; a quite breathtaking journey through the history of motoring, with more than 250 vehicles on show, from the earliest days of motoring (in stunning conserved condition) and family cars of the early 20th century, through to classic cars of the 70s and 80s, historic and modern racing, F1 and rally cars, and world land speed record breakers, including Donald Campbell’s Bluebird. I couldn’t help thinking of Matthew Crawley’s tragic final moment in Downton Abbey while looking at some of the beautifully sleek but not particularly safety-conscious early open-topped Rolls Royces and Bentleys. A joy to drive, I’m sure, but where were the seatbelts?

The famous “Outspan Orange” car (built on a Mini chassis in the early 1970s) had a certain ap-peel (gettit?) for young Sophie, while I was particularly drawn to the London Routemaster bus, and had a go at jumping on and swinging around its pole - with slightly less glamourous results than I had pictured in my head. More successful as a photo opportunity was an Edwardian car supplied with appropriate motoring costumes, and Sophie and I had great fun transforming ourselves into ladies from 100 years ago - while George refused steadfastly to even don a flat cap for the photo, and Bill kept well out of the way.

Opened last year to coincide with the 50th anniversary of James Bond films, the museum’s current flagship exhibition is Bond In Motion, showcasing 50 iconic Bond cars, boats, motorbikes, tow-sleds and jets, including the 1937 Phantom III Rolls-Royce from Goldfinger, the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldeneye, the “Little Nellie” autogyro from You Only Live Twice, and the Bede Acrostar jet flown in Octopussy.

Another separate exhibition area of Screen Cars features Del Boy’s iconic Reliant Regal from Only Fools and Horses, Mr Bean’s green mini, and the flying Ford Anglia from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. My favourite of all, taking pride of place in the main museum, was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - sadly, like many of the exhibits, for understandable reasons, not to be clambered upon. How I would have loved to climb into Chitty and go for an arial cruise above Beaulieu’s stunning grounds. What do you mean that it doesn’t really fly?

None of us are avid Top Gear fans, but the World of Top Gear was great fun, featuring some of the BBC television show’s more outlandish stars (I’m talking about the cars, not Jeremy Clarkson), centred around the Top Gear Enormodrome, which recreates the feel of the Top Gear studio, featuring a specially-made film made at the programme’s production office, with classic action clips featuring some of the outlandish vehicles on display. George was particularly impressed with the MG Limo bowling alley, although he did question the practicalities of using it while in motion.

We spotted the cobbled-together motorhomes, the “budget Bond” submarine cars, Ann Hathaway’s Cottage (an interior bedecked with flagstones and a woodburner), homemade police vehicles, and the double decker cars - not one of which looked at all roadworthy. If you spot any of these vehicles on the road, overtake carefully - or, as a friend once did while passing the Top Gear motorhomes driven by the presenters, film them and post to Youtube, resulting in a viral clip which was then picked up by the BBC as the trailer for the series, netting him a life-changing £400.

As we never made it into Palace House, we didn’t get the opportunity to enjoy some of Beaulieu’s current non-motoring exhibitions, including Royal Pageant, a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation, exploring the links between Beaulieu and the monarchy; and The Secret Army, telling the story of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) which trained secret agents at the Beaulieu “Finishing School” on the estate during the Second World War, before they were sent to occupied Europe to work with the Resistance, many never to return. A historical link that James Bond himself would be proud of.

With the school holidays upon us, Beaulieu is revving up for an influx of summer visitors by stepping attractions up a gear with living history characters giving an insight into Victorian life at Palace House and in the 1870s kitchen garden, falconry and Cisternian monks in the Abbey Cloisters, a go-kart track, tours on the open-topped replica 1912 London bus, and creative activities in the museum with a caravan theme. See - what did I tell you? Something for everyone.

Check the website for details and entry prices at www.beaulieu.co.uk

• First published in Out & About magazine, July 2013

A guiding light - feature about Guide Dogs puppy walkers

WE may remember collecting silver foil and milk bottle tops for the Blue Peter appeal for Guide Dogs For The Blind as children, but now we’re grown up, there’s something else even more useful we can do for Guide Dogs (as the charity is now known)  - it’s a 24/7 commitment, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

The Wokingham-based service, which trains and provides dogs to support blind and partially-sighted people, is looking to recruit puppy walkers  to raise and care for guide dog puppies from the age of seven weeks to between 12 and 15 months, when they are ready to begin their training.

It’s a demanding role, but most of those who take it on wouldn’t have it any other way, such as Doreen and Adrian Griffin, from Reading, who are currently looking after 11-month-old labrador Woodie, and golden retriever Esme, who is just 13 weeks old.

Seeing them walking round Newbury town centre with the puppies, the additional effort they put into basic training from the earliest days is apparent, particularly when Doreen and Adrian have only been looking after Esme for five weeks.

“We started off with just one dog at a time, but when Adrian took early retirement, we decided we could manage two , and found that having an ‘overlap’ actually helps, because the puppies learn very quickly from the older dog,” explains Doreen. “It’s not double the effort - it’s actually half the work!” 

The pups attract plenty of attention from dog lovers as we stop for an al fresco coffee. “They need to get used to people, and busy places,”  says Adrian. “Town walks are essential; and we also take them on buses and trains, to the supermarket and even to the airport - they’ve got to get used to the hustle and bustle.

“The man who has our first pup, Marley, rang us the other day - Marley is going to fly to California with him! It really makes us feel that what we do with the pups is worthwhile. That’s why we do this - the satisfaction of giving someone a life. Having a guide dog makes such a difference.”

Doreen and Adrian became puppy walkers about four years ago after their 14-year-old golden retriever Jason died. “Our neighbour said it was so strange not seeing us walking the dog, and she suggested puppy walking, as her mum did it,” explains Doreen. “It seemed like a good idea, as it isn’t a long-term commitment; we could take a break between pups - although we haven’t yet.”

The couple say that they found the volunteer vetting and training process very straightforward, with plenty of ongoing support from their Guide Dogs supervisor, and all food and vet bills paid for.  The biggest commitment is the familiarisation excursions, which need to be more varied than a normal dog walk, and getting used to Guide Dogs’ approved glossary of commands, such as “spend” and “busies”  for toileting.

Woodie and Esme are the couple’s fourth and fifth guide dog pups - of their previous charges, two have gone on to become successful guide dogs, with  the other one not meeting the rigourous standards required, purely because of his fast walking pace. “He’s fine though,”  says Doreen, “he now lives with the racehorse trainer Andrew Balding in Kingsclere, so he landed on his feet.”

As their first guide dog puppy, Marley was the hardest one to say goodbye too when it was time to start his full training, but a few weeks later, the Griffins were handed a new pup, “and there was no looking back after that,” says Doreen. “We can’t imagine not doing it now.”

As a Berkshire-based charity, Guide Dogs is keen to enrol more puppy walkers in the west of the county. Clare Burgess, the volunteer development manager for Guide Dogs’ Reading mobility team, is a puppy walker herself, and says: "Without puppy walkers there would be no Guide Dogs, it really is that important. 

“Our puppy walkers are all wonderful; with support from their local supervisor they raise well socialised, friendly dogs ready for the exciting adventures ahead of them. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to spend my time with these amazing dogs- they are just so intelligent and seem to pick everything up so quickly.

“When I started puppy walking the training and support I received was second to none, I really would recommend it to anyone, it has been the best experience of my life, 

"We are committed to increasing the number of Guide Dog partnerships, this means breeding more puppies and in turn means we need many more puppy walkers. ”

If you feel you could offer a home to a Guide Dogs puppies, contact Guide Dogs’ volunteer team on 0845 371 7771 or email volunteer@guidedogs.org.uk

• First published in Out & About magazine, Jul y 2012

Newsroom magic - video demonstration by magician Robert Bone

FOLLOWING on from my Out & About feature on magician Robert Bone a few months ago, the man himself popped into the Newbury Weekly News newsroom recently to wow us with a specially-devised trick centred around the magazine article.

I reckon he must have manipulated my mind back in September, when I interviewed him. It's the only explanation.

Watch on, to see me giggling like a little girl.

Going back to your roots - family history feature

Above: 1872 Smith wedding - the bride is Bill's great-great-grandmother, Sarah Smith, and the boy on the far left is his great-grandfather James Smith. The family lived and worked at Wyld Court Farm, Hampstead Norreys

HAVE I ever told you that I’m a direct descendent of King Henry III and Robert the Bruce on my mother’s side? I have? It means I can trace my line back all the way to King Herod, you know. And it makes me a distant cousin of the Queen. Isn’t that fascinating? Where are you going? Come back!

When I first started researching my family tree (to be fair, I already had a general idea about my royal ancestry), it was the big hitters that floated my boat. William the Conquerer? Get in there! Ethelred the Unready? Back of the net! But after a while, all the names started to merge into one, and it all got a bit dull. After all, the theory goes that statistically it’s quite likely that every European living today is descended from the ninth century emperor Charlemagne. Yes, even you.

That’s not to say that I didn’t uncover some interesting facts along the way - I’m a distant relative of Gabriel Cox, the second mayor of Newbury (and thus can claim the coveted kinship to John and Frances West - meaning I could attend Christ’s Hospital school if I really wanted to); and my great-grandfather x 12 was Sir John Hawkins, Admiral of Elizabeth I’s fleet, hero of the Armada, cousin to Sir Francis Drake, and, er, “father of slavery”. Maybe I should keep that one quiet.

However, once I’d stopped being dazzled by these celebrities of the past, I became more interested in looking a bit closer to home, time-wise (I blame Richard Madeley’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are?. That man could turn me on to anything). In particular, although both my parents were children of Reading, it was surprising how many branches of my dad’s tree brought me back to West Berkshire; while on my mum’s side, I found it greatly amusing that her parents, with the surnames McDougall and McIver, and terribly proud of their Scottish roots, were in fact Londoners back through several generations - and with an interesting possible native marriage in India in the mid-19th century which might explain our dark colouring.

While some surmising had to be done without the help of the army of researchers that celebrities on Who Do You Think You Are? have at their disposal, I’ve been able to piece together some interesting life stories; generations of labourers uprooted from their isolated existence in the rural idyl of Chute Forest in Wiltshire to work firstly on the estates of grand landowners such as the Benyons of Englefield (explains why I have an urge to tug my forelock whenever I see our MP) and then into the factories of Reading; the fate of many of our ancestors not so very long ago.

The biggest bombshell for me was the discovery that my grandfather was the product of a first-cousin marriage - probably family-engineered after both parties were widowed and left with children to support during the First World War. Turned out that this was a surprise to no one but me, with the rest of the family having been fully aware of it for many decades. Sadly, his father died just a few years later, leaving his mother with even more children. Unable to cope, she was forced to send her youngest children away from Reading to an orphanage in Hampshire. Fortunately my grandad had happy memory of these years, and he remained particularly close to the brother and sister who had been there with him.

As I got into the swing of my research (aided by useful, if sometimes pricey websites such as Ancestry, Find My Past and Genes Reunited), I expanded to start looking into the family history of my husband Bill. With his mum and dad born and bred in Hungerford and Thatcham respectively, I wasn’t surprised to discover that  both sides of the family can be traced back through West Berkshire and its surroundings for several generations. They included a George Liddiard of Aldbourne, who in the 1830 agricultural workers' uprising known as the Swing Riots, destroyed a threshing machine and was sentenced to 18 months' hard labour in Reading Gaol. He was lucky not to be deported to Australia, the fate of many of his fellow rioters. His absence appears to have hit his daughter hard and maybe she indulged in a little teenage rebellion; by the time George was released, he was unexpectedly a grandfather.

A particular treat was to stumble across the wedding photo of BIll’s Great-Great Grandmother, Sarah Smith, on the Ancestry website, uploaded by another distant relative. I am pretty sure that the boy on the far left of the photo is his Great Grandfather James Smith, another child born out of wedlock to the teenage Sarah. His dark colouring certainly seems to have survived through the generations, although I am glad to say that the women of the family are not so plain these days. James never took his mother’s married name, but did move with his mother and new stepfather from Wyld Court Farm (today home to The Living Rainforest) in Hampstead Norreys, where his family lived and worked as servants and farmhands, to the nearby hamlet of Eling.

Yet another apparently fatherless boy in BIll’s family was his great-grandfather Henry Ainsworth. With a surname originating in the North West of England, it is almost certain that Henry was the first Ainsworth to arrive in West Berkshire. He had spent much of his childhood in a London orphanage before being boarded out to Newbury at the age of 13 in 1887 - possibly to work on a farm, as in the 1891 census he is listed as living as a boarder with the family of a carter called George Hillier at Bradford’s Farm in Speen.

Henry had been orphaned at the age of 10, when his mother, Fanny, died in a London hospital. Other than a record of her death, I have been unable to find out little about Fanny. Was she a Londoner, married to an Ainsworth, or had she arrived in the capital as an unmarried mother from another part of the country, maybe hoping to pass as a widow rather than a fallen woman? Her story will probably never be known.

Fortunately, Henry had a happier ending - he married Mary Cox, a Hungerford girl, and they had five sons and two daughters. Although we know nothing of his experiences as a youthful farmhand, at a time when many of his contemporary orphans were deported to the British colonies, where it is widely documented that they were often badly mistreated, it appears that fate may have been a luckier one. If you meet an Ainsworth in West Berkshire nowadays, it is quite likely that they will be a descendent of Henry, the London orphan.

My great-grandmother Helen Eyles,  born at 3 Englefield Street on the Englefield estate where her parents worked, pictured with all her children. My grandfather, Reginald Reeves, whom my son George resembles, is on the right

FOR those who want to take their family history research a step further, the Berkshire Family History Society offers wealth of excellent resources. The editor of the society’s quarterly journal, Berkshire Family Historian, Penny Stokes, told me more about it.

Catriona Reeves: What do those joining or contacting Berkshire FHS tend to be most interested in finding out?

Penny Stokes: Most people know the basic - dates and places of birth, marriage and death - of their parents, and to a lesser extent their grandparents. From then on, working back to 1837 (the start of civil registration) and 1841 (the first systematic census) seems fairly easy, because so much is online. But the quality of online material is so variable that many people need help in exploring the alternative routes when they can't find what ought to be there, such as a great-grandparent who is unaccountably missing from the census, or a birth which seems not to have been registered.

Before 1837 it gets trickier: you have to search parish records for baptisms, marriages and burials. Some of these are online (again, in varying quality) but many are not. There are of course a myriad of other sources. The society has a wonderful Family History Research Centre in Reading, where members can access a vast range of sources online, on CD, on microfiche and in print. I have no Berkshire family, but I've been a member of Berkshire Family History Society since the early 1990s because the society's resources are so much wider than just Berkshire. 

CR: What have you found out about your own family through your personal research?

PS: I learned that one of my great-grandfathers was Bram Stoker's accountant, and on my mother's side there were some very active Irish republicans in the struggle for independence. So I describe myself as a cross between Irish rebels and Dracula's accountant. I haven't gone back much before the mid-18th century because I'm really more interested in finding out the stories behind the most recent six or eight generations.

CR: A lot of mine and my husband's ancestors were farm labourers in the villages around West Berkshire. Would the Berkshire FHS be able to help me learn more about what life would have been like for them? 

PS: Most people researching family history want to fill in the background of how their ancestors lived, so local and social history play a large part in family history. The Berkshire Family History Society has regional branches (one in Newbury) where monthly meetings are held with speakers, and the topics focus on just this sort of thing.

House history too is a major interest; if your ancestors lived in, say, a particular farmhouse for three generations you'd want to find out about the house too, and as far as Berkshire is concerned the Berkshire Record Office is the place to do that. And it just happens to be right next door to the society's Family History Research Centre in Reading!

CR: Something we have noticed in our research is that there appears to be a fair bit of illegitimacy in our West Berks family trees, with the father being unnamed - more than I expected. Have society members have come across that a lot in their own trees?

PS: There's never yet been a family which didn't have secrets; it doesn't do to be too sensitive or judgmental. Pregnant brides are were very common, particularly in rural areas, where it was almost the norm for a couple to test their fertility before marriage, and disgrace only attached to failing to get to the altar before the birth. If an unmarried father isn't named in the birth or baptism record, he may be traceable in the records of the overseers of the poor, who may have awarded maintenance.

Illegitimacy sometimes arose because of religious dissent - a Quaker couple, for example, might refuse on principle to marry in a C of E church. They could find themselves being reported in the churchwardens' presentments. Other skeletons in the cupboard could be children given away or abandoned, bigamy, a spell in the workhouse, criminality, insanity... Most of these things are on record somewhere. 

CR: Through your editorship of the journal, is there anything unexpected that you've discovered about old Berkshire?

PS: I was surprised to find how local surnames have remained strongly local, despite the massive increase in geographical mobility. West of Newbury there is still a concentration of names like Coxhead, Pocock, Liddiard and Tubb, just as there was in parish registers of the seventeenth century. You can check surname distribution out, comparing 1881 with 1998 on http://gbnames.publicprofiler.org

CR: What advice would you give to those starting to research their families, beyond using the usual websites, and any pitfalls that they should avoid?

PS: Start with all the information you can glean from living relatives. Read a good book on the whole subject so that you understand the sources before you start blundering around on the web (which can get expensive). Don't imagine you can do it all on the web; much valuable information is not online but in record offices, and nothing beats actually getting out and walking the ground that your ancestors walked.

And, of course, join the Berkshire Family History Society, through which you will get a great deal of information and support, not to mention the company of like-minded people.

CR: And what makes it so fascinating for those that do start researching their family?

PS: It becomes utterly compulsive, particularly if you are in the second half of your life, and your parents are no longer alive. Roots are important. Having had an RAF upbringing I thought I had no home town, so I was delighted to find that I was a seventh-generation Londoner. It's as well to remember, though, that almost nobody is going to be quite as excited by your discoveries as you are!

* First published in Out & About magazine, May 2012

Dog and Bone - interview with magician Robert Bone

ROBERT Bone isn’t a magician he is a demonstrator of extra-sensory curiosities, so don’t expect him to pull a rabbit out of a hat - unless it’s a virtual bunny, and the hat is a figment of your imagination. By Catriona Reeves.

I KNOW that Robert Bone won’t mind being compared to master mentalist Derren Brown. After all, the quote on his poster and flyers is from the great man himself: “What a lovely chap”. Robert’s use of it is rather tongue-in-cheek - “He’s never seen me perform; we just had a chat at the stage door after one of his shows. But that was what he said to me, and it was too good an opportunity not to use it in my publicity!”

Derren, as always of course, is entirely right: Robert is indeed a lovely chap, both in his dapper three-piece stage suit, and in mufti as he chats about his new project, branching out from the performance of close-up magic at social functions with his first full-length stage show, which he performed for this first time to an audience at New Greenham Arts in early September.

Robert describes the process of preparing and rehearsing for the show as “like practising tightrope walking on a piece of rope lying on the ground, then suddenly trying to do it up in the air”.

“You have no idea who’s coming up on the stage, and the entire second half of the show involved lots of unpredictables, much of which I had never done before”. Not everything went exactly to plan, but overall the big picture came together.”

His preparation involved memorising the contents of books using image mnemonics, and learning to slow his pulse dramatically - verified during the show by a midwife in the audience.

As a self-styled “Demonstrator of Extra-Sensory Curiosities” - a moniker he took on two years ago to differentiate himself from more traditional conjurors - Robert’s performance is about much more than sleight of hand, and he will never use pure, simple trickery when a feat of memory, psychological reading and hypnotic suggestion will provide more gasp-inducing results.

“In rehearsals I had a ‘drop-everything’ idea which I had to include in the show, involving getting a volunteer to focus on a memory to get him in the right mood, then using Scrabble tiles to build up a picture. This replaced my original plan to use a ouija board, which could have been amazing, or fallen completely flat.”

Originally from the New Forest but now living in Brimpton, Robert’s interest in magic started 10 years ago when working as a mortgage advisor. Bored while on a residential training course, he began teaching himself card tricks. In 2006 he turned professional, rebranding himself in 2009 to shake off the magician’s usual dickie bow get-up - “although I only once got mistaken for the wine waiter” - and to focus more on his psychological skills, which had fascinated him since the earlier series of Big Brother, when psychologists used to decipher the housemates’ behaviour and body language.

Although Robert performs under his own name, it was the acquisition of a handmade three-piece suit that helped create his performing persona - affable and charming, yet also slightly quirky. “My girlfriend say it’s weird, that I do become someone else. It’s still me - but it’s a different part of me.

“I want to be remembered and talked about, whether it’s for going up to three people at the bar at a wedding, or on stage in front of 150 people. It’s not just about doing tricks, it’s about making an impact. It’s like what David Blaine did with his street magic - that was as much about his audiences’ reaction as the tricks themselves.”

Despite Robert’s unusual approach, he has the greatest respect for the traditions and history of magic, citing David Nixon and Paul Daniels as heroes if not direct influences. He also loves the work of Penn & Teller, and recommends Dynamo, who recently had a series on digital television channel Watch as the next big thing.

“My ambition is to get my own television series,” confesses Robert, whose television debut was live on BBC Three in 2008, as an act on a live talent show called Upstaged, which saw him perform for eight hours in a glass box in Millennium Square, Bristol. “It was an experience,” he laughs. “I had one day’s notice to prepare enough material, and it was February, so there were no passers-by!” He is hoping that his latest stint in front of the camera will lead to more success, as his recent Greenham show was filmed by a professional crew for an extended showreel and potential television pilot. 

“Magic goes through peaks and troughs in terms of mainstream popularity, and it’s back on prime time right now. I think the trend will continue more towards the psychological stuff - mind reading and body language. Hopefully that will mean that there’s a place for me on TV!”

* To find out more about Robert Bone or to contact him, please send him a message through thought waves, or alternatively visit www.robertbone.co.uk

• First published in Out & About magazine, September  2011

The baby boom - activities for babies and toddlers (feature)

HAVING left it a whole seven years after the birth after my first darling cherub before I could face sprogging again, I have found the wealth of activities, events and temptations available to West Berkshire mums and babes in 2011 to be quite overwhelming. Of  course the old stalwarts existed way back in the dark ages of 2002 - the NCT with its frankly terrifying (but oh-so-worth-it) nearly new sales, my family’s favourite Monkey Music, and the local toddler group (still an excellent way for any new mum to make friends with other parents in her area) - but it was a fairly select choice, and much of it I missed out on entirely owing to a return to work before young George was old enough to participate in much that was on offer. Nowadays you can have your newborn baby signing, singing and performing bendy yoga positions before you’ve left the maternity ward - I’m joking, of course, but there are now a host of classes that you can start attending with your little one long before maternity leave ends.

Of course baby-centred activities in those early weeks are as much about benefiting Mum’s sense of wellbeing as well as her newborn, getting her out and about, meeting other new mothers, and giving her confidence in her parenting skills. The Breastfeeding Support Group is a free weekly drop-in session at Speenhamland Primary School, Newbury, on Thursdays from 1pm to 2.30pm, while the NCT’s monthly Bumps and Babes group, for pregnant women and those with babies up to 12 months is relaunching on May 17 at its new regular venue, Ace Space in Newbury. The first session will include a talk about cranial osteopathy, and costs 50p to attend. New parents are also well catered for by West Berkshire’s thriving network of Government-funded Sure Start centres, where for a nominal charge they can attend sessions for newborns or crawlers and walkers, or sign up for the 10 week Parents As First Teachers programme.

Once Baby is interacting a bit more, there is a host of classes to choose from, with only the cost and number of days in the week limiting the choices available. As well as Monkey Music, there’s Music With Mummy and local group Little Quavers Music, which runs its sessions in Thatcham and Cold Ash on a turn-up-and-pay basis, rather than signing up for a term at a time. Many classes are held in community halls, while others are based at dedicated play centres, such as Eddie Katz in Newbury and Thatcham’s Krazy Klub. In recent years, some established organisations aimed initially at older children have expanded their programme to included younger babies, such as Tumble Tots, which now runs Gymbabes to introduce pre-walkers from six months upwards to its active physical play programme.

Newbury children wouldn’t have access to the much-loved Tumble Tots programme at all if it wasn’t for Sharon Browne, a Tumble Tots mum who bought the franchise after it closed suddenly last summer after 26 years, leaving more than 350 children bereft. “I am so convinced of the benefits that children gain from Tumble Tots that I felt compelled to be a part of it,” explains the former nanny. “What is so appealing is the whole atmosphere. The children are happy, the parents are happy and the staff are happy. I am enjoying the satisfaction of seeing children develop in such a positive way.”

Tumble Tots may have been running since the early 1980s, but more recently other businesses have sprung up to attract the “parent pound”, such as the Baby & Children’s Market, which holds regular events at Newbury Racecourse, offering a slightly more sedate shopping alternative to the crazy (but fun, and oh-so-worth-it) NCT nearly new sales which take place several times a year. In addition, there are thriving car boot sales in Newbury and Thatcham which are a fabulous source of second hand baby equipment and clothes for parents on a budget.

For mums and dads with a bit more cash to splash, there are a host of gift ideas available that will preserve those precious early days for eternity, such as the finger and hand prints cast into solid silver jewellery by Newbury mumtrepreneur Penny Daly who set up her Smallprint franchise in 2009. “Not only is it a beautiful product, it enables me to balance my work with being mum to my two boys - there are very few jobs that offer both. I thought life would get easier as they got older, but now they are both at school they want even more of my time.” She now spends her days attending various toddler groups and events, meaning she can be at the school gates at home time, and choosing the hours she spends at home creating the handcrafted jewellery.

For a very unusual gift to be treasured, Basingstoke-based poet and comedian Jan Jack  offers Perfect Verse Toddler Tomes, a business she started 18 months ago after being asked to write a poem for a mum from the point of view of her two young sons. “During a phone chat with her husband, I asked him about the boys’ special relationship with Mum, nicknames, sibling rivalry, funny things they said. I then created a page of verse written from their viewpoint and telling Mum how much they loved her.” Since then, Jan has written many children’s bespoke poems, and says they are now her favourite type of verse. “Putting yourself in the mindset of a sometimes indignant four-year-old can be great fun. They are also guaranteed to make mummies - and sometimes daddies - cry. They really seem to touch a chord.”

Many local baby-centred franchises are run by mothers who decided they wanted a business which fitted around their homelife, such as Sarah Sunthareswaran from Water Babies, who trained as a baby swimming teacher after taking her daughter Sophia to lessons from the age of just 12 weeks and being “absolutely blown away”. “I have such amazing fond memories of watching her very first underwater swim, and it created an amazing bond between us.” When the local Water Babies franchise became available she “snapped it up”, and now has a team of 10 teachers working with nearly 1,000 babies throughout Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire - giving Sarah time to have two more water babies of her own, while still running the business she loves.

Similarly, Sandra Scaplehorn of TinyTalk discovered the joys of baby signing - a form of pre-verbal communication that allow babies to communicate before they can talk -  along with her own daughter, Kara, soon after her birth in 2008, although at that time she had to look further afield than Newbury for classes. “Having attended TinyTalk classes a bit further afield, my daughter started using sign language, and after a bit of perseverance on my part, hey presto - she could tell me when she wanted milk! By the time she was 18 months we did the ultimate test - we went to a restaurant with a baby in tow. It was an eye-opening experience. She sat in her  highchair, signing ‘drink’, ‘bread’, ‘water’, ‘enough’ and ‘home’. She even signed ‘thankyou’ to the waitress!  truly believe that signing strengthens the vital parent-child bond and empowers the babies.”

Lovely as it would be to sign your baby up to all the classes on offer, most parents just pick one or two to attend every week - but which ever you choose, it is clear that there are developmental and bonding benefits, such as those offered by Monkey Music. Franchise owner Val Stephenson welcomes babies from three months old to her classes at venues throughout West Berkshire. “I always find it amazing how babies even this young are transfixed with different sounds, and ho they learn through singing, cuddling, rocking, talking and clapping, all of which stimulates the baby;s brain and encourages new developmental pathways. Very quickly babies anticipate what is going to happen next, and the excitement when Monkey appears is immense.”

Val also believes that such classes are beneficial for the parents who attend - it’s mostly mums, but dads are welcome too; Take That’s Mark Owen caused great excitement when he turned up with his child at a class in London a couple of years ago. “It’s a lovely way to make new friends and enjoy some special time with their baby. It forces them to sit down and take pleasure watching their baby respond to a huge variety of interesting sounds.” Parents are expected to join in the singing, but no one is expecting operatic standards, so most mums are happy to take a full part in the fun.

For classes that offer babies a taster of all sorts of exciting and stimulating experiences, Baby Sensory involve a wide variety of action rhymes, baby signing and massage, mixed in with with use of puppets, fibre optic lights, bubbles, balls, bells, scarves, water play and more. As well as a regular programme of classes, Newbury franchisee Jane Doyle runs occasional free sessions at Newbury Library - these are ticketed events promoted in advance at the library’s own free Rhymetime sessions, which take place at 11am on the first, third and fifth (if there is one) Tuesday of each month. “One of the best arts of my job is watching the babies’ sheer enjoyment, and over time their growth and development. the sessions encourage parents and carers to play with their babies and show them things that can be made at home at very little expense for their little ones to play with and explore. Another fantastic thing I have noticed is the confidence the babies have. They are more than willing to fetch their own equipment and get involved.”

Just starting out in the wonderful world of baby business is Judith Saunders, who has been running Tatty Bumpkin yoga classes for children for six months, and has just launched Baby Bumpkin for babies and toddlers. “The classes are a wonderful way for parents and carers to bond with their children while learning massage techniques for the younger babies, and adapted yoga moves for the older ones, all designed to encourage their natural development. The benefits of massage and yoga for babies are improved sleep and digestion as well as encouraging correct muscle development and stability required for crawling and walking. Mums get some nice stretches too, and the chance to make new friends and relearn some forgotten nursery rhymes!”

•  The Breastfeeding Support Group at Speenhamland Primary School is run as an outreach project by North Newbury Children’s Centre (Sure Start) at Victoria Park Nursery School, telephone (01635) 31143.
• Details on community baby and toddler groups, local Sure Start Centres and other activities are available from the West Berkshire Family Information Service, visit www.childrensinfo.org or freephone 0800 328 9148
• Information on Bumps and Babes and other parent and child groups run by Newbury & District NCT can be found at http://www.nct.org.uk/in-your-area/newbury/groups, and the date of its next Nearly New Sale can be found at http://www.nct.org.uk/in-your-area/newbury
• For parents thinking of starting their own baby-based franchise, the websites Mum and Working www.mumandworking.co.uk, Netmums www.netmums.com and Female Franchise www.femalefranchise.co.uk are good places to start.

Other contact details:

• Monkey Music - www.monkeymusic.co.uk, tel. (01635) 860959
• Music With Mummy - www.musicwithmummy.co.uk (run by various franchisees in Newbury, Hungerford, Kintbury, Thatcham, Tadley, Burghfield Common and Mortimer)
• Little Quavers - www.littlequaversmusic.co.uk, tel. (01635) 200112 or (01635) 863495
• Tumble Tots - www.tumbletots.com/Newbury-Salisbury/, tel. (01635) 241201
• Baby & Children’s Market - www.babyandchildrensmarket.co.uk, tel. 07881641614
• Smallprint - www.smallp.co.uk, tel. (01635) 35262
• Perfect Verse Toddler Tomes - http://perfectverse.vpweb.co.uk/For-my-Mummy.html, tel. 07917 127381
• Water Babies - www.waterbabies.co.uk/local/oxford, tel. (01869) 325499
• Tiny Talk - www.tinytalk.co.uk/sandras/, tel. 07525476486
• Baby Sensory - www.babysensory.com, tel. 07738969358
• Tatty Bumpkin - www.newburyandover.tattybumpkin.com, tel. 0845 680 8461 or 07780996064

First published in Out & About magazine, March/April 2011

Fitting it in - keep fit feature

Esther Fairfax, teacher of the Lotte Berk Technique

YOU ate enough over Christmas to see you through to the Spring, the weight loss adverts are on the telly, and gym membership offers are dropping through your door. New year, new you, is your resolution, but that hasn’t motivated you beyond February in the past, so why should it in 2011?

The answer might be to try something a bit different - be it challenging, fun, fulfilling or a little bit crazy, there are plenty of activities out there which are a world away from pounding the pavements, providing a social side and working wonders for the soul as much as the body.

There’s plenty out there to chose from - and West Berkshire certainly has its fair share of hidden gems. With this little lot to try your hand at, you need never go near a treadmill again...

Buggyfit - New mums often want to get back into shape, but it’s hard to squeeze in a fitness plan when you have a baby. Buggyfit gives you no such excuse, as it’s an outdoor exercise class which fuses your cherub’s pushchair into the workout. 

These classes are designed to allow post natal mums to exercise safely, but having attempted this one myself, I can confirm that the Buggyfit workout is no walk in the park; it’s a combination of powerwalking and toning exercises that burn fat, raise the heartrate and strengthen neglected muscle groups.

“It’s about friendship and a support network as well as the exercise,” says local Buggyfit instructor Elizabeth Masters. “It’s sad when a mum has to stop because she’s gone back to work, but some are able to keep coming as long as they’ve got a buggy. Some of the ladies are really hardcore - they always turn up, whatever the weather.”

The classes utilise the terrain with park benches providing convenient staging posts. Buggyfit classes can be attended as soon as mums have been given the medical all-clear for exercise; however, they really need to be pushing a three-wheeler; a travel system might make the workout a little bit too challenging.

Ceroc - Featuring a dance style fusing jive and salsa, ceroc classes are as much a social scene as a form of exercise. Indeed, Newbury instructor Val Rokov believes that most people start attending for the social element of the evenings rather than viewing the classes as a potential new fitness regime.

“However, it does have massive benefits in terms of weight and fitness,” she says. “I started dancing 13 years ago, and haven’t returned to the gym since.”

Ceroc dancers are certainly put through their paces; pedometers have shown that dancers can take 12,000 in an evening. But Val says that ceroc is easy to learn, and beginners are made to feel very welcome - “no one is ever a wallflower. Three hours just fly by, and everyone ends on such a high.”

Forces Fit - Military-style classes led by current or former members of the Armed Forces may sound like a bit of a scary concept, but instructor Kevin Gormley says that Forces Fit is not just aimed at those already at the peak of physical fitness. “Classes are divided into ability groups, so beginners are very welcome, even those who may not have exercised regularly for a long time. It really is for everyone,” he says.

“It’s enjoyable, supportive, friendly and effective. Going to the gym can be like being on an underground train - no one talks to each other. We describe this as ‘training with a breath of fresh air’.”

Classes are held twice a week all year round in Goldwell Park, Newbury - the one with the gruelling hill. And the Forces Fit team don’t let a little thing like darkness get in the way of their workout, with two evening classes a week being held all year round.

Hatha yoga - “The brilliant thing about yoga,” says Lucy Malkin, “is that there are so many styles. Some are strenuous and give you a really tough workout, while others focus more on meditation. It means that yoga can suit everybody, from athletes to people in their 80s. A decent yoga teacher is one who knows how to modify a style to suit the individual.”

Lucy focuses on Hatha yoga, which covers “all physical styles of yoga”, meaning her classes can be modified to cater for old injuries, address specific physical issues, or enhance the body’s metabolic rate.

“Central to the ethos of yoga is better learning to inhabit the body we’ve been given rather than striving for the body beautiful,” says Lucy. “It’s about feeling more relaxed and comfortable in your skin, and being able to deal with stress.

“It clearly has physical health benefits - it can make people lean, strong and supple - but this is just a happy side affect for a lot of people.  Some people find their inner peace through working out hard, but others find it through being very quite and gentle. Yoga is non-judgemental.”

Kettlebell - Like a cannonball with handles, kettlebells are used by the Russian military to build up muscular strength. They are becoming popular for use at home - although you do need the room to swing the proverbial cat. However, group kettlebell training sessions are also catching on, such as those run by The Workout Team.

“Kettlebells provide a fundamental workout, using the body in the way it was designed,” explains The Workout Team’s Ria Ingleby. “They improve overall strength and endurance, work on core muscles and are good for posture. The kettlebell swing is a fundamental exercise; it really does work the whole body.”

Ria suggests that even those intending to a kettlebell at home should attend a short course in order to learn how to use them safely.

Lotte Berk Technique - West Berkshire’s best kept fitness secret has surely got to be the intimate and friendly classes run by Esther Fairfax, daughter of fitness pioneer Lotte Berk. The lithe and effervescent septuagenerian Esther and her long-term pupils are a wonderful advertisement for the benefits of the technique, which is based on dancers’ warm-up exercises - “without the dancing,” laughs Esther.

“These exercises are very small, very intense and very deep,” she explains. “Everything is based around the ‘tilt’, which my mother brought into the fitness industry, and for which I don’t think she gets enough credit. They create a smooth, firm line, not bulges.”

Many of Esther’s pupils demonstrate that a lifetime of exercise really does pay off, with her oldest student being aged 86 - “although we do have some students under 40”. The secret, she says, is that the technique keeps muscles strong so that joints remain well supported.

The women attending the class I observed at Esther’s carpeted dance studio in Hungerford had been following the method for between 25 and 40 years, with fabulous results. However, Esther says that newcomers are welcome. “Although you will never feel as bad as you do the day after your first class,” she says. “It puts muscles you didn’t know you had into shock.”

Newbury Fencing Club - It may not provide the gruelling cardio-vascular workout of some other activities, but fencing gives you the opportunity to test out your mastery of tactics and timing. “Fencing has become a lot more accessible as a spectator sport,”  says Imad Rahman of Newbury Fencing Club. “It’s certainly something you can take up as an adult - we run beginners’ courses three times a year to introduce people to the basics.”

But what about the risk of injury? Those points look sharp... “The weapons are designed to break very easily,” says Imad. “The most common injuries in fencing are actually muscle pulls, when people haven’t warmed up properly.”

Pole fitness - Put images of high heels and skimpy costumes out of your head; pole fitness has more in common with gymnastics, with the pole being used as a vertical bar.

“People have preconceived ideas, but it’s about fitness, not dancing,” says teacher Kate Tolhurst. “Gymnasts and dancers tend to pick it up really quickly, although you don’t need the strength to begin with to get up to a similar standard. 

“Pole fitness makes you really aware of the body’s posture; it’s really good for you physiologically, as well as providing a great cardio workout. It’s also very empowering. Your confidence grows as you learn the moves and begin to perform routines. It’s also really sociable. There’s a massive ‘pole’ community out there.”

Zumba - One of the liveliest workouts around, zumba is a fitness programme based on international music and dance styles that aims to turn every class into a party. “The moves are quite wiggly,” says Newbury instructor Emma Stanley, who runs classes at Greenacre Leisure Club and Nu Yuu. “It’s great if you’re trying to whittle down your waist.

“There are a lot of ‘secret squats’ hidden behind the dance moves as well, which are great for your legs and thighs. I’ve seen the difference it’s made to my own body - it’s the one class I’ve done which really helps you lose the weight.”

Moves can be modified to factor in knee or hip problems, and there’s no right or wrong way of doing it: “Just follow the instructor, and if you go wrong it doesn’t matter,” says Emma. “Most people love it, because it doesn’t feel like a fitness class. It really does have a party atmosphere.”

Contact info:

Buggyfit - www.buggyfit.co.uk, phone 07920 826966

Ceroc - www.cerocnewbury.co.uk, phone 07958 587256

Forces Fit- www.forcesfit.co.uk. phone 07711 856393

Hatha yoga (Stable Yoga) -  http://www.stableyoga.co.uk, phone 01635 250832

Kettlebell (The Workout Team) - www.theworkoutteam.co.uk, phone 07775 862076 

Lotte Berk Technique - www.lotte-berk.com, phone 01488 683 609

Newbury Fencing Club - www.newburyfencingclub.com, phone 01235 559481

Pole Fitness (Kate Tolhurst) - http://www.polefitnessassociation.com/KateTolhurst.html, phone 07748 628 882

Zumba (Emma Stanley) - http://78833.zumba.com/, phone 07905 369 351

• First published in Out & About (Newbury Weekly News), February 2010