Getting money back from cowboy builders

lisawaters

Butti wrote: »

I've got a nurse's outfit. Would that help? (Maybe not!)

B

Why have you got a nurse's outfit?

MatyMoo

lisawaters wrote: »

Right. I've thought of it...

So how long is this one going to take to find a picture of?????

lisawaters

MatyMoo wrote: »

So how long is this one going to take to find a picture of?????

Difficult to tell.

SouthernBellE*

BILLIE wrote: »

So what do SB and I get to wear? xx

lisawaters wrote: »

I'll think of something!

Ahem! :eek:

Moving on swiftly................

actually, the old maids outfit will do me.....

lisawaters

Don't underestimate yourself SB!

MrsMoo2U

I dont know, I go away for a few days and all this happens.

Must admit if I was a man then Kirsty would do it for me but as I am a lady, dont you know, I will stick with George thanks. Now, George in a Dr's white coat ....................... OK I will get my coat

Not George Clooney - George Clarke

lisawaters

Meanwhile, back on Earth... interesting chats with two of the children of the original owners, now retired...

It's called TDH because their mother called all their houses that including the one in southern France.

They owned the big house behind and there was a gate between the two. They lived in the big house when not in India.

TDH was bought for the servants to live in.

There are no secret passages.

They think it's older than I thought - maybe 1720. Cool.

It was probably built as a fisherman's cottage. The rope handrail on the stairs may have been original.

It had coal fires in every room.

Their grandparents built the old conservatory, covering the entire garden except for a catwalk round the edge.

The bathroom had the biggest water heater in the world.

There was gas lighting originally.

There was another cottage to the right of it that is no longer there.

There's possibly a link with a bunch of nuns (collective noun?) who ran an orphanage on the other side of the square but it's not clear if that's true.

The owners converted the servants' living room into a garage in the 1940s. (Bet they were thrilled.)

They kept a very small Renault in the garage.

There was a meat locker in the garage wall with marble shelves to keep food fresher. Tradesmen opened a door on the outside wall and the householder had a door inside to access the food. (Early Tesco Direct prototype.)

The family all used it just as a holiday cottage after the big house was sold. It was empty for the rest of the year.

It was vandalised in the 1970s and may have been a drugs den. (how things change!)

It was finally sold in the late 1970s to the father of the woman I bought it from.

In 2010 it was almost condemned as uninhabitable by the council.


The rest we know.


They have many photographs of the cottage and the area taken during the time the family owned it. I am sooo going to scan them.

They are planning to come down here en famille with grandchildren etc. in March for a last reunion.

niccatw

Wow!

(I am lurking about.)


Collective noun... coven was the word that sprang to mind!

But apparently it's superfluity. Obviously!

What did we do before google?

BILLIE

Excuse me (putting hand up and waving frantically...) has a post been deleted I never got to see my outfit!! Mike that is so exciting bet none of us can claim to have history like that about our houses. Waiting ...... Billie xx

lisawaters

niccatw wrote: »

What did we do before google?

We bought our nuns in bunches.



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