Wednesday, February 26th 2020 – 60 years ago today NWR came into being, and Ann, Liz and I were off to Knebworth House to join in the celebrations. It was a beautiful sunny day, although cold, and we duly arrived at the Barns where the event for our region was to take place. We were provided with drinks as soon as we arrived, and found our table, where we were joined by members of the Kenton group.
At 2.00 sharp the live streaming of Maureen Nicol’s interview with Natalie began. She gave a very lively description of how she had to deal with the great deluge of letters which arrived in response to her letter to the Guardian, and with no phone and no typewriter this was quite a challenge. Although she is now in her nineties she seems very youthful and the basic principles which have formed the character of NWR are just as important to her now as they were at the beginning. After her interview a toast was given by Josephine Burt, chair of trustees, who was attending the regional event held in Birmingham, and then we were able to concentrate on a most delicious afternoon tea. As always at NWR events there was much talk and laughter, and many people made the most of being able to link up with members they don’t see very often.
After afternoon tea we had a talk on the “Lytton Ladies” of Knebworth House, who have played a major part over the years in the effort to keep both the house and the family in good health. The house has been in the same family for 500 years and remains with them still. The speaker works at the house and showed us some beautiful shots of the interior, which we now all plan to visit in the near future.
The afternoon closed with the opportunity to see some of the scrapbook pages which different groups had brought to display, and they were very varied in style and content, really interesting to see.
We all concluded the the organising committee had done a great job in putting together a very successful celebration which ran smoothly and efficiently from start to finish.
Jo Thomson