Housing: Both Sides

  It’s a proper home for my kiddies I want—you can’t bring them up in a place like this. We’d go to Hong Kong if necessary to get one. (Mrs. Ford, London slumdweller—News Chronicle, 27.11.56.)

  Mr. Colin Tennant, 32, Princess Margaret’s friend, is buying, on behalf of his family, an island in the West Indies. It is Mustique Island, in the Grenadines. Extending over 1,250 acres, it has eight magnificent beaches. I understand that the price to be paid will be in the region of £50,000. (Sunday Express, 5/4.59.)

   It’s the rats are the worst. They even come out in the daytime when it‘s dry. I’ve never left the pram outside my door since one jumped out from under the blanket (Mrs. Doyle, Liverpool slumdweller — Observer, 27.11.60.)

  The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk moved from Arundel Castle to their new dower house in Arundel Great Park yesterday. The house has taken over two years to build and has cost £60,000 . . . The Duke and Duchess will hold a “housewarming” party tonight. (The Guardian, 7.11.61.)

  Now they are seeking a house so desperately that they are prepared to offer their youngest child, nine-month-old Andrew, in exchange. He and the other children . . . have been in the care of Staffordshire County Council for the past 10 months. . . . (Andrew’s mother) said today: “You have to be pretty desperate to offer your child for a house.” (Observer, 11.12.60.)

  He (Lord Snowdon) was very keen to tell me about the new house that people have been making such a fuss about. He told me he would be just as satisfied with a small cottage. (The Lord Mayor of Nottingham, talking about Princess Margaret’s home in Kensington Palace, The Guardian, 20.6,62.)

   “. . . a man in poor health who, with his wife and three young children, had for some time been living in one room. They had been living on National Assistance for more than a year, and after trouble with the landlord had to leave their room. The children had been taken into care because in the only alternative accommodation the couple could find, children were not wanted.” (From a Family Service Unit survey, The Guardian, 14.2.63.)

   After weeks of house-hunting, Princess Alexandra and Mr. Angus Ogilvy, who marry on April 24th, have found a home.

    It is Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park, a house chiefly of the early Georgian period, standing in 2,200 acres of royal parklands and deer forest. It is on high ground with fine southern views over Petersham and Richmond . . . The house has twelve bedrooms, six bathrooms, six reception rooms, two cottages, a passenger lift, a squash court, a heated swimming pool, and stable block of five loose boxes. (Evening Standard, 12.3.63.)