A Family History of the Illustrious, Notorious and Eccentric Lloyds of Birmingham, Brigstock and Pipewell Hall - Flipbook - Page 111
NOEL LLOYD Uncle Noey
1904 - 1944
Uncle Noey might be said to be one of Pierre's favourite brothers, but I think she loved them all. I also
had a special attraction to Uncle Noey, which is why my eldest son was saddled with the unusual christian
name of William Noel, despite not having been born at Christmas!
I have very few memories of him since he died during the war in a traffic accident in Northamptonshire
run into by an American G.I.
Noey was a great friend of Harold Newgass who says in his memoirs:
"Noey was my particular friend, and was probably the most deservedly popular of any young man in the neighbourhood.
When pole jumping out beagling, people were amazed to see his long legs appearing over the top of huge hedges. Noey,
another man and myself drove up by night to see the Grand National in my old Bentley. We timed ourselves to get up in
time to watch the early morning gallops, and went on to the Adelphi Hotel for breakfast. After breakfast we filled up with
petrol and got our tyres pumped up. It was while watching the latter being done, when the valve was out of the top of the
tyre, that Noey made the classic remark, "You are doing that all wrong. You are putting the air in at the top of the tyre,
and we want it at the bottom!"
My recollection is that he worked at Stewarts and Lloyds in Corby until the Stewarts kicked out the
Lloyds in 1935. I have no idea whether he was involved with setting up The Pipewell Ploughing
Company with grandfather. Most of my memories of him relate to his role as Master of the Pipewell
Foot Beagles. He was passionate about beagling, and hunted the hounds himself, since the brown hares
which they hunted, tended to run in a circle (unlike foxes which may run for several miles in a straight
point), the huntsman, and the following field, followed on foot, getting plenty of exercise crossing the
fields and negotiating their way over the fences. As the huntsman, Uncle Noey liked to keep right up
with the beagles, so that he could re-cast them if they temporarily lost the scent. In order to negotiate
the formidable Northamptonshire stake and bound fences, often with ditches too, he perfected the use
of a long aluminium jumping pole, which he planted in front of the fence, and propelled himself over,
taking the pole with him to tackle the next obstacle. He usually wore an Inverness Cape (I inherited one
of these from him which was one of my proudest possessions until the moths devoured it).
Uncle Noey was happily married to Faith Atha, but they never had any children. They lived in the
Pipewell Abbey Cottage across the one field away from Pipewell Hall, with the beagle kennels just across
the road from the Hall. When the wind was blowing towards the Hall the stench from the boiling of
knackers flesh to feed the beagles could be quite over-powering.
