A Family History of the Illustrious, Notorious and Eccentric Lloyds of Birmingham, Brigstock and Pipewell Hall - Flipbook - Page 115
blowing a gale, and as she was about to hit her ball in the last group, Uncle Noey9s false teeth winged
their way past her in the last group.
My first dog, Pilot, was a Pipewell Foot beagle. We used to be taken for picnics at the point-to-point races
of the neighbouring hunts each spring. I can well remember Uncle Humpo riding in the Woodland
Pytchley point-to-point at Dingley, when he was a hot favourite, but was disqualified for taking the wrong
route to the finish, not having walked the course beforehand. My point-to-point course for Pilot was
made of grass-mowings fences. Pilot made no attempt to jump them, charging straight through the
middle of the fences, hurrying to get his treat at the finish, leaving a big hole in the fences behind him. At
Stoke Albany House we had a much more sophisticated jump course in the Ha-Ha for my mother's
Pekingeses who were most sporting. The sides of the Ha-Ha stopped them running out, and the course
had open ditches and a water-jump.
I was reminded of Pilot9s running through the fences, when my brother-in-law, Mark Hely Hutchinson,
on his first Jump Meeting as a Steward of the Irish National Hunt Club, was sent to the Rakes of Mallow
point-to-point. A local syndicate had decided to attempt to pull off a coup by entering a fast flat race
horse, and cutting a hole in the middle of all the fences overnight, so that their horse could race through
the gap and win by a distance. This worked to perfection, since not only did their horse win by a distance,
but the following horses collided trying to get thought the gap together. Mark had the unenviable task of
presiding over a steward's enquiry on his very first outing as a steward!
Aunt Faith outlived Uncle Noey for many decades, living at Pipewell Abbey Cottage, and was a
delightfully informal aunt. On one occasion she was casually driving her old van in to the Pipewell Hall
front gate, eating an apple, when she accidentally ran into one of the Lloyd brethren coming out in a new
Bentley, claiming that it was their fault.
