A Family History of the Illustrious, Notorious and Eccentric Lloyds of Birmingham, Brigstock and Pipewell Hall - Flipbook - Page 118
PHILIP HENRY LLOYD Uncle Pen
1905 - 1979
Pen might be said to be the most respectable and achieving of the Lloyd Uncles, though in his
years he did from time to time surprise people by standing on his head! He was very dapper, with
uits and cloth ties, and affected a brown bowler hat, which his brethren said made him look like
f the doormen at the Berkeley Hotel.
Pen went to Oundle Public School, not far from Pipewell, as all the other Lloyd uncles did, till the
oungest, Kit and Tim, went to Repton. In the summer of 1922, aged just over 17, despite being a
ter, he was very small and very light, and was press-ganged on to the River Nen as a cox for his
which had a good crew, but had not been winner of the school boat race for some ten years. The
Nen at Oundle was of insufficient width to take three boats side by side, so the race was rowed
boats at a time in tandem. Each boat, one behind the other with a space of approximately three or
engths in between, from three different starting posts, to three different finishing posts. The river
sizeable bend in it about two-thirds up the course, and at this bend there was a line of rushes
6 feet wide, then about 20 feet of clear water to the river bank. Cutting the corner close could
some 2 or 3 lengths or so difference, but if you cut it too fine you were in the rushes, so
ctions were to give them a fairly wide berth.
Pen's boat was the second in line. He made an ass of himself trying to be too clever and got too
o the reeds. So he shouted,"Row, one, two, three, four etc.", shot the boat inches from the reeds,
oars, while in the clear water beyond, went clean through the bend gaining several lengths and
bumping the boat in front. They just won, and Uncle Pen was the brilliant cox, the hero of the
He was then asked to cox the school boat, but knowing the real truth of the matter, he managed
e his skin by getting out of the invitation by some lame excuse.
Uncle Pen9s first Financial Crisis
athetic little story is told by Uncle Pen concerning his first financial crisis which was very sad.
dfather did not allow his children to have any money. He thought it was bad for them and so it was.
they got to the age of 17 they were still at school and he put them on an allowance. The allowance
st enough to do the necessary things, but he provided them with horses to hunt, and they had a
ens' shoot.
ver, part of the arrangement was that at the outset he set them up in clothes. Some time earlier
elder brother bought a suit from his father's tailor in London, and he had flogged it on to his
er brother when he came on to an allowance, then to the next brother down at full price. Now,
unately Pen was the fourth son, so when it came to his turn, he flogged this suit to his youngest
