A Family History of the Illustrious, Notorious and Eccentric Lloyds of Birmingham, Brigstock and Pipewell Hall - Flipbook - Page 65
was a brilliant golf professional, Duncan McCulloch at Royal Troon GC, who taught her so well that
within a year or two she was playing for the Ayrshire Ladies County Team, captained by the famous
Helen Holm, who won seven ladies national championships. She soon reached a standard to enable her
to play mixed foursomes at Prestwick, partnering Billy against Ian and Gwen Rowallan. They were all
such good, fast, players, all four having their own caddie, that they apparently could play the 18 holes at
Prestwick in a mixed foursome in one and a half hours.
Golf and "Cowpat Sunday in April"
(Faithfully celebrated annually by Aunt Mary, Uncle David and Uncle Mike)
The Lloyd Family used to play golf on their annual summer holiday at Hunstanton (pronounced
8Hunston9), and back home at Pipewell they used to play at Luffenham Heath. Each year at home in
March they would play golf in the park. When one of their balls landed in a lush cowpat, the 8sender9
was not allowed to remove it and in a bate would slosh at it hard with the predictable result that cowpat
was distributed literally to the onlookers.
Christmas at Pipewell
I can just remember Christmas 1936 or 1937 at Pipewell, our family having moved south to live at
Stoke Albany House (3 miles from Pipewell, as the crow flies) in 1935. We brought with us the white
Shetland pony, Scapa Flow, which I rode. Uncle Noey, who had very long legs, was able to ride Scapa
round the dining room table, without actually touching the saddle with his bottom, blowing his hunting
horn, as Master of the Pipewell Foot Beagles.
Uncle Billy hated Christmas. One needed to get down to breakfast before him, since on one occasion
he was in such a bate that he opened the dining room window, and threw out onto the lawn all the
breakfast food on the hot plates.
Family Summer Holiday trips to Hunstanton
In the 1920s, the whole family and servants went to Hunstanton, hiring a whole railway carriage to get
them there. One of the Lloyd uncles told me that initially they always booked into the L9Estrange Arms
for the duration of their stay until some member of the family invented the "Fire Alarm Game". This
was played on the very last night of their stay in the hotel. It was apparently, a "form of Sardines". All
the girls, and all but two of the men in the party hid themselves just before midnight, then the two
uncles pranged the Fire Alarm, and tried to find the rest of their party among the infuriated other hotel
guests roaming around in their nightwear, neither they nor the hotel management entering into the
spirit of the game! Thereafter, the Lloyd Family had to book into a new hotel, since each year they
returned to Hunstanton they played the Fire Alarm Game on their last night.
