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Personal Details
Here, in case the reader should wonder where I come
from or what my background is, are some further details concerning my
upbringing and origins. It amounts to a sort of mini-autobiography which
complements the career overview and gives more substance to who I am.
I was born and brought up in Matlock Bath in Derbyshire. Ann Andrews,
also of Matlock Bath origin, maintains an excellent site with extensive and
detailed historical information about
Matlock and Matlock Bath as well as other places and subjects.
Matlock Bath occupies a steep, picturesque valley on the River Derwent.
My family lived initially towards an upper border of the village on the
hillside. Then, when I was about 5 years old, my parents took over the
Heights of Abraham pleasure grounds from my father's parents, which
meant we then lived even higher up the hill, with a wonderful view of the
valley to the South.
The 30 acres [12 hectare] of mostly thickly wooded grounds included two show
caverns called the Great Rutland Cavern and, higher up the hill, the Great
Masson Cavern. We lived in the castle-like house with three round towers,
easily visible from the valley below (see photo). It was in 1954
that we first moved there. We had gas lighting and no main water
supply. We obtained rain water from the flat roof and drinking water from
the cavern, via a pipe leading to the cafeteria, although when this was frozen
in the winter, we had to go into the depths of the cavern to fetch the water in
buckets. My father had electricity installed in 1955 and later mains
water and sewage (a large operation!).
My grandparents had taken over the Heights in 1929 from the Sprinthall sisters
Emily and Annie who were two of the nine children of Samuel Sprinthall.
The grounds had been developed as pleasure grounds for the public in the late
18th century. A family connection was initiated around 1860 when a
brother-in-law of Samuel Sprinthall, Robert Chadwick (married to Elizabeth
Sprinthall), bought the grounds and houses. Subsequently (from 1882)
Samuel Sprinthall occupied the upper house ('Upper Towers') and ran the
business, after which, on Samuel's death in 1920, this passed on to Emily and
Annie. The Rutland Cavern had been first opened in 1815. Before
that, it was a lead mine called the Nestus Mine. The name, The Heights of
Abraham, was first used in the late 18th century after an officer in General
Wolfe's army that marched on Quebec in 1765 (fancifully?) likened the grounds
to a location of the same name in Canada. My grandfather actually married
the sixth child of Samuel - the next daughter following Emily and Annie - so
the Heights stayed in the family. The grounds and buildings remained the
property of the Chadwick family until the second world war, when they were
taken over by Matlock Urban Council, presumably meant as an act of
conservation. After that, the business was owned by the family but the
grounds and buildings were leased from the council.
Matlock Bath in 1870
This view, looking north over South Parade, dates from 7
years before my grandfather was born, not far from the point at which the photo
was taken. The Heights had been opened 8 years earlier.
The white house dead-centre surrounded by trees is where I
grew up. Just to the right of it and slightly lower, but not so clearly
visible, is the tea room. To the right of this is the entrance to the Rutland
cavern. On the skyline higher to the right, the Victoria Prospect Tower
can be seen, supplanted by a flag.
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The lead mined in the caverns prior to 1815 was that left over by the Romans
who had mined there between 81 and 138 A.D. The caves had been 'visited'
even earlier though, by the Phoenicians. As one might guess from this
mining activity, the caverns at the Heights are geologically interesting.
A large (non-active) fault runs through them called the Great Rake. This forms
in fact the entrance and initial section of the Masson Cavern; in the Rutland
Cavern, it runs through the rear part, just beyond the part which is visible
for the public. In the vicinity of this fault many minerals can be found, with
incidental occurrences of quite exotic ones. I recall whilst we lived
there that geologists from Manchester University found in the Rutland Cavern
the first recorded occurrence in the U.K. of the mineral Cinnabar (mercuric
sulphide). In addition to the ubiquitous Calcite, Fluorite and of course
Galena (lead sulphide), various copper bearing minerals were in evidence.
The initial 50 metres or so passage way into the Rutland Cavern is not natural
but man-made for the purposes of easy access for the public - when a
functioning mine, access was via shafts sunk in the hillside. The cave
has a large chamber which splits further into two parts. From the main
chamber, a passage with steps (not now accessible for the public, but used to
be in days gone by) runs steeply upwards. We called it the 'Roman
Staircase' and as children we were told by my Uncle Archie that the ghost of a
Roman dignitary lurked there (his name was Constantine). The passage was
blocked further up and I don't know whether it ever led anywhere
particular. One of the two parts leading off the main chamber rose gently
upwards, and round a corner was a further chamber with, in its roof, a large
rock projecting down which looked like a man's face with eye, nose and beard
(the old guide who worked there in the 1950's used to say to the visitors, "a
lot of people have asked me whether we cut the eye -- we never have!").
The other part led to "Jacob's Wishing Well", into which many people threw
coins - I don't suppose it brought any of them any luck, but it brought us a
little as we occasionally had to relieve the well of excess coinage. Just
past the well, in a separate smaller chamber, was "the Old Oak Tree"
(resembling, as our old guide said, the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest). [
As I recollect from later visits, visitors to the Rutland Cavern are treated
nowadays to an audio-visual presentation about the lead mining history but
actually get to see very little of the cave as such - the parts mentioned above
are, for instance, omitted. The visitors are simply led to the main
chamber, are given the 'show' and then are led out again. This seems an
unfortunate omission of the natural phenomena even if the fanciful old names
are now considered trivial and old-fashioned. ]
The Masson Cavern was (is) for a large part more of a long winding underground
passage - all natural (as said above, the first part being formed by a section
of the Great Rake). Nevertheless, it ends up in a large chamber.
The quaint metaphor here was the white cameo in a cavity likened to a profile
of Queen Victoria. From this chamber, a steep stepped passage way led
upwards; this one did lead somewhere - out! It was the
back entrance or, in practice, the exit: visitors, still clutching their
candles, or, later, their hurricane lamps, were led up this stairway to emerge
onto the hillside, from where they walked back down to the entrance.
Because of the candles or lamps (the Rutland Cavern had gas lighting and later
electricity) and because of the long, smaller passage, a visit to the Masson
Cavern had a more adventurous feel to it [nowadays, it too has electric
lighting]. There was also more to be seen off the beaten track.
About half way along the cavern there were small passages connecting with a
still active mine where fluorite was mined (for use as a flux in the steel
industry). In this complex of passages a couple of lakes could also be
found, contained in clefts in the rock and possessing a beautiful blue colour
when one shone a torch into the water.
The family connection with the Heights was by chance strengthened when around
1955 Archie Sprinthall returned from the U.S.A. to Matlock Bath. Samuel
Sprinthall was Archie's grandfather - Archie was a son of the first (oldest)
son and child of Samuel, namely, Arthur Sprinthall. Arthur emigrated to
the US at the beginning of the twentieth century (1905) and Archie went with
him, aged 16 - he became fully Americanized! He stayed with us at the
Heights and became an integral part of the family as well as a well-known
figure in Matlock Bath. So myself and my twin brother Geoffrey were,
during that important part of our lives, partly raised by our American Uncle
Archie and we had an early appreciation of American culture.
The Heights ca. 1960:
Looking back, it was an idyllic childhood, yet one regrets that, as children,
the environment wasn't appreciated as much as it might be. Indeed, for
us, the daily journey to school was tedious - especially the evening climb up
the hill. Holidays seemed long, and much time was spent exploring the
woods and the caves as well as searching for fossils or minerals in the
limestone rocks. And of course in the summers there were the thousands of
visitors thronging in our 'back garden'. Our life there, and a
family association of a hundred years, came to an end in 1964. It might
have been otherwise had my elder brother Richard (7 years older) not died in
May 1962 at the age of 21 - he was in line to take over the business and was
already formally a director. As it was, my parents decided to make the
break and we moved to Duffield, about five miles North of Derby. The
following year, in April 1965, my twin brother died suddenly. If I
believed in divine fate, I suppose I could see this as some kind of retribution
for leaving or at any rate to serve as emphasis of the break with the past - my
other half was no more.
What we called 'pleasure grounds' have become in late twentieth century
parlance, a 'Country Park'. A further reference to the Heights:
Life since then has not been so 'romantic' on the
whole. I went to university in Hull where I studied chemistry in 1968 -
1971. My early career afforded interest and travel. My first job
took me to the sea-side: the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment at
Portsmouth. The work entailed a number of voyages at sea, mostly on a
Leander-class frigate (HMS Leander herself, in fact) when we had almost always
bad weather in the western approaches and had to sleep in various nooks and
crannies on board. One morning we arrived back in fog and the fog horn
was located just outside the 'cabin' (in fact a missile control room, as I
recall) where I slept - needless to say, a rude awakening. The most
enjoyable trip was with HMS Bristol (a guided missile destroyer) when we sailed
North over the Irish Sea towards the western isles of Scotland, shadowed for a
time by a 'Russian trawler', and dropped anchor off the island of Skye.
It was a grand day for a picnic - so off we all went in the 'whalers' to the
shore where a 'banyan' (shore barbecue) was organised. The cooking was
done not by the regular cooks but by a couple of burly electricians!
Afterwards, there was time for a stroll in the mountains where, of course,
beautiful scenery was to be admired. On re-embarking, we sailed further
North and through the Pentland Firth, to turn South on the East coast, ending
up at the Firth of Forth where HMS Bristol was to join a NATO exercise.
My colleagues and I flew back from Prestwick to Southampton.
One task I performed during this period was amusingly ironic, looking back some
years later. I gave a course to six officers of the Argentinian
navy! This was related to the fact that Britain had sold a number of
naval vessels to Argentina. (The course was on sub-surface warfare
functions.)
After a short spell working in central London (just off Oxford Street) and
living in Notting Hill, during which time I particularly took the opportunity
to visit frequently the South Bank and other concert halls, I was 'packed off'
to Holland in March 1975. Other than a nine-month interlude back in
London two years later, I have been here in the Netherlands ever since.
An important client in those early days was Philips Telecommunications in
Hilversum. Philips' own clients were large international organisations
and (semi-)government bodies in various countries. So on-site
commissioning involved some travel. I spent six months in Stockholm, paid
three short visits of a couple of weeks each to Kinshasa in Zaire (now once
again the Congo) and spent 3 months in Singapore. My last visit to
Kinshasa was interrupted by a two-week holiday in Kenya. I went to
Nairobi based on one night booked at the Intercontinental and arranged the rest
on the spot - it resulted in my most memorable holiday (but I won't bore you
with details!) Later, in 1986, I spent 4 months (not for Philips this
time) in (just North of, in fact) Atlanta, Georgia. This enabled a trip
to Florida, taking in Disney World, the Gulf of Mexico, Cape Canaveral, a drive
on Daytona Beach and venturing into the depths of Okeefinokee swamp.
In the later eighties and early nineties, my work
became more 'sedentary' as well as more intense - a general management function
kept me very busy but also brought with it a lot of useful experience.
After that, I returned to project work with the accent on management on behalf
of a client. And with it, because of the international suppliers, came
more travel, now to Southern Germany (Konstanz) (mostly) and also to Paris and
once to Long Beach, California. In the process, I made a couple of good
friends and acquaintances.
Referring finally back to my career overview, the most recent project involved
large-scale modernisation of the Dutch railway infrastructure and some contact,
albeit indirect, with the (remnants of) the railway industry in Derby.
Which makes it a pity my father wasn't still around to hear of it - he worked
all his life for British Rail, mostly at Derby as revenue accountant.
For the Eclipse freaks, I had hoped to
be able to make most of you very jealous by including here an account and a
picture of the total eclipse of 11 August, 1999. In the event I was one
of the many who were out of luck, due to this event coinciding with the worst
weather in this otherwise exceptionally good summer. It wasn't for want
of trying. From the France Météo, I had consistently understood in the
preceeding days that the best chances of a good view would be in central
Picardie. I accordingly drove down there in the night, departing at
01.15 and arriving near the town of Noyon at about 05.15. I could just
have easily headed for the coast (Etretat) where in the event the view was
good.
| Nevertheless I can say "I was there" on
the middle line of the total eclipse and experienced the rapid oncoming of
darkness, the stillness and unique quality of the darkness itself, as well as
the 'switching back on' of the light (as some one said, like rapid application
of a dimmer switch). I arrived home about 21.00 the same day after a
horrendous journey back |
 The
best I could do!
|
| We had better luck weather-wise with the
transit of Venus on 8 June 2004. The whole thing (much rarer than
even a total solar eclipse) was excellently observable from start (about 05.20
GMT) to finish (about 11.20 GMT). Somewhat to my surprise, I was able to make a
reasonable photo of the phenomenon by just getting my digital camera to 'peer'
into the objective of my simple astronomical telescope. Photo taken at 08.04
local time (06.04 GMT). |
 |
| Annular Eclipse 3 October 2005.
Partial from my location. |
 
  
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