There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You by Lynda Bellingham Read Free Book Online

it with a local Jane Austen dance group. There were about ten of us dancing a reel in the middle of the floor and the room was so vast that the ten of us looked like a tiny speck on the floor. Having been lovingly restored, I could not begin to imagine how any parent would open their lovely home to a horde of teenagers, never mind a listed ballroom with parquet flooring and gilded columns. Anyway, her ladyship explained that it was a formal gathering in the ballroom, a black tie affair, and there was a champagne fountain.
    ‘But I know what these kids are like with alcohol,’ she laughed, ‘so I arranged with the wine merchant and the caterers to restrict the flow every now and then. I also spoke to my housekeeper and sent her out to buy lots of plastic buckets to put around the place so they could throw up as much as they liked but not on my beautiful floors or furniture.’
    What a woman! Downstairs in the cellars they had created a disco for later and here the kids could change into dancing attire.
    ‘I was shocked with all the girls,’ confessed her ladyship. ‘They didn’t so much change their dresses as undress! They went from ballgowns to tiny pieces of material. I was very unhappy with these girls. They are supposed to be ladies.’ It was good to think it happens to the best of folk, not just us struggling boring middle-class parents, who are trying to instil some measure of style into our children.
    ‘I also tampered with the cocktails for this part of the evening,’ said Beatriz with a cheeky grin. ‘I had to pay full whack for the cocktails and the boy to mix them, but he was instructed to use only half of all the ingredients, which helped the sick factor considerably.’
    I had such admiration for her and looking at all the family photos dotted around the house it was clear what a close family they are, which is no mean feat.
    I loved the atmosphere of the house, and even though it was so huge you could still really inhabit a room and feel at home. Well, nearly!
    Our last episodes were filmed down in Devon at Ugbrooke House, owned by Lord and Lady Clifford. They were both wonderfully mildly eccentric and what one kind of imagines a lord and lady should be like. This house was beautiful and probably the nearest thing to somewhere you could live in, supposing you found it in a terrible state and had loads of dosh to do it up. This house had been around in various incarnations for 900 years since the Domesday Book. Robert Adam was commissioned to remodel the house around the same time that Capability Brown was working on the garden. So there’s pedigree for you. Alan Titchmarsh eat your heart out – mind you, I love Alan, he is such a lovely man.
    All the rooms are just out of this world and interestingly used and lived in by the family. The place I loved the best was their private chapel. It was a gem and inside the house in the library there was a secret door in the panelling through which the family could sneak and take their seats up in the gallery, above the public and staff, and watch proceedings sometimes completely unnoticed by the folk downstairs. It was such a perfect place and we filmed the choir practising, their young voices soaring to the high domed ceiling. It was like a mini St Paul’s. When I was diagnosed I received the loveliest postcard with a picture of Lady Clarissa and her beloved dogs wishing me better and telling me they were having special prayers said for me. I was very touched by this.
    In fact I have to say that I constantly have to pinch myself when I receive such words of comfort, not just from friends but people I have never met. All their stories are a testament to bravery and courage in facing adversity. It is truly humbling and another reason I wanted to write the book as it is as much their story as mine.
    The owners have a butler and wife team living at Ugbrooke. The wife does the cooking and he butlers. We did a great piece about setting a banqueting table. All the