Thank you to my husband, Geordie, ever patient as I struggle with deadlines and schedules. Helen Coyle is a great and calm editor, and her father Chris Coyle provided objective first feedback. And I have had subsequent help from Geordie and David Rymill to edit and check facts. David was and is unfailingly patient, helping me yet again as I mislay another date or pile of papers. He is a wonderful archivist. Robin Mann has been a great help researching and collating information and has now changed from academic research to join our team of gardeners.
Mr Ronan Donohoe—Portsmouth Athenaeum, USA has been incredibly helpful and I am so grateful for his time and research to help bring to light the Wendell and Fendall families. I am sure there are more stories and relationships to explore.
Patricia Leatham (Beauchamp) and June Prescott (Wendell) have been very kind to tell me about their family, the people they loved and knew. I have tried to tread the path of objectivity. Mrs Edith Eastment came and told me about her life as a nursing assistant during the Second World War. I was fortunate that Garry O’Connor had researched the HCR’s part in the Italian campaign (O’Connor, Garry, The 1st Household Cavalry 1943-44: in the Shadow of Monte Amaro, The History Press: London, 2013), and John Walker, Chairman of the 92nd Bomber Group Memorial Association, has helped understand the last flight of a B17 and I hope it will lead to further research and a memorial.
Highclere is so full of stories and extraordinary visitors that it has been very difficult to narrow it down and choose whom to follow. The real cast is far larger than that of ‘Downton Abbey’, the fictional alter ego of Highclere.
I’d like to thank all the staff at Highclere for their support, in terms of coffees, tea, delicious suppers and John Gundill for his Mini Mars Bars in addition to consistent interruptions. Candice Bauval has tried to keep my diary clearer, thank you, and to beloved Nora Sutcliffe who has undertaken research expeditions with me. I am grateful to my sisters for their solicitous support, especially to Sarah for clarifying the beginning and the end. Steve Bohill Smith contributed knowledge and detail as I enthusiastically pursued my search for plane crashes and bomb sites around the woods and hills of the Highclere Estate. That should be a book and commemoration all of its own.
I am grateful that my publishers here in the UK and abroad have given me the opportunity to write another book about this inspiring castle and the people who have lived here.
The TV series ‘Downton Abbey’ has given us a profile that has helped us share this amazing home with millions of viewers, and, like the rest of the cast and crew, we consider ourselves both fortunate and grateful.