#nigel loring

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Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b under attack by an Albatros.

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06.17.1906: Eustace Loring buys his son Nigel a Triumph motorcycle for his 14th birthday.

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Tilford Manor was built in 1727 by Nigel Loring's sixth great grandfather. It was from there his great grandfather had set off to fight Napoleon, his grandfather to Africa, and his father to fight the Boers. And it was there where the last survivors of the old and magnificent house of Loring still struggled hard to keep a footing and to hold off the bankers and the lawyers from the few acres which were left to them.

The mansion was a two-storied one, built of brick in a modest Georgian style. There were only three bedrooms still in use, the smallest of which was the office of the aged Lady Ermyntrude.

The servants' wing was more crowded. Here lived Charles the footman; Peter the old gardener; the Butler, whose name was Kojo Gyamera Hlengiwe Dlamini, but everyone just called "Red," who had followed Nigel’s grandfather throughout his time in Africa; Ms. Weathercote, Nigel's old governess who doubled as Lady Ermyntrude's personal maid; Susan the cook; and a housekeeper and a scullery maid, survivors of more prosperous days, neither of whom they could really afford, but who still clung to the old house as the barnacles to some wrecked and stranded vessel.