Collecting a Lead Animal Farm in the 1950s

Alice Stapleton & my 50's Animal Farm in 2013

I have always loved collecting things, stamps, antiques, paintings but my first love was fostered by my father, Major Hughie Miller when he began giving me lead farm animals. These lead and now highly dangerous farm animals had been very popular with children since Victorian times and it seems if my grand daughter Alice is anything to go by, are still popular in 2013.

After the war my father rejoined his father Hugh Miller and they started up their golf sundries business, Humil Ltd this time running it from my grand mother's dining room in Edgware, Middlesex.  This ment that Daddy had to travel and was away for weeks at a time.

At that time I spent many school holidays in Lymm, Cheshire where I lived next door to a working farm. The real mixed farms of the 1950s and I loved it. I cried when I had to return home.

I disliked my Daddy being away so much so to make life more pleasant Daddy started to buy me a farm. Each journey he would arrive back with a different animal for me, a cow, a sheep, a chicken or even a dog. I loved the two collie dogs best. The farm grew over the years and I kept it for my daughter Chloe who loved to play with it too.

I would spend hours getting it out. We had green cushions made out of died parachute silk and these made perfect fields. I had a wooden Swiss chalet which served as the farm house and it took ages to get the whole collection displayed. In fact eventually my mother allowed me to keep it up. It cluttered the small drawing room for weeks.

I knew how a real farm worked and I would go through the daily ritual, feeding the chickens, cows to milk so the butter  could be churned by hand. This is very easy and quick by the by. Then there were the kittens to play with. Always lots of cats to keep the mice and rats at bay. There were stooks of corn to turn and after tea we collected the eggs. No battery hen chickens for us. Our chickens laid where they wanted. It was hunt the egg! This took hours which was just as well because a TV did not arrive in our house until 1953 with the coronation.

I would wait with feverish anticipation for Daddy to arrive back and see what animal he had for me. Sometimes it took ages to find the right one. I wanted the St Bernard dog. I never got it as Daddy never came across it on his travels but he took me to Selfridges Toy Department and there it was. Bliss!

The lead animals of my farm are old and battered but I can't bring myself to throw them away. My delightful 3 year old grand daughter was intrigued by them too and spent an hour and a half engrossed in playing with them. She especially liked the scarecrow!

Three generations of children have played with and enjoyed Daddy's collection. It is a pity farms are not like this today in 2013.

How I met my Father!

Major Hugh Miller RASC. 1944

There are some moments of one's life that one wishes one could do again. Meeting my father Major Hugh Miller is one of them. To say it was a disaster does not do it justice. It was one of those events from which the whole family, especially my father never recovered and in some ways neither did I.

Wars cannot be helped. My father left for North Africa just before I was born and did not return until Christmas 1946. I was nearly four. Since I could remember I was shown this photo above and told he was my Daddy. I was oh so proud of it. I was told by all the family that I would meet my father off a big boat one day.

Christmas 1946 was that day. I lived with my two maiden aunts, my grandmother and my grandfather. Pop was the only man in my life up until them and I adored him and in fact he was my father. I had no need of another. 

In hindsight, the family should have had a plan as how to tackle the momentous occasion but they didn't. My father just turned up at 6 pm at Taplow on Christmas Eve, in battle dress, unshaved and off the boat. To make matters worse he hadn't phoned my mother but had gone straight to Edgware to see his mother first without telling his wife. My mother felt slighted.

My mother was off to a Christmas dance and was all dressed up to go out with her dancing partner Dennis so was not amused that Daddy had not warned her and Daddy was not too delighted to see his wife going out dancing with another man however innocent.

I remember coming down the stairs at Thamesway and seeing this soldier who I did not recognize in the hall. The whole family was assembled as they were there for Christmas so it was a very public first meeting.  I was terrified of soldiers as I knew they had tanks! One of the family not my mother told me to come downstairs and meet my father.

Daddy squatted down on the hall floor and opened his kit bag which was full of sweets. I had never in my life seen this many sweets before. In the war we did not get sugar let alone sweets. He had saved his sweet ration for me. It was a lovely thing to do.

I overcame my fear rushed to the sweets. The whole family was agog to witness my reaction. Daddy clasped me to him and gave me a kiss. His unshaved face graised my cheek and I recoiled and pulled away screaming "Daddy prickles" and ran away upstairs. I could not be coaxed down again.

Eventually, I was put to bed. I slept with my mother but now my father usurped my place. I had his uncomfortable a camp bed. I resented this strange man coming into my life. To make matters worse I was not given the sweets. These disappeared as my family helped themselves.  

I do not think Mummy, Daddy or I ever truly recovered from this first meeting.  In retrospect, it should have been planned very carefully. I should have been warned a few days before and Daddy should have looked as he did in his photo in his Major's uniform. He was truly handsome in real life.

The next day I spent hours searching the large garden for the rowing boat! I knew my father had arrived in one and I wondered where he had parked it!

It wasn't there!