THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
25
Knowing his feelings about it, I asked Mr. Hugh Kemsley to try and
find out the purchaser, to see if any portion of the Forest could be
bought. About Christmas Eve we were in a position to tell my father
that we had an offer of part of it, and we went together to tell him of
it. He was delighted, and instructed us to get what we could for a
certain sum of money. He told me that he had never spent a happier
Christmas Day. As he slept from 10 to 1 and from 2 to 5, he must
in his dreams have spent the day in this place, picturing to himself its
future as a place for the people he loved and served so well.
For the next few days the plan of the Forest never left his side and
each day he told me his wishes about it and its future management. He
washed Mr. Kemsley to complete the bargain, and was constantly wanting
to send him a cheque ; on January 1st, in order to reassure him that his
wishes would be carried out, I suggested that he should hand over the
sum to myself and my son, and write to Mr. Lawrence Chubb that he had
done so, to make sure we should not pinch it. That satisfied him, and
although he was not always conscious, or at any rate able to express
himself clearly after that, we who knew him could see there were but
two things in his mind ; one was the recognition of my Mother's presence,
the other, this Forest : as even when apparently unconscious, his
fingers were constantly turning over and folding a plan of the Forest.
As regards the Forest, one thing he made clear to me, and that
was, that I was not. to stop at the sum he had handed over. That is
why, we, his children, have added to what was purchased in the first
place. That is why we do not want to take any credit or to be thanked
for any further additions we have been able to make. This is my
father's gift alone, not ours. All the same I felt I could not refuse
certain gifts towards the additions from members of my father's family,
and one which touched me much was from Major Archer Houblon, who
has given us Elgin Coppice. When I received his letter offering this
a lump came into my throat, which as you can hear has remained there,
ever since.
I want also to take this opportunity of acknowledging the invalu-
able services of Mr. Hugh Kemsley, who has done all the hard work
of a most complicated business, and who absolutely refuses to take any
fee or commission for so doing, a mark of his esteem for my father and
his work for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.
Again I must not fail to mention the invaluable services and advice
of Mr. Lawrence Chubb, the Secretary and the soul of the Commons
Preservation Society, who has for many years co-operated with my
father in the preservation of so many open spaces and footpaths for the
public. I have often heard my father say that Mr. Lawrence Chubb
was the most important and the most hard-worked person in England
and that he ought to be made a peer, or, if he preferred it, Archbishop
of Canterbury.
I must say a word about the conditions which I was told to make
with the National Trust before handing over the property. The first was
that any pack of foxhounds in whose country the Forest was situated
should go there for hunting or exercise without asking anyone's leave.
There spoke the sportsman. My father was a great believer in sport.