I read Modern Languages at university and taught extensively in France and England before embarking on a second career as a public servant. In retirement I worked as a volunteer researcher on the Bankes Archive and at the Russell-Cotes Museum and Art Gallery. I enjoy jazz and classical music, travel and golf.
This book was my first attempt at writing after a lifetime of enjoying reading, mainly traditional literature and lots of newspapers. The motivation was simple and the conditions ideal. I’d always been curious, especially about establishing the truth. I felt that the stories that abounded about John Bankes lacked consistency. The upper-class world he inhabited had always intrigued since a little boy when my brother brought ‘up north’ southern ex-public-school mates from Cambridge. Studying much later at the most exclusive of Oxford colleges strengthened this fascination. In retirement learning the story of the reclusive and extraordinarily wealthy Bankes family intrigued when I had loads of time to reflect and order my thoughts.
The interest in John started when finding letters written to him by his parents and friends up to the age of around 21. They ere like gold dust since the vast majority of family correspondence in the 20 th century had been destroyed by decree. These hsad slipped though the net when thje National trust took over. Painstakingly I managed to track down ol friends of John from these letters and to my surprise found they ewere only too willing to talk about him and contribute to my modest project. Robert Sandell, Catherine Thompson-McCausland and Ben Gough were key contributors. But also my link with Lalage Hall, John’s cousin, was primordial and her ever sensitive encouragement in reflecting on poor John.
On the technical side, I battled with learning how to shape and reshape this most wonderful language, as I’d always been fascinated when learning the more formal French about semantics, syntax and vocabulary, all so rich and versatile in English.