George V sat on our dining room chair to watch rugby at the RFU

1:31pm Thursday 8th May 2008

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As the spectacular new developments at Twickenham stadium near completion, Connie Hill shares these photographs and memories of her childhood, when her father Jack Langley was assistant secretary of the RFU.

Connie and her son John had remembered Ed Harris' contribution to the Nostalgia page about the history of Vanda Lodge, Whitton Road, on November 24, 2006.

Built in the 1870s and originally named The Laurels, the substantial property stood near the junction of Rugby Road. The RFU renamed it Rugby Lodge and it was home to Connie and her parents Ivy and Jack, brothers George, half brother Harry and sisters Edna, Ethel and Marion.

Now 93, the little girl had been taken there at the age of two. Her father Jack served under Mr Marriott, secretary of the RFU, then Cdr Cooper. He assumed the post when the commander retired until Alfred Wright was appointed secretary.

Some seven years after the Langleys moved in their home was due to be refurbished. However, the ravages of two floods and rotten foundations meant that Rugby Lodge was demolished in 1925 and the family was moved to another property further along the road which was also dubbed Rugby Lodge.

They stayed there until the late 1940s. This property was demolished along with other RFU buildings for the latest building programme.

During World War I Jack Langley joined the Royal Fusiliers, Hounslow, then transferred to the Royal Engineers and was sent to France. "I remember as a very little girl going to meet him at Twickenham Station", said Connie.

"My mother had said, "You won't know him and I replied that I would because he had a moustache. Then I went to the station and all these soldiers were coming out and they all had moustaches!"

Jack had wideranging interests. He was an instructor in both chess and skating, played chess and reared chickens. "He kept them in the old stables at Vanda Lodge and had incubators. He used to show me his eggs and then when the chicks were popping out of the shells. There were literally hundreds of them."

Brother George later rented out cushions to rugby fans and Connie remembers writing her name in the dust of George V's Rolls Royce! "We had a carver chair in our dining room which was borrowed for the king to sit in at matches", she said, "and by coincidence it had a crown carved into the wood. We made sure we were the first to sit on the chair when it was brought back to the house!"

Connie attended St Mary's School, then St Catherine's. She has memories of waiting for a No 27 bus from Whitton Road, "and a cartload of dead pigs came along first so that's how I arrived at school that day". She used to spend her shilling a week pocket money at a sweetie counter which a lady across Whitton Road from her house used to run from her own hall. She remembers bars of boiled sweets.

"Whitton didn't exist as the town centre of today. There was a gravel road and orchards either side of Powdermill Lane all the way up to Hounslow. There were shops on street corners and the High Street was a lane", added Connie.

Twickenham: The History of the Cathedral of Rugby by Ed Harris is published by Sports Books. ISBN 899807292 and is available at The Rugby Shop and all bookshops.