1931 to 1939

Leslie Perowne was the son of the Bishop of Worcester and later I think arranged for Jack to get a job as a footman at Hartlebury Castle the home of the Bishops of Worcester for may hundreds of years. He very quickly rose to being butler. www.hartleburycastle.com  He enjoyed his time there, hard work but fun.

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He joined the TA (territorial Army) in 1932 a progression from the scouts.

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The castle is now in the hands of a preservation trust and is open as a visitor attraction. After some correpondence with me which included some stories of his time there they decided to use “Jack the Butler” as a character who would narrate one of the castle's audio guides. They were particularly fond of the tale of him telling the then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in 1936 to 'bugger off and use the tradesman entrance like everyone else' when he came to the front door dressed rather shabbily, dad thought, and didn’t recognise the Bishop’s old friend who had walked across the muddy fields from his home in Bewdley to discuss the King's abdication crisis with him.  Lesley and his brother Stewart were to become lifelong friends of dad's they were both larger than life and I remember them well. Lesley became a BBC producer and was the first producer of Desert Island Discs.