Page 12 - July 2013 Kettle published 2

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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
Frank Schuster left the Hut and the house with it to
the Kiwi Anzy who renamed it Long White Cloud,
the Maori name for his homeland. But Anzy didn’t
stay long and in the 1930s Long White Cloud was
the childhood home of Stirling Moss in the village
where his dad was the dentist. The estate was broken
up into a number of properties, in one of which lived
Thunderbirds
creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.
Legend has it that at a Mansion House dinner in
the City of London, Charles II cut the top off a
pineapple that had been brought from Barbados
and gave it to Roger Palmer who was married to
one of the King’s mistresses Barbara Villiers.
Palmer’s gardener planted it at Dorney Court and
it became the first pineapple to be grown in the
country. Palmer presented it to the King in 1661.
Hidden from the river by trees is Dorney Lake built
by Eton College as the school rowing lake where the
rowing and canoe sprint events were held during the
2012 London Olympics and the rowing was held
during the Paralympics. I tootled past here in my
little boat on a sunny day last summer and heard the
roar of the Olympic crowds as I passed beneath the
temporary Olympic Bridge built to link the Lake to
Windsor Racecourse which was a pick up and drop
off point for spectators. During the London 2012
Olympics it was officially called Eton Dorney Lake,
which now I think about it might be the only example
of a sponsorship name making it past the International
Olympic Committee. However now the Games are
over it is correctly and officially called Dorney Lake.
The pink Olympic signage that adorned Windsor &
Eton Riverside Station made it seem as if the Olympic
Games were sponsored by The Leander Club, one of
the oldest rowing clubs in the world whose club colour
is pink and of which Olympic gold medallists Tim
Foster, Mathew Pinsent, James Cracknell and Sir Steve
Redgrave are members along with old Etonian actor
Hugh Laurie whose late father Ran Laurie, also a
Leander Club member, won the Gold Medal in the
coxless Pair at the 1948 London Olympics. Ran Laurie
is pictured above with fellow medallist Jack Wilson
receiving their medals at Henley - all the 1948 London
Olympic rowing events having been held over the
Henley Royal Regatta course. Mysteriously Ran Laurie
looks more like Michael Palin than Hugh Laurie!
And so here we are at Windsor and Eton where today
we stop. Another time, another
Kettle
we’ll continue
on past Royal Windsor to Runnymede and Chertsey,
Weybridge, Shepperton, Walton-on-Thames, Hampton
Court, Thames Ditton, Kingston upon Thames and
Teddington - Tide End Town.