My Family Home….Dutch Gardens….
Part two….
Matilda based on my mother … Which now belongs to me .. Matilda not my mother!
“There is nothing in human affairs that is a true subject for ridicule. Beneath comedy lies the ferment of tragedy; the farcical is but a cloak for coming catastrophe”
Clochemerle by Gabriel Chevallier
Trevor decided to close up the back entrance to the property and replace the gate to the back drive, it was time for him to seek his revenge on the neighbours. He built the base of the tower that you see in the newspaper article. A very large rockery was already built around the ‘Tower’ with stepping stones to the back entrance. The entire garden was flood lit in colour lights. It was the ultimate party house and it was at that time still alive.. Albeit that more cracks were beginning to show.. Trevor put in a planning application for a forty-five foot high‘look out’ tower which was to be constructed over the back entrance of the house, the prospect of which, understandably terrify and agitate the neighbours.. Once again! He wrote to every house in Wraysbury, the area, looking for support of his design and planning application, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope for their response! We were inundated with press attention, again! Dutch Gardens was once again on the national news, everyone had an opinion about it. We were door stepped by press as we left the house, everyone likes a nutcase …. The Telegraph article success proves that...
At the planning meeting to determine the planning application, which was held in nearby town of Windsor, police had to be called to deal with the crowds baying for Trevor’s blood and more punch up’s ensued between rivalling camps in support and against. We made all the papers and the press the next day! One Westminster MP who was interviewed by the press stated, “The whole thing is getting more like a scene from Clochemerle” – A French comic novel written about the battle between the Catholic and Republic locals over the erection of a urinal being built in the local square!” Very apt! Finally the planners decided that Trevor could have a 25 foot tower, much to the dread of all the neighbours and who could blame them! Once he had finally got permission, Trevor did what he always does and lost interest in the project, until some years later. …More divorces and new sets of neighbour replaced the last, like a never ending supply of new people for Trevor to irritate. My mother as ever was social climbing and moving on to her ‘new’ life seeing a better future for herself.. She wanted to move on to bigger and better things. Trevor saw this as a betrayed and refused to be moved and so the building went on … As the relationship faltered..
“Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll … Is all my brain & body needs ….” By Ian Dury
Massive pumps were incorporated into the ponds to create the streams which ebbed and flowed night and day. Super powered switches were wiredinto a control panel housed in a cupboard in the house so at the touch of a button you could ramp up the volume of the water and the noise should you wish… It was very Rock & Roll! ‘Knock me down with a feather.. Clever Trevor…Ian Dury & the Blockheads’… As wild young things.. My brother and I took advantage of all the facilities whenever our parents were not there; although my mother did sometimes join in our partying.. The house continued to evolveand devolve as Trevor began demolishing finished area’s to create his new found artistic design tendencies, this was a cause of much tension between my parents … Amongst other things!
After a visit to a golf course Trevor noted the beautiful lushgreen fairways, despite it being a very hotdry summer, all made possible by the golf course irrigation system. He decided they had to have the very same “commercial” sprinkler system, installed at Dutch Gardens. Trenches were dug into the lawn and pipes were laid, at strategically placed intervals prehistoric lookingsprinkler headswould emerge from the ground whenever the system was switched on. The first attempt at running the sprinklers, which was all very state of the art as it was unforgettable… The ground literally vibrated with the power of the water, there was the most wonderful whoosh sound as the long neck sprinklers emerged from the lawn making ticking sound as they rotated backward and forward. All very exciting the only problem was, no-one thought to investigate the power of the sprinklers or the coverage of water they would emit.. They were after all designed to water the vast acreage of the golf coursenot asuburban garden… To late … So powerful were the jets of water, they were knocking the garden staff over like nine pins as they tried to run away from the soaking .. The sprinklers built up to full power… Pandemonium … The window cleaner who had just finished cleaning the vast amounts of windows, was nowbeingpinned to the window panes by the force the water. Leaks of water were entering the house as the sheer pressure of the water was now unstoppable. I watched from the large lounge as water smashed through some of the panes of glass. I could hear my mother screaming in hysteria… Eventually someone managed to get to the switch and turn the system off…. The water jets from the sprinklers slowly decreased in power, the ticking sound slowed up and then the spouts disappeared back into the ground… Dutch Gardens very own Tsunami …
It subsequently transpired that one sprinkler put on top of the house would have watered the entire property, Trevor had installed eight in just a quarter of the garden! More complaints filed in from the neighbours, as we had soaked them, one man had left his open topped sports car outside his home only to come out and find it filled with water! Another day with all the madness!Over time the sprinklers would periodically have a mind of their own or Trevor would take revenge on someone and my mother would issue further apologies to the neighbours as their barbecues were ruined.
In my late teens on the long summer’s evenings, my friends and I would sit in the grounds, smoking and drinking and just having fun, enjoying the environment with the haze of the outdoor lighting and the sound of the waterfalls all around us. Trevor would return home from work hear us laughing in the garden and set the sprinklers off to ruin our fun, he hated anyone enjoying the space.. Everything was only on his terms …. As the sprinklers rained down on us, we would attempt to run for cover…. Usually into the house … Dripping water all over the place, which would further enrage Trevor into one of his legendary tantrums…He would evict us all… I was glad.. The house was losing its glory… My mother had moved on to social engagements of her own and only occasionally lived or visited Dutch Gardens ….. Their relationship like the house was descending into the stuff of nightmares …
“The Madness of King George” By Alan Bennett
If He swears and indulges in MEANINGLESS DISCOURSE... He will be restrained. If He throws off his bed-clothes, tears away His bandages, scratches at His sores, and if He does not strive EVERY day and ALWAYS towards His OWN RECOVERY... then He must be restrained. George III: I am the King of England.
As Trevor madness and megalomaniacal tendencies became more prevalent and the money continued to roll in, which saturated his wildest dreams, and now there was nothing and no one to restrain HIM. He was possessed by what he could create constantly changing what he had already created, turning what once had some cohesion as a fun ‘home’ and transforming it into a gauche pastiche of miss matching homage to Trevor’s ego. It was now the only thing that Trevor could fully control.. Things that were unfinished remained unfinished … My bedroom for example, had been subject to a number of my mother’s interior design projects, much to my irritation as I grew up. It was never finished, the new lighting now consisted of a half-finished florescent tube fittings all around the top of the walls, hidden behind a half finished pelmet that flashed on and off incessantly. When I switched it on the continuous strobing effect, was like living in George Orwells 1984…
We were all at war …. These were corrosive times.. Yet the building went on …There was no stopping the madness …
Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
“You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs”
Trevor’s obsession with living underground had taken hold, he continued digging under the house now obsessively, 14 Irish labours dug and dug at any one time, more skips of soil were dispensed with, more aggravation for the neighbours. Inevitably the hole under the house filled with water. Trevor got bored again and works stopped and he started digging somewhere else… Where there was once a beautiful landscaped garden now half the garden was just a collection of big holes filled with water and half finished … Soul destroying for my mother..
I spent a great deal of time on my own in this property, everyone else was always out and about, I was used to my own company. One night, I was sitting in the big lounge with my stash of snacks ready for the evening, I did this so I didn’t have to venture back into the house, the two dogs who were with me were going mad, barking, growling, and digging at the shag pile... Dutch Gardens could be a very scary place to be inat night, particularly as my parents had an aversion to curtains, so you always had the feeling that you were being watched through these enormous floor to ceiling windows. Which I later found out was exactly what was going on .. But that is another story.
I was trying to ignore the dogs and watch TV but they were not going to have it, fussing and barking, this meant only one thing … I was going to have to make the very scary run, through the dining room into the hall then hang a quick left into the kitchen to get them some treats to shut them up, I was not keen … On the TV was a programme called Police 5, presented by Shaw Taylor, it was about catching criminals, this episode was a special on man dubbed, The Black Panther who had kidnapped a young heiress, it was all quite scary … Suddenly there was a massive whoosh sound and the floor gave way under me, I was thrown back onto the leatherChesterfield sofa by the force, the dogs shot out the room screaming and urinating in terror as they ran for cover …The naff 1970’s bar in the corner of the room moved and clunked as the glasses clattered together from their position on the shelves in protest, dust filled the room then the floor came to a short but abrupt halt and everything shuddered. Good old Shaw Taylor continued to give details about the Black Panther albeit that the TV had now moved position… I glanced around the room through the haze of dust nothing in principal had changed, but instinctively I knew it had. I pushed myself off the sofa; Shaw Taylor was doing his signature sign off of Keep ‘em peeled… Dust was sparkling in the light, looking up I saw a large gash in the wall above the bar, at some points at least four inches wide, the plaster that had fallen from the crack was now decorating the black bar top. On the other side of the room was even longer and wider crack, the sliding glazed panel door that separated the lounge from the adjacent small sitting room was hanging at a slight angle. Looking down at the floor line, there was now a gap were the wall and the floor had divorced each other, the skirting was splintered and cracked but still attached to the wall but not the floor, the black tile grout, that circled the bar was still attached to the skirting yet the tiles had remained unseated and scatted haphazardly to the floor. There had been a serious parting of the ways!
What had happened? The team of Irish navvies, Trevor had hired to dig the massive void under the house in order to create the underground dungeon’esque area, had not adequately propped up the structures and the floor under the house to sufficiently hold the house up! Only a minor detail, but as ever a crucial one! The water from the nearby River Thames had seeped into the void raising the level of the natural water table. The sheer force of the water whooshing and swirling around inthe large holehaddestabilised the stone and sand sides of the excavationthusdestabilising the foundations of this part of the house causing the groundfloor of the house to drop accordingly! Never a dull moment, but this, could not be blamed on me! But none the less there was the inevitable blood chilling tantrum from Trevor!
As the years rolled on Dutch Gardens imploded asTrevor’s obsession with living like a mole underground continued, digging endlessly under the house to create his own new space, creating issues with the water table and creating his own artesian well, the pressure of which causing theground water to increase to such a pressure that it forced the next door neighbours garage out of the ground. All in a day’s work! As you have seen from the article and VT on the net … Trevor has over the last thirty years created whatever has taken his fancy, with total disregard to some of the most basic design ethics and lack of care to many people … That said, some of his work is extremely clever … But to me none of it really works.. It looks like a theme park … The only thing that really works is the original bit of the garden and waterfall which was part of the redevelopment that both my parents undertook … But then it is not my house it is his and this is his baby – Dutch Gardens…
“Well, Clarice have the lambs stopped screaming..?”
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
This was a house that was once lived in, it was alive it had a pulse and a heart of sorts. Now in my opinion it has descended into one wealthy man’s mental health issue /disorder.
I hope I have given you a small flavour of what it was like to be part of Dutch Gardens, it was an amazing house of its time and its period, and it was a credit to both my parents despite the darkness that lurked in every corner. I have a lot to be grateful for, for a start … I got out alive with a story or ten to tell…. Dutch Gardens in its ‘hay day’ featured in a number of television adverts and was very on trend for its time despite its very odd location in Wraysbury or Toilets-Ville … Which was my pet name for the area as a teenager ….
My mother had moved on, as had I. Trevor became more entrenched and more obsessed in his madness like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland, said. “I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then”… He has made his way through tens of millions of pounds, recreating a property that he loves and turning his back on all else … And in that vein … Everyone should be able to create their own madness …. To a point ….
“You would have to be half mad to dream me up”
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Having read the article Trevor has once again changed the facts, to me it was like we were all airbrushed out of our own lives. As the article pointed out Trevor has based himself on Napoleon, a man who was exiled from all reality; and was eventually confined to the island of Saint Helena to live in a rat infested house called Longwood. Napoleon managed to persuade the Governor of the island to allow him to build a new Longwood House, a new beginning, if you will, but like Trevor he negated to reflect on the past? Napoleon died just before the house was completed and after the Second World War … It was demolished…. Napoleon is remembered as a tyrant ….
I will keep you briefed on the full story …
