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Woodhill Park Estate Georgian country estate of 156 acres Culture and Wellbeing venue.

13/10/2024

Nomi Prins is a former Wall Street Executive, Entrepreneur, Keynote Speaker, Author, Geo-Political Economist, Founder of Prinsights Global and PhD. She has generously shared her purpose with the Woodhill Park Journal.

"When I consider my purpose," writes Nomi, "I think about solving puzzles. My passion for puzzles started when I was a little girl with my father. I used to decipher 1000-piece puzzles for hours.

When I was 22, I worked full-time on Wall Street and juggled a full-time master's program at NYU.

After completing that, I began my PhD – while working full-time at Lehman Brothers. At 24, I sat down before my panel of 3 professors to take my exams. We were allowed one index card of notes – and that meant tiny writing of many formulas.

I failed my comprehensive exam.

As I struggled to hold back tears, one of my professors told me – if you need an index card, you haven’t learned the material. To this day, whatever information I share, I make sure I learn it deeply first.

I don’t use notes in any of my public speeches.

I had a choice. I could retake my comps or I could move to London.

I chose London. I created an international analytics department for Bear Stearns and rose to become a senior managing director.

In 2000, I returned to New York as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. After 2 years, I quit Wall Street during the corporate scandals of Enron and WorldCom.

I became a journalist. I went from a corner office on the 29th floor to bringing coffee to the senior writer at Fortune Magazine. It was an incredibly humbling and liberating experience.

I pursued journalism to uncover and explain everything I'd learned in finance and how it impacts everyone else on Main Street.

My first "whistleblower" book, Other People's Money, delved into that subject. The Economist called it, "The most revealing description yet of what it is like to work for the mighty Goldman Sachs."

My subsequent books exposed how those in power utilise money to accumulate power at the expense of the rest of the world. The rest of the world doesn't understand what's happening or how.

In 2016, my sixth book, Collusion, was an exploration of how central banks rigged the world of finance after the 2008 financial crisis.

I spoke before press conferences and stock exchanges in Tokyo, industrial manufacturers in Mexico, central bankers in Brazil, MPs in the UK, miners in Canada and members of the United States government.

Two days before my dad passed away, he said, "You need to finish your PhD."

Six months later, COVID happened. During the pandemic, I finally finished my PhD. My dissertation was on the economic triangle of China, Brazil and the US.

The world revolves around money, power and geopolitics. It also contains real assets mined from beneath its surface and real people who manage their own finances.

I strive to continue to connect those global dots for people everywhere.

That is my purpose."

Read the full piece at the Woodhill Park Journal.

https://www.woodhillparkestate.com/journal-posts/piecing-together-global-economic-puzzles

26/09/2024

Hello 🔵 It’s official. Signed at 2:55 PM. It was even on TV. Mine really turned blue. Don't forget that tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule (aka... new name, META) where they can use your photos. Don't forget the deadline is today!!!

I do not authorize META, Facebook or any entity associated with Facebook to use my photos, information, messages or posts, past or future.
With this statement, I notify Facebook that
it is strictly prohibited to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against me based on this profile and/or its contents. Violation of privacy may be punishable by law.

Here's how to do If you are thinking of getting off FB because of the volume of sales ads and trash stuff. So hold your finger anywhere in this post and click ′copy’. Go to your page where it says ‘What's on your mind?’ Tap your finger anywhere in the blank field. Click paste. This upgrades the system.
Hello new and old friends!

IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!!! 👍👊🙏
Hold your finger anywhere in this message and “copy” will appear. Click “copy”. Then go to your page, create a new post and place your finger anywhere in the empty field. “Paste” will appear and click Paste.
This will bypass the system….

He who does nothing consents.

25/09/2024

Royal Navy Submariner McGuinness represents Team GB as a Royal Navy Athlete in Powerlifting. He is a tireless Charity Ambassador and two times IPF Commonwealth Medalist. He writes about his purpose for the Woodhill Park Journal.

“I grew up as an only child. After my parents separated, it was mainly my mother who raised me.

My father wasn't present for most of my childhood and his absence left an emptiness that affected me in ways I didn't understand at the time. Then, in 2001, my world was completely shattered.

I was only 11 years old when my mother passed away. She was everything to me - my anchor, my constant source of love and encouragement. Losing her felt like losing a part of myself - in that moment, my childhood vanished. I was left not only with the immense grief of her loss but also the challenge of moving in with a father I barely knew.

At 19, I walked through the gates of HMS RALEIGH in 2008, uncertain about what lay ahead. After completing my phase two training, I noticed an advertisement for the “Royal Navy Powerlifting Championships” at HMS TEMERAIRE. Competing in my first ever event, I won 1st place in my weight category and was named the best overall lifter of the day.

This small victory boosted my confidence, fuelled my motivation and ignited a hunger to get stronger. On the train ride home, I began researching everything that would support my future growth.

Powerlifting quickly became my purpose. Purpose is about using your skills to contribute to something greater. Identifying what you care about is the first step. Finding purpose goes beyond self-reflection; it involves trying new things and seeing how they allow you to make a meaningful difference.

I'm a strong advocate for giving back to the community. I’ve raised significant funds for RNRMC, We Remember Submariners and The Submarine Family. As an official ambassador for The Chestnut Appeal, I continue to raise awareness about prostate, pe**le and testicular cancer.

We submariners laugh in the face of adversity and get the job done to the best of our ability. My favourite memory onboard a submarine is cooking for a ship's company of 140 while wearing an emergency breathing system mask for 13 hours.

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In 2018, I was assigned to HMS TRENCHANT’s Ships Company and deployed on ICEX18 operations, where we surfaced through the ice at the northernmost point a British submarine can reach in the Arctic. I had the barbell and weights brought up from the submarine onto the ice. Despite our phones only lasting a few moments in these extreme conditions before shutting down, a shipmate captured footage of me deadlifting at -37 degrees at the highest point a Royal Navy submarine has ever surfaced at the North Pole.

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I am now in preparation for my third IPF Commonwealth Championships in South Africa and I am proud to represent my country and the Silent Service at the highest level of powerlifting in the world."

Read the rest at the Woodhill Park Journal.

https://www.woodhillparkestate.com/journal-posts/competing

10/09/2024

Author Horton went bankrupt and half-mad while writing his debut memoir, Love Songs and Su***de. He also found his purpose. In honour of World Su***de Prevention Day, Ross shares his story of trauma, perseverance and healing through art and nature in the Woodhill Park Journal. He writes:

“Your mom has passed away,” my dad said, with tears in his eyes. I didn’t cry.

As a kid I always knew my mom probably wouldn’t live for very long, mainly because she was honest with me and told me so.

Other su***de attempts and gestures had preceded her death. I was 16. It was 2001, a few weeks before 9/11.

My mom’s pain always seemed to define her. In the decades that followed her death, I subconsciously tried to carry that pain with me, just to keep a part of her alive. This gave me a profound sense of empathy. It awakened the writer and poet within me.

The pain I carried also contributed to my mental health struggles.

Because of my depression and anxiety, I had trouble functioning in normal workplaces. Covering my basic expenses was always a challenge. And I often contemplated su***de.

At 32, I found myself unemployed (again).

So I took a minimum-wage security job at a rural hospital. That’s when my perspectives on life and art began to change.

A nurse inspired me to travel.

On my “Bipolar Express” tour of the American Southwest, I visited five National Parks in six days and navigated a flash flood. I felt content on that trip, for the first time in years.

In my book, I reflected on my unforgettable experience at the Grand Canyon. I wrote:

“On the million-year-old rock, I was energized rather than perturbed as I pondered my own insignificance and stared down into the world’s most breathtaking abyss.

I don’t know if there’s a meaning to life or not. Probably not. But life certainly feels meaningful when you’re standing on the shoulders of a geological giant and tangible miracle, like the Grand Canyon.”

Five years after my Grand Canyon visit, connecting with nature remains a priority for me. It helps me stay present and manage my depression and anxiety.

In early 2021, I began writing my book, Love Songs and Su***de: A Travel Memoir, Romance and Tragic Musical Comedy. Over the next 2 years, I sifted through three decades’ worth of trauma and damage in isolation while acting as my own therapist. What could go wrong?

Of course, almost everything went wrong. I went bankrupt. I came as close as I’ve ever come to needing in-patient psychological care. But I also found my purpose:

I’m a writer.

No matter what occupation I list on my tax return and whether I like it or not, I’m a writer. I may not be the best writer in my hometown, state or even in my own family, but writing is what I’m best at and what feels meaningful to me.

Unfortunately, Love Songs and Su***de was a flop - a total failure.

There’s no happy ending to this story.

But I look forward to writing one someday.

Read the full piece at the Woodhill Park Journal.

https://www.woodhillparkestate.com/journal-posts/becoming-a-writer

07/09/2024

Next month, Jim Holland will come to Woodhill Park Estate to plant 1,000 trees.

Since co-founding | B-Corp he and Iain Gurney have planted thousands of trees every month.

Jim Holland and Iain Gurney created Carma to employ UK veterans on the pathway to resettlement to plant trees in the UK. Not only are they helping the environment, they are creating jobs too. Carma exists to help people understand their impact on the environment and provide effortless solutions to reduce this impact.

Jim Holland and Iain Gurney are long-standing veterans and techies.

“I’ve had the best life. Thirteen years in the Royal Navy was just the start,” says Jim. “I’ve since worked for Vodafone and Sky. Now it’s time to make a difference.”

“We work with the Green Task Force, which provides pathways to employment for veterans and service leavers."

A staggering 6% of serving and former personnel - and 17% of those that have been in a combat situation - suffer from some form of PTSD. Service leavers also face a lot of stress and anxiety when transitioning from service life.

It has been proven that getting veterans involved in Nature-Based Therapy (NBT) has a positive effect on their mental health.

Jim continues: "We also work with the Earthlungs Reforestation Foundation - a charity in Kenya - alongside local communities to produce, plant, and protect 10s of millions of trees every month, creating jobs to support them in restoring their local environment and economy for the long term.

Earth Lungs continues to restore mangroves in Kenya. As they restore these vital ecosystems, local communities gain new opportunities for economic self-sustainability. By giving people jobs, Earth Lungs provides a real sense of purpose, allowing these communities to flourish.

Working in extremely remote settings, our national directors lead these communities through a range of challenges—from extreme weather and landslides to poachers, bandits, and wild animals.

They have planted over 977 million trees so far, employing over 14,800 people at 280 sites in 11 countries.”

Back in June, Carma won the 'Business Start-Up Award' at the Soldiering On Awards. Carma was nominated alongside other amazing veteran-owned businesses.

Here are the founders, Iain and Jim, collecting the trophy from Jeremy Vine in front of 600 attendees at The Park Plaza in Westminster.

In September, they planted 14,115 trees and created 141 workdays of employment.

I am so excited to work with them and their client Clearwater. I couldn’t be more thrilled.

05/09/2024

Time to give up.

Our 50th entry in the Woodhill Park Journal comes from Day, host of Commodity Culture - a Youtube show regularly achieving 250,000 views about investing in commodities such as gold, silver, uranium and copper.

"My journey has been a long road of giving up on projects I thought I'd be doing forever. Looking back, I believe that my willingness to throw in the towel and move on to the next has been instrumental in finding my purpose.

“Never give up.”

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

“Never stop trying. Never stop believing.”

These phrases are a common part of “success” literature and have been ingrained in people's brains. People think of themselves as a failure when they give up on an idea or project and that stops them from moving on to something greater.

My first dream was to be an actor. Then Korean friends introduced me to Korean Hip-Hop music. I decided to learn to rap in Korean...

I uploaded my first song to the Korean net. Within days, it was a top trending video on Naver, Korea’s Google. I decided to move to Korea...

After a year of going broke, eating instant noodles and kimchi and living in a gosiwon - a box that barely fits a bed and desk - I got my first big break: in a children’s television show. It wasn’t glamorous but boy, was it fun.
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I started to get modelling and acting gigs and never stopped rapping in Korean. I passed the audition for Star King and found myself surrounded by the country’s top K-Pop stars and actors. I thought, "I’ve arrived."

I started a Youtube channel wearing a yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuit and daring to eat Korea’s spiciest dishes. I grew the channel to 90,000 subscribers but 3 trips to the hospital led me to take an early retirement.
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Eventually, I headed back to Vancouver.

Back home, I struggled to find my purpose.

Then came the pandemic. I was in sales, a far cry from clinking champagne glasses with Korean celebrities in Seoul. My boss called me into his office and told me that he had to let me go. Now I was truly lost.

No job, no passion, no purpose.

The only positive thing was the generosity of the Canadian government, sending me cheques every month ... I was making the same amount of money sitting around at home as I was working 8 hours a day. How was this even possible?

That question took me down the rabbit hole of central banking and sound money. Central banks were printing record amounts of currency into existence to pay everyone not to work. This would inevitably cause prices to rise as more money chased fewer goods. I stumbled onto gold and silver and I was enthralled.

This led me to read about finance and how coal, oil, natural gas and uranium allowed humanity to build our civilisation. I learned about copper, base metals and electrification. Everything in our world comes from metals and minerals. It was like the universe was speaking to me and revealing my purpose..."

Read the rest at the Woodhill Park Journal.

https://www.woodhillparkestate.com/journal-posts/knowing-when-to-give-up

31/08/2024

Thank you so much to the legendary garden designer and presenter Alexander-Sinclair for writing a piece for the Woodhill Park Journal.

James Alexander-Sinclair FSGD is one of the foremost garden designers in the United Kingdom. He has designed gardens from London to Moscow - and importantly for Horatio's Garden in Scotland.
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"I have been building, designing and looking after gardens for the past 40 years. It seems like a very long stretch but, at the same time, it seems to have gone by at warp speed. From callow youth to someone hovering terrifyingly close to a pension. I can still remember my first job which involved pruning a very large honeysuckle. It covered three stories of a house in London: laden with heavily scented flowers alive with bees.
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The plant was undoubtedly bit scraggy but still lovely: all it needed was a trim. I was not absolutely sure what I was doing so started cautiously with delicate little snips but soon realised that at that rate I would be there for days so became a bit braver. Out came the loppers and larger chunks of honeysuckle began to fall to the ground. Confidence rising I moved on to a saw.... in retrospect this was not my finest idea as by the end of the day I was surrounded by the fallen tendrils of a formerly magnificent plant. All that was left was a single woody stem clinging forlornly to the building - the only upside was that it was still alive. Plants can be remarkably tolerant of the incompetence of people.
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I don’t what it was about that day - it was unsatisfactory in so many ways, not least because the client was quite miffed by the state of her honeysuckle and I did not get paid, but I woke up the next day determined to be a gardener. It came as a bit of a relief as I had tried and rejected so many other professions over the previous few years. I had been a door-to-door salesman, photographer, barman, bus conductor, ice cream man, jeans salesman, parcel wrapper, cleaner, kitchen porter, waiter, washer upper and grocer: none of which had quite hit the spot.
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So it was decided, a gardener I would be. I began with the manual labour side: I mixed cement, carried great slabs of paving stone, dug holes and drove mowers. Time passed and I learnt how colours can change moods, how many different shades of green you can find and how even the most agitated mind can be calmed by a garden.
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This understanding gives another dimension to gardens: often I make nice gardens for nice people. Gardens where their children can play and where they can entertain friends. This is all marvellous but it is a small step to take that skill and apply it to gardens which can benefit hundreds (maybe thousands) of people. The most obvious manifestation of this is the garden I made for Horatio’s Garden in Scotland. It was an immense privilege to be invited and it is the most important and most emotionally all encompassing garden I will ever make. The message is powerful but oh so simple and the benefits are immediate for patients, their families and the hospital staff.
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That is how I found my purpose - it took time and every step (even the ones that led nowhere) was important. There is not a lot of mileage in conjecture so, unless I get the chance to live my life all over again, I will never know whether I would have been happier or more fulfilled had I stuck with being a waiter rather than becoming a gardener.
Somehow I rather doubt it - even though I always felt that I would have made an outstanding Butler!

Read the full version at the Woodhill Park Journal.

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/whats-on/shropshire/woodhill-park/as-you-like-it-woodhill-park/e-xgpgjd

24/08/2024

"After 18 years of ‘following the flag,’ I thought I knew everything there was to know about being an army wife - and it’s not like the films, all mess parties and choirs of earnest love," says Flower - Jilly Carrell - in the latest piece on finding your purpose in the Woodhill Park Journal.

"I’d met Nick just before 9:11 and then we all lived in the world of Before and After. We had met in Edinburgh, joyful and hopeful and we had so many plans for our life as a military couple. It seemed an honourable choice; the sacrifices we would have to make seemed small in the context of Service to our country. Nick had been born into a military family. His grandmother had built Spitfires during the war, so to him, this was always the path. His flamboyance as a cavalry officer and his willingness to throw himself into his calling headlong was appealing to me and an easy choice to make from the safety of love and hope and relative innocence.

But then came Iraq. We had no idea what was to come - and that Afghanistan was to be the backdrop to our family life for the next 15 years.

So then came the repeat deployments (five of them to Helmand Province, Afghanistan) and the endless separation - 7 or 8 months at a stretch – oceans of time with the weeks and weeks of pre-deployment training and the ‘decompressions’ afterwards, where we all learned to tip-toe around each other after the initial homecoming explosion of war-torn service person reintegrates into insular family life.

I had so many weeks and months, and then years of lone terrifying parenting, four rounds of solo IVF, and the loss of two pregnancies - but then two beautiful daughters, born 18 months apart whilst my husband fought alongside the Americans, the Danes, the Australians, the Afghans and so many others, but especially his friends.

So many days passed - fear and exhaustion blurring the lines between Mondays and Fridays and weekends were the same but more isolated than I could have imagined. He missed birthdays, anniversaries, first steps, small teeth, scraped knees, nativity plays, reading books, labradors and kittens.

He missed the children and sometimes he even missed me, I think. Although they trained it out of him, the longing and the fear. I just had to learn to bury it the harder way.
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We worked our way through 12 or more houses, getting used to the mould and brown synthetic carpets and the same front doors and magnolia walls you were never allowed to paint. Sometimes I worked part-time if I could find a job where people would employ a military spouse with the endless burdens of a husband in a war zone. I certainly didn’t work as much as I was qualified to do and not as much as I would have liked. But the little girls were mostly mine. My friends were different every time we moved and I spent most of my days afraid, waiting for that knock at the identikit front door.
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We moved every two years, sometimes less, leaving our friends and the schools and our temporary lives behind us. Packing and unpacking, hanging pictures on the re-filled walls, creating a home, a mountain out of a redbrick molehill. Until he finally served his final tour in Afghanistan and came home to a flurry of gangly teenagers, puppies who now had greying muzzles and a wife with a seen it all before look.

But we hadn’t seen it all, because after all the terrifying Afghan years, the holding of breath, the holding of hands, sometimes his hands around my throat - PTSD an unwelcome mistress in our marriage - his final homecoming brought with him an unwelcome passenger from the desert he’d embedded in for all the years.

‍Six weeks into the pandemic, stage 4 melanoma crawled into our hushed lockdown quarter. The raised brown islands on my husband’s skin squirmed and screamed through his cells, and made themselves at home in his spine, his bones and his brain. Nick died 8 months later.

Our daughters were 12 and 14.

He died the day they went back to school, after a year in isolation, watching their brave strong Daddy lose his war on cancer.

We lost our home, our community and the school the children attended. We weren’t an army family anymore and the system moved us on. Our lives were irrevocably changed, with the unique challenges that military families face, previously unknown to me, now a harsh reality.

It was then I realised that I didn’t know everything about being an army spouse. I didn’t know that we had months to vacate the quarter we called home, that my children would soon become ineligible for their educational bursaries, that the officer the army gave us to ‘transition out’ would be permitted to support my devastated little family for just six weeks, before other more pressing duties found her assigned elsewhere.

I learned that after two weeks, no one from the MoD calls, that they think when they’ve handed you a purple pack and an indecent pension that they have “extracted from the bereaved family as clinically as possible" - their words, not mine. I learned that no one talks about transition for the spouse or breakfast clubs or drop-ins. And for our bereaved children, they lose their home, their school, their identity and their parent.

We had to leave the community we’d lived in for almost two decades - were we still armed forces? No, we’re not serving. Were we veterans? No, we had never served.

So who are we? We’re adrift and so are so many other military bereaved families.

I am working to change the narrative around our military bereaved, to bring together the families, the MoD, the armed forces charity sector, the NHS and other support pathways - because we must do better for families who have lost their loved ones whilst serving this country.

And so, Beyond the Wire was born. An advocacy charity for the armed forces bereaved community, Championing Life After Loss for the Armed Forces Family.

I hope we can work towards systemic policy and societal change when we consider the lives that our bereaved military families have lived.

Please help me to spread the word to help raise awareness in galvanising better support to the military bereaved community and in bringing about systemic change in the space that the armed forces community gives to families like mine."

Read the rest at the Woodhill Park Journal.

18/08/2024

Tom Clowes has climbed Everest with his brother Ben, flown his powered paraglider into the Venezuelan jungle, ridden his Penny Farthing the length of the Outer Hebrides and his unicycle along the South Downs Way.

When Tom Clowes was made redundant he became lost for a while, until his friend asked if he and his brother wanted to join him on a Himalayan Expedition to climb Ama Dablam, a mountain once described by Sir Edmund Hilary as ‘unclimbable.’

"There were 10 of us on the winter climb on mixed snow, rock and ice. Our leader was the late Iñaki Ochoa de Olza who became a dear friend. Only three of us reached the summit – Geoffrey, Iñaki and myself. I remember looking over towards Everest and vowing that I would one day stand on its summit.

Iñaki tragically died on Annapurna in 2008 and this affected me deeply. We went on to climb peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn in the Alpes, Aconcagua in South America, Elbrus in Southern Russia – all without guides as we had little money. For me, raising money for charity was important, so for each mountain we attempted, we chose a different charity to give back to.

Ben and I then attempted to become the first British brothers to stand on the summit of Everest. It took us two attempts to climb the mountain – the first was from the northern side in Tibet where we had to retreat in a storm in 2004 and our second attempt was from the southern side in Nepal when reached the top on 18th May, 2006.

I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. My brother was less fortunate losing four toes to frostbite which was definitely not part of the plan.
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My proposal to my wife Diana marked the beginning of truly discovering my purpose. We had two children, Sebastian and Daisy, and threw ourselves into family life.
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We moved out of London in 2009 and bought a wreck of a cottage which we repaired. I planted trees and hedges, built fences and garage doors. Diana and I taught the children how to ride bicycles, we camped and went canoeing and fishing. Diana taught them to ride ponies and I taught them how to rides unicycles and to play conkers. It became our purpose to let the children have a memorable childhood.

Meanwhile, I organised a small expedition to fly powered paragliders into remote townships in the Gran Sabana in Venezuela.
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After COVID-19, I decided that a new challenge was needed. My father had died from Prostate Cancer and so I decided to unicycle the entire length of the South Downs Way to support the charity. It took me three days to ride the 100 mile path from Eastbourne to Wi******er.

The next adventure began with the import of a Penny Farthing from Sweden, leading to playing Polo for England against Scotland! In 2023 I took it to the Outer Hebrides and cycled the entire length of these islands all in aid of the Stroke Association.

I have now made it my purpose to grow my Speaking Business and to inspire global organisations with stories to illustrate the importance of building resilient teams, effective collaboration and communication, accountability and integrity as well as self-belief and moving out of your comfort zone. I also speak about the importance of being healthy as well as being kind, generous and thoughtful to each other.
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(i) Love your family and friends and spend as much time with them as possible,
(ii) Keep trying new things and exploring new cultures,
(iii) Keep sharing and giving back.

Mark Twain summed it up when he said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why!”

Read the rest at the Woodhill Park Journal.@

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@louiseallen7 grew up in care and ran away from an abusive home aged 15. She is the award-winning author of the best selling series Thrown Away Children; an artist, foster carer and founder of Sparksisterhood.org. “One, two, three, four. I’m staring hard at the ceiling, following a long crack in the paint up to the small plastic light shade. One, two, three, four cracks on the ceiling. I did this every night, especially whilst I was waiting. One, two, three, four: edges of the door frame, corners of my room. ‍I’ve lived through wars, violence, hate, abuse and neglect - all in the war zone of the house I grew up in. My mother was 12 when she and her fellow girl guides walked home on November 22nd 1963. John F Kennedy had been shot. She joined a crowd outside a TV shop to see the news through the window. A man approached her. That night he began to groom my mother. A few years later I was born. My mother gave me up at 6 weeks as she was told I’d be placed “with a loving family who would give me a good life.” I was adopted by a couple who were on the children department’s radar, because of complaints of cruelty to a boy they had fostered. My birth father died last year, I met him on his death bed. I realised where my humour and olive skin came from. Two weeks after his death we learnt that I have a few half siblings and that my charming, swarthy, rogue father was in fact a serial paedophile. At 15 years old I ran away. The last time I was going to be abused and beaten. I had a little cash in my purse that I had earned from a Saturday job. I had had by head bashed against the kitchen sink, a boot in my face and I was kicked in the back as I slid down onto the floor. I packed a bag and was gone, I walked to Oxford train station and got a train. I ended up in Portsmouth.” Read the rest at the Woodhill Park Journal

@oliveseventbar and @henstone_distillery will be joining us @woodhillparkestate on August 31 for As You like It… 🥂

Why is Silvius the sheep the star of AS YOU LIKE IT? Should have asked us. Don’t miss the new Shropshire festival at Woodhill Park Estate near Oswestry in aid of Horatio’s Garden Midlands on 31st August 2024 from 3pm. Bar in aid of @horatiosgarden Picnics by @osnosh_cic Nursery plant sales by @derwengardencentre At 6pm we will have @thedukestheatreco performing As You Like It. Hot air balloon rides by Elevatehotairballoonflights (weather dependent!) Pony carriage rides up and down the sequoia-lined drive Music by Jigsaw Jazz A taste of Shropshire - a curated list of local food and gifts for sale Workshops and demonstrations of art, well-being and heritage crafts As You Like It by @thedukestheatreco at 6pm, introduced by Para-adventurer @darrenedwards_adventurer whose next trip is to Antarctica. Workshops and demonstrations include: @_imprint_casts - botanical imprints of flowers @vine_willow_wood - basket making demonstration @overthestilecoach - life beading workshop @skincarebootique - soap making workshop @lizzistration - digital art demonstration Wild.Pickle fermentation class @originaloutdoor- bushcraft class in the wood with @richprideaux @ameridianlife - crystal healing workshop @nedsshed_oakncraft - wood turning demonstration and wooden gifts for sale @karensillarart Please book workshops separately with the artisans Step back in time over a century for a traditional Shropshire Garden Party in the tranquil setting of Woodhill Park Estate. Woodhill Park, a Georgian estate in the Shropshire hills, is set in 156 acres of beautiful rolling parkland. Previously belonging to Lord Harlech, it was visited by close friends JFK, Jackie and Bobby Kennedy. Horatio’s Garden creates beautiful gardens to nurture the well-being of people after spinal injury within the heart of NHS spinal injury centres. Car parking £5 or free with a ticket for As You Like It #shropshirelife #beautifulgardens #summer24 @horatiosgarden #lovewhereyou

Gathering #gardeninspo at Hodnet Hall gardens. Don’t you think it’s one of the most beautiful gardens in Britain? @hodnethallgardens @thewalledgarden_at_hodnet_hall

Auricula theatres aspirations … this one is at @benthallnt where the orchard is also enchanting. #auricula goals: Teem (silver green and crimson), Sirius (apricot brown and mahogany), Nocturne (deep velvet crimson), Arundel stripe (purple and white stripe) and Glenluce (green edged crimson and white). #auriculas #heritageorchard #heritageapples

Dudmaston Hall is my father’s favourite local National Trust property due to its collection of British modern abstract art, collected by Sir George Labouchere from the 1950s onwards. At first, he considered only collecting works by British artists, acquiring pieces by Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson. As he travelled in his role as British ambassador, he went on to purchase works by a range of international abstract artists, choosing art to please himself. I love it because of its beautiful heritage apple orchard, including apples like: Adam’s pearmain Worcester Pearmain Winston Tom Putt Sumer Pippin Stanardine Ashmead’s Kernal Ribston Pippin Beauty of Bath Cox’s orange Pippin Charles Ross Blenheim Orange Ellison’s Orange Herefordshire Beefing Egremont Russet James Grieve Laxton’s Superb Pittmaston Pineapple #heritageapples

We have Downton Abbeys round every corner … Hampton Court Castle dates back to 1427 and boasts an organically managed kitchen garden, as well as a maze, a secret tunnel under the water garden, a Dutch garden, island pavilions and a 150-year-old wisteria arch. Cedars of Lebanon here, there and everywhere.

Whenever another problem pops up inside the house, the gardens reveal some beautiful new flowers to compensate. Thank you so much to @horatiosgarden for the invitation to their Belgravia Drinks Party, celebrating the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 and Belgravia in Bloom. 🌷It’s been an inspiring week for our own gardens @woodhillparkestate, beautifully designed by Bunny Guinness. You can just see the house and parkland behind the irises that just appeared in the first and last pictures. All the rest were taken at a rather cold Chelsea on Tuesday… Although the rain at The Newt garden was not real. Bringing rain to Chelsea … ?!

Well a moat might be a bit much to ask but the beautiful garden @ntbaddesley provided fabulous inspiration for @woodhillparkestate as we made our annual pilgrimage to the Chelsea Flower Show… we missed @blomsbulbs at the show but have ordered lots of tulips for next year. Gardening is the one thing that makes you look forward to time passing …

Garden Inspo at @bodnantgardennt where I was fortunate to stay once. @woodhillparkestate we have been planting Rhododendron Yakushimanum ‘Koichiro Wada’ Rhododendron Tibet Deciduous Azalea Snow’s Head Rhododendron Loderi Helen Rhododendron Cunningham White and Rhododendron Midnight Beauty. But there are lots of beautiful specimens already in the woods…

Inspo @ntberrington in the walled garden today, with their beautiful heritage apple trees. Berrington Hall, Capability Brown’s final landscape of over 250, combines sweeping pleasure grounds, a beautiful lake and views of his wooded parkland. Brown’s projects often required him to modernise an existing landscape. But Berrington was a new scheme that included building a house for banker and politician Thomas Harley, who had bought the Herefordshire estate in 1775. In 1778 Henry Holland Junior, Brown’s son-in-law, made an estimate for “The Several Works proposed to be done in Building a new House for the Rt. Honble. Thomas Harley”. Samuel Lapidge carried out a survey of Berrington, and a “plan of alterations” was made. Brown’s account book shows four payments totalling £1,600 (almost £2.5million now) for work between July 1781 and September 1782. Money well spent. The apple trees are particularly lovely, some of them being several hundred years old. There are around 100 trees within the orchard, with approximately 50 varieties, including Ten Commandments and Doctor Hare’s.

@estatemanager_woodhillpark has been creating the new vegetable beds in the walled garden from Bunny Guinness’s beautiful parterre design. Strawberries and salads will be first out of the polytunnel …🍓🍓🍓#walledgardens #walledgarden #shropshirecountryside #parterregarden @thedukestheatreco