Month: May 2023

‘The Knight on the Tiltyard’

Back in the mid to late 1960’s, my mates and I, could be found fishing the Finham, and Inchford brooks that flowed behind the castle on a regular basis.  Sometimes with nets, catching Sticklebacks, and Minnows or fishing with rod and line for the trout.  The trout where discovered by accident when fishing a stretch close to the ford, which would lead to the ghostly encounter. (Tony is pictured far left)

We fished this area over the next couple of years, and caught many trout. Then one day my friend and I were again fishing there, when we had an experience, that to this day, I have no explanation for………..

At that time, the entrance was at the front of the castle, opposite castle green, so it was generally quiet at the back of the castle, with mostly people hiking around the fields. Access to the tiltyard back then wasn’t as easy as it is today.
On the ford side of the tiltyard, the embankment slopes steeply down to the brook. On the other side, steps lead down to the bridge, that spans the brook. I’m not sure if back in the 1960s, the steps even existed.

We were happily fishing that day, when something caught my eye …… I turned to my left to see what it was, and to my utter amazement, there, on the tiltyard, about ten yards along from Mortimer’s Tower, stood a ‘crusader knight’, in all his glory, sword in hand, and a large red cross on his tunic. My fishing companion, Glenn Smith saw it too, so it wasn’t just me seeing things! We were in awe, but scared witless. It just stood there, motionless.
We decided to hide behind the trees by the brook, and observe it.  I can’t remember how long the knight stood there for, but he was facing in our direction, and that made hiding behind the trees seemed like a good idea at the time.  After a while, he turned around and walked off into the trees behind him, and disappeared.  Strange thing was …… as mentioned earlier, the far side of the tiltyard slopes steeply down to the bridge, but somehow he had walked straight across into the trees, seemingly in mid-air, and not down the slope! Not long after this strange event, we headed that way to have a look around for any clue as to who/what it was.  But there was nothing about.  The knight had literally vanished into thin air ………..?

‘The Saintlowe Tower Lady’

My second encounter at the castle, was in September of 2005. I now live in Florida, and was on vacation, visiting my home town. So I decided to go into the castle as it holds such great memories for me. It was mid-week as I recall, a cold still day, and it seemed as if I was the only one in the grounds. It was dead quiet.

I walked around most of the castle then decided to go into the Great Hall, and then up the spiral staircase inside Saintlowe Tower. I exited the doorway at the top of the staircase into what was once a room. The vast windows on the left-hand side now look out over the echo meadows (or the mere as it would have been centuries ago), and there to my surprise was a lady, dressed in a long flowing blue dress, sat on the stone-seat (pictured) looking out of the window. But before I had the chance to gather my senses as to what I was seeing – she had vanished……….

Ghostly goings on at the castle, who can say? But what I can say is this; I did witness these two unexplainable events. Both scary, but enlightening encounters in their own way. ‘Strange but True’.

Tony Dilworth 2024

We all know, that when even a small pebble is dropped or thrown into a pool, ripples expand outwards for quite a way, often until they reach a distant shore.

I have discovered that this can happen on what I refer to as the, ‘Pool of Life’, I speak of metaphorical pebbles obviously. It happened to me in late 2008, when, completely out of the blue, I received an email from the USA from a LA company called, J. West. They were representing Disney Home Entertainment Inc, and were inviting me to take part in the launch of the DVD/Blu-Ray platinum edition of the remastered cartoon film of Pinocchio. Yes, they wanted me!

But I was so sceptical, thinking it was some sort of a scam, I took the time to research them to check on the company – they were genuine. After some transatlantic negotiation, I agreed to the whole thing. I will summarise my week-long Hollywood adventure later.

But it has puzzled me ever since who, somewhere in the world, knew of my one-man-band, toy research and wooden toy making business all in a small shed, here in Kenilworth. Exactly, who threw that pebble into my personal ‘pool of life’, for the ripples to expand outwards across the Atlantic to America? I have never found out and probably never will.

A Change of Career

I had given up my post as Deputy Manager/Social Worker after 15 years at a Warwick Day Centre for adults with severe learning disabilities, to set myself up as a researcher, then re-creator of historically accurate wooden toys, dolls and games.

After making a few toys, I started to sell them at places like Kenilworth Market and I even had a stall in the Abbey Fields on Carnival day. But It was a slow start.

I expanded the business by using my social work and teaching skills to create, then to validate, toy history and toy-making courses, for Infant and Junior Schools. This was part of the then growing, National Curriculum.

Every month I would make enough toys to sell at local Craft Events and in the Cotswolds. I would also produce enough of my littletoy-kits for my practical toy-making workshops at schools, museums and historic sites. Eventually, I became Tudor Toymaker to English Heritage, and Victorian Toymaker for the National Trust, and at various museums.

My little toy-kits could be completed by almost any child within 40 minutes. I made a range of about 40 different toys, which meant I could spend a whole day with a single class.

photo credit – Vernon Todd

I soon had a full order book, which kept me exceptionally busy, and exceedingly happy – all my hard work was finally paying off!

A further development was my historically accurate replicas of museum exhibits of wooden toys, dolls and games, allowed children to have, hands-on experience during their visits.

Drawings by Cyril Hobbins

There are collections of these toys at places like Charlecote House, Wordsworth House, Compton Verney, Tattershall Castle plus many other museums.

So, after around five years, I was becoming relatively well known in the Midlands, and especially the Cotswolds. But I say again, who told Disney? Which returns me to my ‘Pebbles in the Pool of Life’ ………….. theme

Disney – An Enduring Memory

To summarise as promised earlier, in January 2009, my wife Glenys and I, were whisked off by a chauffeur driven car to Heathrow Airport to board a Boeing 777, heading for LAX International Airport; as VIP guests in business-class, no less! On arrival at LAX, and after a rather stressful introduction to US Border Control and Immigration, we were greeted by a driver, who took us to our accomodation.

Photo credit – Tony Dilworth

As guests of Disney Home Entertainment, we spent a magical week in a luxury suite (13 floors up), at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel, overlooking the city, with the famous Hollywood Sign in the distance hills. During our stay, we ate at the Hollywood Grill and used the roof-top swimming pool. The hotel breakfast’s, had to be seen to be believed, we were thoroughly spoiled. This was after a film-crew from Pinewood Studio’s, had filmed me at home in my workshop. This video was used as part of the second disc, that launched the re-mastered, Pinocchio.

Click on photo to enlarge

We were given two days to recover from our jet-lag which gave us time to explore places like: Hollywood Boulevard, Beverley Hills and Santa Monica. Then came two days of hard and intensive work at the Burbank Disney Studios, giving dozens of press interviews and toy making demonstrations. I was even given an official ‘Minder’ to keep an eye on me. She was wonderful, always ensuring that I was comfortable and at ease.

One task was to take part in what is known as a ‘B’ Roll movie, for Disney Records. For the first time (and hopefully the last) I was given the full works by a make-up artist. We had lighting and sound checks etc, I then demonstrated my large collection of wooden toys to the Chief Creative Officer, John Lasseter, whilst he interviewed me.

Afterwards, we were given a complete tour of the Walt Disney archive and museum, including the huge pre-war animation camera that Walt Disney used for all his early work. We even met the man, Dickie Jones (pictured), a child actor back in the day, who did the original voice of Pinocchio, in the film’s production during 1938/9. He was 11-years-old at the time!

A truly amazing week, that remains an enduring memory.

The Platinum DVD/Blu Ray edition of Pinocchio is still about, (plenty to be found on ebay), but less and less people are using this format nowadays, so maybe the film can be found on the Disney+ streaming service? Have a look if you are a subscriber.

But, finally, I would truly love to discover who threw my pebble?? ………………..

Cyril Hobbins 2023

(copyright of Cyril Hobbins)