SIMON MURRAY: One of the things that struck me was that it was

both very ordinary and yet it was at the same time

extraordinary. It was ordinary in the sense that this is a

semi-detached Edwardian House. It's furnished and decorated in

a very typical way for the period, but the fact that that

then survives for 70 years, practically unchanged, is

extraordinary.

JAMES GRASBY : Seven Blythe Grove sits on a suburban street

in a classic market town, a family home bought and paid for

through hard work. It was lived in until the 1980s, yet step

through the front door and you're stepping back in time.

The semi-detached house is now an unusual heritage site that

visitors can come and see. But why this house? What was it

about the family that lived here that drove them to live in a

bygone era long after the world around them had changed?

Have you ever imagined being a fly on the wall of history? Join

me. For an inside view of the stories of people, places and

moments that made us.

I'm historian James Grasby. Lean in for a tale from time, Back

When.

I've arrived in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, a very handsome

market town in the Midlands. I've left the Victorian station

behind, headed up the hill into the leafy suburbs. And this is a

very different sort of place. Pretty houses, villas really,

detached.

This is the beginning of the 20th century, the Edwardian era,

I guess. Now I can see a promising sign which I think

beckons me, Mr Straw's House. But why should I be coming to

what seems to be a very straightforward sort of House?

And who is Mr Straw?

I'm going to go and have a look through this rather elegant cast

iron gate. A couple of steps leading up to an extremely

gracious front door with a number 7. I'm going to knock on

the door and see if my friend, the Senior Collections and House

Officer, Daniel Lander-Brown, is here.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Hello!

JAMES GRASBY : Danielle, I'm very pleased to see you.

I'm bowled over by your house. It's very handsome and quite

dark.

You've brought me in to what I can only describe as a sort of

cacophony of things and colours and surfaces and textures. It is

full of stuff. This is entering into a different time, a

different world.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: It's one of the things that makes this

property unique. If the family were to return at any point,

they can put their hand on any object in any drawer, any

cupboard. Their belongings remain as they left it.

JAMES GRASBY : Danielle, my eyes are just becoming accustomed to

this dimness. I'm beginning to see where I am. This is a time

capsule. It feels like a little glimpse of the 1920s.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: I can tell you exactly when it is. If

you come into the dining room...

JAMES GRASBY : So go through an oak door.

There were some very richly coloured carpets, a dining room

table laid for a meal. Every last bit of paraphernalia

appears to be from...

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: If you look to the right of the

fireplace here, you'll see a calendar that dates to 1932,

which is when William Snr passed away, and it has been hanging

there since. The family have kept, if you like, mementos or

pieces that are poignant to them and their family story.

So things like... The pipes that hang to the left of the

fireplace there, they belonged to William Snr also. And then

behind those is a calendar that actually dates to 1939, which is

when Florence, the mother, passes away.

JAMES GRASBY : Seven Blythe Grove was the much-loved home of

William Straw Snr, wife Florence and their two sons. William

Straw Snr makes his money in the grocery business in the 1880s

through to the early 1900s, trading out of a shop in

Worksop's marketplace.

The family live above the shop initially, as is customary at

the time. But he eventually moves his family, wife Florence

and grown-up sons William Jr., and Walter, into one of the

middle-class villas in a very nice part of town, 1923.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Number 7 was built around 1903-1904, so

very early Edwardian, but really our family story earlier than

that. Florence and William Snr are mid to late Victorians and

then their boys, William Jr., Walter and David, who

unfortunately lost in infancy, are more Edwardian gentlemen.

JAMES GRASBY : The family has 11 years in their home together

before William Snr, father, dies in 1932 at the age of 67.

Florence dies five years after her husband in 1939. After their

deaths, the sons live in the property together. Neither

marries, no one moves in, no one moves on.

The batchelor brothers barely change a thing for decades more

and so the house is left today, almost as if time has stood

still from the day William's Snr, father, dies.

Walter, the younger brother who runs the shop, survives until

1976. William Jr., the older brother, survives until 1990. It

is he who runs the house.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: He would have seen it as his home, but he

would have still seen it as his parents' house and would have

seen his mother in every space.

JAMES GRASBY : A reluctance to make changes as a mark of

respect to his parents is coupled with an Edwardian

upbringing that seems to survive throughout William and Walter's

lives. Edwardian dress is still very formal, women are still

wearing corsets, men three-piece suits.

And although the Edwardian era is seen as a transitional period

between the strict Victorian era and the modern world, William

and Walter live by the rules their parents had lived by, a

strict class system and an exhaustingly long list of social

do's and don'ts.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: So there's lots of things playing

into the house as to why it seems to settle into that sort

of almost stopping in the 1930s.

JAMES GRASBY : I can't wait to see more. It's utterly

fascinating, isn't it?

And so we set off on a tour of the house to learn more about

the family. The spaces are tight and dim and I'm conscious how

precious each and every item is.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Please do be careful of the coats that

hang. They belonged to all the boys in the house and the one

nearest the kitchen, we believe, belonged to father and has been

hanging there since his passing in 1932.

JAMES GRASBY : That is very moving, isn't it? One, two,

three, four, five. Two cloth caps, three what look like sort

of trilbies. I mean, what is very striking about this is the

everydayness of it, the ordinariness of it.

Down through another oak door, into the kitchen.

Danielle, I'm very surprised to see that. I mean, above my head

there is a bell board, but this is a bell system so that in the

front drawing room, the dining room, the drawing room and the

bathroom, along with two bedrooms, you could press a

button and call a member of staff.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: It certainly shows the grandeur of

the house and the aspirations, if you like, of the Straw family

as part of that emerging middle class.

The emerging middle class were a group of people that were able

to own their own businesses. They were still earning their

money but much more in lighter trades and were able to

therefore employ people from the working class.

They were all aspiring to that aristocratical type of living

and so you see that very much represented in their homes and

their houses and the businesses and the lifestyles they had, and

you see that in the Straw family home here as well. You see that

part of their life represented throughout the house, from the

decor to the way they lived in it, the fact that they could

afford to go on annual holiday.

Just the amount of clutter represents this. It's that idea

of having decorations and pretty things for pretty things' sake.

As part of the working class, if it didn't have a useful purpose,

you couldn't afford to buy it.

JAMES GRASBY : So what you're telling me is Mr Straw has

enough money to move into a house of this scale designed to

be run by servants.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: William Snr originally buys the grocer's

business that he runs in conjunction with his elder

brother Benjamin with some money that they borrowed from their

parents. The business was doing so well he later went on to buy

his brother out and this is when he met Florence Anne Winks, the

daughter of a local butcher and counsellor that lived above her

father's butcher shop directly opposite his grocer's shop.

By 1903 the family are doing so well that he goes on to buy the

the building he's trading from, the access route to it, The

White Hart Hotel next door. He also buys some of the cottages

behind.

He purchases some land from the Duke Of Newcastle, which he

turns into gentlemen's gardens or allotments. And it's during

this time that the family are really part of showing their

status in society. Florence actually attends the Duke Of

Newcastle's coming-of-age ball. They're moving in those sort of

higher echelons of society.

JAMES GRASBY : Workshop is known as the gateway to the Dukeries.

There are five Dukes' estates nearby, and William's business

is delivering to them as well as the townspeople. William and

Florence are flying high, and the purchase of 7 Blythe Grove

is the epitome of that success. And Florence, a follower of

fashion, is making sure that's reflected inside the house too

with the very latest trends.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: So as we go up the stairway here, you'll

notice the Egyptian-style carpet.

JAMES GRASBY : With some very obvious motifs that are

familiar, hieroglyphs, Egyptian hieroglyphs.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: In 1922, Tutankhamun's tomb was

discovered. It influenced interior design, it influenced

artists, it influenced even clothing. It's sort of the start

of that shift as well from that Art Nouveau into Art Deco. But

it was absolutely a global phenomenon that influenced many

things at that time.

And it's in 1923 that Florence decorates the house. So it's

only a year on. However, you know, with such an expensive

carpet, if you notice once you get to the middle landing here,

that it actually stops and changes.

We talk about Florence being part of the emerging middle

class and the house being here for show. So your guests would

have come through seeing the beautiful stained glass windows.

They would have been taken to the fine parlour. But then you

would not get much further. And so yeah that's why it stops on

this landing.

JAMES GRASBY : That's fascinating. So for Florence,

this was her pride and joy.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Florence very much wanted to make her

statement on the family home. If we make our way to the front

bedroom, you can see her influence throughout.

JAMES GRASBY : So we've come up a straight flight of stairs onto

half landing. This is the principal front room.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: This is the master bedroom of the house.

However, it doesn't appear to be the parents' bedroom. But even

in this space, as one of the boys' rooms, you still see

Florence's influence.

JAMES GRASBY : It's a lovely room. Floral carpets, chintz

curtains.

Florence's influence is very noticeable in the younger son,

Walter's bedroom. But there is paraphernalia from his time

running the shop.

I'm intrigued to know... Why you'd want to have huge

canisters of tea and tea measuring scoops in your

bedroom.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: It's that reminder, if you like, of a time

of probably working with his father. A bit like other objects

that have been kept in the house, like the calendars

downstairs. You know, it's that sentimentality of keeping your

family close and being able to remember those times.

JAMES GRASBY : How lovely. It's very touching, isn't it? I want

to see more.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: So William's bedroom is right at

the top of the house. And effectively in the servants'

quarters.

JAMES GRASBY : After the First World War, the older brother

William Jr. lives and teaches in London. He returns to Worksop

and 7 Blythe Grove in 1939 when his mother dies.

His attic bedroom is full of books.

A very full room. I like the gumboots by the end of the bed.

Oh, behind me, an enormous bookcase. Hundreds of books.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: William collected antiquarian and

reference books. And in his bedroom, he surrounds himself.

They're under the beds and in the bottom of his wardrobe,

which is relegated to the landing.

JAMES GRASBY : The bookcase is opposite a window, and the books

are protected by drapes that William makes himself. There are

other areas in the house where you can see the lengths he goes

to to ensure his collection is looked after.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: In the parlour there is a sampler that

his mother made when she was 11 and a half and on the back he's

put a note to let us know that it shouldn't be kept in direct

sunlight.

JAMES GRASBY : It's almost as if William, the older brother and

keeper of the House, is preparing his collection to be

given to the nation. But this kind of place, although

aspirational for the Straw's, is far from the historically

significant buildings and interiors you'd normally see

preserved for visitors.

Neither is it a personality house once lived in by a

literary or a scientific grade, or an architecturally

significant building, or a structure that showcases our

industrial heritage. And yet it's hugely important and

significant to our nation's history, a story of relatively

ordinary lives.

SIMON MURRAY: I remember incredibly clearly, as if it was

yesterday, when I got a phone call sitting in my office in

Clumber, 5 o'clock, December evening, cold and dark. And the

solicitor said, I'm phoning to let you know that the National

Trust has been left a considerable legacy by a

gentleman in Worksop, together with the contents of his house.

Would you like to come and see?

I'm Simon Murray. I was previously the Chief Operating

Officer of the National Trust and at the time of the

acquisition of Mr Straw's House I was Senior Curator and I was

the first person from the National Trust to walk through

the door of 7 Blythe Grove in 1990.

We went in, it was freezing cold, it was dark and I thought

blimey.

Here was this place that it was absolutely is stacked with

stuff. I was shown into the front room and shown that, you

know, there was the pipe of father Straw who died in 1932,

there was his slippers, there was the newspaper in 1932, and

it began to, the idea of the story, began to unravel.

But I have to say that at that time, you know, I was an expert

in things like fine art, architecture, you know. And I

wasn't sure about this at all. I took a couple of colleagues to

see it a couple of days later, and we started to ask questions.

And it became apparent that actually there was no authentic

house like this, of either sort of terraced or semi-detached

house, the most common form of housing in this country, which

was preserved as it was. Because we preserve things generally of

the aristocracy and the wealthy.

They make good things. They make great wallpapers. They have

Chippendale furniture. They have paintings by Reynolds. Most of

the stuff that exists in working or lower middle class houses has

not been made to last a great length of time. And it just

disappears. And fashions change. People move in and out of houses

all the time.

Whereas, of course, aristocratic houses, they stay there for

centuries. So the fact that... That here was a house which had

remained virtually unchanged since 1923 was extraordinary.

Very quickly we begin to understand that it was an

extraordinary survival.

JAMES GRASBY : From the ground floor to these attics, it's a

time capsule, Daniela, here, isn't it?

So what happened? Why was it that the family were so keen to

keep it all together?

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: The family sort of did resist the

advancements of technology. Walter recalls his father's

opinion on the wireless. He said, you know, well, I suppose

it's all right for people who are ill or who can't read, but I

don't think we need one.

William Jr., he noted often in his diaries, you know, I have no

wireless because I dislike having my home invaded by people

who chatter, shout, sing and from time to time play upon the

flute.

But it doesn't mean that they were recluses or hid themselves

away from the world. We have some really insightful audio

diaries. If you have a listen to this one, James, this is a

second cousin to the boys, Betty, talking about how Walter,

once he'd opened up the shop, would pop across to her

grandmother's place to get a daily fix of what was going on.

BETTY: He always chatted. You know, I wasn't sort of ignored

at all when he visited Grandma, which was every morning. As soon

as he'd opened the shop and the staff had arrived, he would come

across, he would listen to the eight o'clock news, and then he

would go back to work.

And of course, we used to see him again at tea time. He would

come across again and listen to the six o'clock news in the

evening, because they didn't have a wireless. And he was most

interested in the goings on, of course.

JAMES GRASBY : And that was Walter.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Walter did embrace technology in a

certain way, you know, but the pair were very different in

their lifestyles, in their personalities.

JAMES GRASBY : While Walter appears to embrace technology

slightly more than his older brother, it seems he might have

liked to embrace marriage too, although William again has other

ideas.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: Walter went dancing with a lady friend

that was his second cousin. I believe that William didn't

approve of the relationship, disapproved of the marriage of a

second cousin.

JAMES GRASBY : Further audio diaries recorded with people who

knew the Straw's at around the time the house is bequeathed to

the National Trust reveal more about Walter's desire to marry.

NEIGHBOURS: There were suggestions he was close to

getting engaged at one time but Walter, William, put the kibosh

on it.

He would.

Put the kibosh on it.

JAMES GRASBY : So in that clip we heard that Walter might have

liked to have married but William dissuaded him and

perhaps his motivation for that was so as not to bring in

someone new who'd bring outside change to the house.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: So William Jr was definitely the

most adverse of the brothers to change. He carefully preserved

and cared for his family possessions and with a view of

leaving the collection to the National Trust he certainly

wouldn't have appreciated that intrusion or change.

And so having not married, it is one of the reasons that the

house remains as it does today. Had either brother married,

probably they would have had children, they would have come

in, redecorated to the fashions of those times, and you'd have

seen a shift change within the house again.

JAMES GRASBY : Are there people in the town who remember them?

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: So yeah, the family is still within

living memory. In fact, one of our long-standing volunteers

here, Sheila, remembers the Straw brothers. We can head down

to chat with her now.

JAMES GRASBY : Oh, wow.

And so we head back downstairs to meet Sheila in the kitchen.

Sheila, you're so lovely to come round. How do you do? I'm James

Grasby.

SHEILA: I'm Sheila Foster.

JAMES GRASBY : Sheila knew William Jr. And Walter from 1938

until they passed away. Walter in 1976 and William Jr. In 1990.

Sheila, how do you explain why Mr Straw wanted to give the

contents of his house to the National Trust? What was it

about it that he wanted?

SHEILA: I think he wanted people to see things. That one, had

belonged to his beloved mother and father. That two, there were

things that he'd saved for years and years and years, which were

of historical interest to people. And yet, I think if

William could come back, he would order you all out because

he wouldn't want people walking in his beloved mother and

father's house.

JAMES GRASBY : So it was a sort of monument.

SHEILA: When father died in 1932, mother said the house must

remain as it was when father was alive. And then when mother died

in 1939, William and Walter decided, I think it was more

William, because Walter always gave in to him, William decided

that the house must remain as it was when their mother and father

were alive. And William got so engrossed in this that he didn't

want anything to change. If it wasn't here when father was

alive, it wasn't to be here now.

William was really, really the apple of his mother's eye. So it

was a great loss to William. Even though he'd lived in

London, and he didn't return home till after his mother had

died, he then he sets about making sure that everything will

remain as it was. He wanted the house to stay as a shrine for

his parents.

JAMES GRASBY : That's beautifully put. What a pleasure

to meet you. You are lovely to come out.

SHEILA: Thank you very much.

JAMES GRASBY : Back down the hall, the oak stairs.

Danielle, thank you very much indeed. That was fascinating.

It's fascinating to hear, isn't it? A first-hand account.

Somebody who'd actually met them and seen them and was part of

the community around them.

I mean, thinking of the era that it spans, I mean, the boys were

born at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria.

They lived through the First World War, the Great Depression,

the Second World War. They saw the advent of flight, of the

first computer, of the telephone, of electric light, of

nuclear power, of the atomic bomb.

And then right up into the 60s, they saw the Vietnam War. I

mean, there's a pace of change and the era that they lived in

was quite astonishing.

DANIELLE LANDER-BROWN: They were very aware of the world around

them and how it was changing and the pace it was changing at. And

it may be one of the factors that almost is holding William

back that, you know, looking back a bit of nostalgia within

himself of a life, if you like, or a lifestyle that was being

lost with such rapid change.

So to be able to leave. This archive, this story for the

nation to be able to learn from and remember and to reminisce

with, in some ways was very forward thinking whilst looking

back at the same time.

JAMES GRASBY : Thanks for listening to this episode of

Backwith.

You can send us your ratings and reviews if you'd like, and we

have two nature podcasts, Wild Tales and Nature Fix, you could

check out too. For now, from me, James Grasby, goodbye.