FINDING SURPRISES IN A CASTLE

Radio Record, 31 July 1936, Page 56

FINDING SURPRISES IN A CASTLE

(Specially written for Radiobeams by Beula Hay.) I AM speaking from Sydney, the city of surprises,-and this week I found one of the biggest surprises-I saw a real castle! It was late afternoon. whe. I was passing down a street near the edge of the Harbour when suddenly I saw some grey towers looming up behind a house. I hurriedly crossed the street and looked closer. YES, IT WAS A CASTLE! I could scarcely believe my eyes and hurried around to the front entrance. Of course one wouldn’t DREAM of entering a castle by the back entrance. ‘Vl knock on this cobwebby door and see what happens,’ I thought. No, it wasn’t a funny old woman like a witch, with black cats around her, who opened the door. It was opened by a man in shirt sleeves.. He said he was the caretaker. ; ‘"Ob, I WOULD like to see over this wonderful old castle,’’ I said. He said, ‘‘Well, come in if you don’t mind the dust." "YOU don’t want to go down into the dungeons of coutse, do you? You'd get covered in dust and cobwebs, It’s damp, too,"’ he said, "Oh, PLEASE show them to me,"’ I persuaded. So he found a candle and we crept through the cold, dark passages and down dozens of steps. And do you know? [ have since bcen told that in the early days some convicts were kept down there! When we came upstairs again we entered the castle kitchen. I knew a castle must have a kitchen. But somehow or other [ was quite surprised to find in "Grantham," this very old and almost deserted castle. On the two enormous stoves are big rusty saucepans. After seeing the boiler room, coachman’s room, the gardeners’ quarters, the stables, dog kennels and servants’ rooms,’ we climbed the wide staircase in the front entrance hall and explored all the rooms, which overlooked the Harbour Bridge. The walls of the castle are twenty-eight inches thick. Now, what do you think of that? And the rooms smell very musty. The ceilings in the ballroom and lounges are gilded and the fireplaces are of marble. _After climbing up lots of stairs I found myself on top of the castle and I wanted to take off my hat and call out to the people in the streets below, ‘‘Ha! Ha! I’m the King of the Castle, and you’re the ----" but you know the rest, don’t you? : The caretaker told me that when the wealthy English pioneer family came out to Australia over a hundred years ago and built this castle, the castle was entirely surrounded by a wilderness of bush, and aboriginies and bushrangers frequently tried to "‘storm" the castle to loot it, but the owners and men servants used to shoot at the outlaws from the tower. .:..1 asked the caretaker if he was afraid of sleeping in a big castle all by himself.. I thought that a real old castle ‘would probably have at least one ghost.. But he laughed loudly and said, "‘There aren’t any ghosts, OR THINGS LIKE THAT!" You know, even although ‘I am now quite a big girl, I am sometimes afraid of the dark. But if I-am ever again afraid of being in the dark by myself, ’ll think of the man who sleeps ALL ALONE in the dusty. dark castle, and Ill ‘think how silly I am to be afraid of: nothing at all.