The Seven Ages of One Man. By Richard L. Hills. 296 pp., well illustrated throughout. Gloucester UK: The Choir Press, 2018. £16.90 (PB). ISBN-9781911589679.
So we have an autobiography of a great man – the Rev. Dr. Richard Hills. He is well known for his work at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and this book is entitled The Seven Ages of One Man or How one man started the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. However take notice of the cover picture where the museum is shown as one segment in a circle of seven pictures, one for each of the seven ages – while Richard spins above them. When we get to look inside the book we find it is not all about the Museum but about Richard Hills himself and what he had to say about his own life.
It begins very properly with his birth in 1936 and the first stage of his life; I’m pleased to see, in Lee Green in South London. I had always known he was Kentish, something I think he was quite rightly proud of. His mother died when he was very, very young and he was initially brought up by his grandparents - his grandfather was Chairman of Fremlins Brewery and they lived in some comfort. During the Second World War his father was away and Richard with his brother and sister were cared for by a variety of relatives mostly living in country houses in comfortable circumstances. After the War they joined their father, who had remarried, and become Vicar at Seal, in Kent. Richard’s earliest school days were in Tunbridge Wells – at what was clearly a private school.
He tells the usual schoolboy stories and the growing amount of freedom he had allowing him to move around on his own and learn about the world and these stories are often tinged with humour. He had an increasing interest in technology. Every page is full of detail about events, relationships and what’s going on in his life and things around him and throughout the book he stresses his Christian commitment. Mysteriously throughout the book he describes himself as ‘The Little Prince’. Perhaps I have missed his explanation of this phrase – or misunderstood the connotations with Saint-Exupéry!
He was eventually to join his older brother at Charterhouse School where again he seems to have done well. I am relieved to learn that someone who was not sporty could flourish in a public school environment. He specialised in classics in the Sixth Form, became a prefect and head of his house.
His ‘third age’ sees him doing National Service for two years like other young men but he was quickly selected for officer training. After that he went to take up a place at Queens’ College Cambridge and read history. I am impressed by the name of his tutor - Peter Mathias, the brewing historian. Lecturers included G. R. Elton, biographer of Elizabeth I - who I recall being urged to read when I was doing A Level.
A growing interest in mountaineering eventually led to a life changing incident and perhaps put him on the path for which he is now best known. With a group in Cumberland his left leg was broken and crushed. Things got worse and worse; he narrowly escaped amputation but was moved from hospital to hospital from specialist to specialist. In a period between hospitals he was taken by some friends to the pumping station at Stretham [1] but was unable to climb the stairs. Bored he looked in a chest and found inside books, with the records of the pumping engine. They were to change his career and his life.
So we have to reach his ‘sixth age’ before Manchester is mentioned in connection with the Museum. By then he had a reputation from his published works on the drainage of the Fens, on the Stretham engine and much else. He had a ‘growing interest’ in industrial archaeology, and was getting known. He was at the Manchester Museum for 16 or so years and many readers will relish the detail of the exhibits and how they were chosen and exhibited. He left citing ill health and, I guess, exhaustion.
His ‘seventh age’ was full of diverse activity. There is a whole chapter on his work as a paper historian and then, of course, his ordination. Clearly this was something very important to him. The focus turns from the Manchester Museum to his Christian faith and his personal life - and so it should be. The other thing of great importance to him throughout the book and to which the longest chapter is devoted is his Lancia Lamda [2]. He bought it as a young man and only sold it when Parkinson disease meant that he could no longer drive. Also something very important to him was his marriage to Bernice at the age of I think 72.
This is an easy book to read, crammed with incident. It’s a paper back and it must have been Richard’s own decision to bring out this autobiography in an informal format. It also shows what is important in a life alongside the public events.
Oh and thank you to him for being so nice to me when I met him and for taking me seriously - although I guess he knew I couldn’t have told the Lancia from a Ford Popular. Such a nice man.
[1] Stretham Old Engine, Cambridgeshire UK. TL 516 730.
[2] These innovative Lancia cars were built between 1922 and 1931.
Dr Mary Mills
Newcomen Society
marymillsmmmmm@aol.com
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