LONG AGO, in the days before Sue Barker turned orange, tennis was a founding staple of the BBC. On the night of the inaugural TV broadcast in 1936 one of the first people to be interviewed was Kay Stammers, the Elena Baltacha to Fred Perry’s Tim Henman. Stammers had won the ladies’ doubles at Wimbledon in 1935 and 1936, and, like Barker, was a bit of a flirt. She was friendly with the young John F. Kennedy, who she said had only to crook his finger for girls to come running. Stammers practised for Wimbledon at the family home in St Albans, which is for sale with Strutt and Parker (01727 840285) for £1,395,000. The four-bed house no longer has a tennis court — although the 150ft lawn is flat and you could put up a net — but it still has an Anderson shelter where Stammers hid from German bombs the year after reaching the ladies’ singles final. Clearly her friendship with JFK, whose father was the US Ambassador to Britain, wasn’t so strong that she could get America into the war sooner.
WONDERWALL is the song that most of us like to listen to when we move house, according to a poll of 1,000 people by the removal company Bishop’s Move. The Oasis wail pipped Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, while the Doors, who probably come under fixtures and fittings, were fifteenth with Light My Fire.
ELLEN MACARTHUR may have got a few perks after her circumnavigation earlier this year — a damehood and, presumably, as many screws as she wanted from her DIY sponsor — but as far as we know she hasn’t yet been given a country estate. Sir Francis Drake, the first Briton to sail round the globe, was more fortunate. He got Gayhurst House, a Buckinghamshire pile, which has now been carved up into 28 lock-up-and-leave flats. No 19, a four-bed apartment, is for sale with Knight Frank (01789 297735) for £900,000. Perhaps if Dame Ellen had beaten up a few Spaniards on her journey she’d have been given it for free.
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NOT SINCE THE DAYS when wet T-shirt competitions were acceptable has a seaside holiday in the North of England been so popular. According to the Property Investor and Homebuyer Show, which is on this weekend at the G-Mex in Manchester, house prices in places such as Cleethorpes and Bridlington have doubled over the past five years because of the demand for holiday lets close to a place that serves proper chips. Or, if you really want to splash out, the pier at Fleetwood, Lancashire, is being sold at auction at the Berkeley Hotel in London by Allsop & Co. The 100-yard pier has all the attractions you would expect and makes £165,000 in rent a year. It is expected to fetch bids above £1.3 million.
PATRICK KIDD
patrick.kidd@thetimes.co.uk