Welcome to Neville Dilkes books
I Bought a Hall
and other books...
The diary about the life of
conductor, Neville Dilkes
This diary describes not only a conducting career but also covers childhood memories, family life and his passion for sailing, though happy and turbulent times.
Tixover Hall
I first thought of writing this book when I bought Tixover Hall in the County of Rutland in May 1968. Whilst dining with my wife Pamela and my four daughters on our first Saturday evening in our new and beautiful surroundings, I suddenly felt so proud that I was prompted to announce that one day I would write a book to commemorate this important achievement in our lives. Little did I then know what the future had in store.
From renting council properties in Corby, to buying three cottages in the country, and then a lovely period property in the middle of Stamford, we finally reached our pinnacle, so to speak, with the purchase of Tixover Hall – and all this coinciding with my move from teaching to conducting.
From time to time Pamela would remind me that the book was still waiting to be written, and later after Pamela’s death, my present wife Christine, humorously made it a condition of her coming to live in France in 1998. In this diary the reader is invited to share my interests, which apart from music, forming an orchestra and my conducting career, include sailing, flying, antiquarian horology, philosophy, cars and more recently cosmology. Now finally in 2021 it has been written.