Late Great Aunt Olive related some amusing stories to us about our family and their friends. The following tells of her childhood visits to the home of the eccentric Leggatt brothers. I have since discovered these were the Leggatts of ‘Leggatt Brothers Fine Art Dealers’ of London and they may have been friends of my great-great grandfather, an engraver.
Charles the Valet and the Leggatt Brothers
as related by Aunt Olive
“I don’t know how, but my mother and her sisters knew some posh people. They were always coming in and out of our house, and we went in and out of theirs. They were very kind to us as children and we went there and had beautiful meals.
The Leggatts were art dealers; we must have known them through the Waterlows who were friends of Grandpa. There were four brothers, and they were a little strange. They were Mr. Percy, Mr. Dudley, Mr. Claude [sic], and Mr. Somebody Else. They had a servant called ‘Charles the Valet’ who looked after them. One brother was an artist, one was interested in cars; he had a lot of cars. And one didn’t do anything. He must have been retired.
And I remember as a child I was sat on his lap and he said to me, “Don’t I have lovely hair?” And I said “Oh! Yes!” And he said “Would you like to feel it?” So I did. It didn’t feel like hair.
And then he said, “Yes, it’s not hair you know! I’m bald! I don’t like being bald, so Charles paints it. He paints my hair on every day!”