50 C O N T E X T 1 1 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 0 Vox pop Your favourite book? Still, after all these years, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Reading this in school as an 11-year-old, the book totally changed my young world view. I have never read anything since which has impacted on me so completely. What do you do in your spare time? Work for a Colombian children’s charity called In Ministry to Children; read; make bad gluten-free cakes which never rise; knit; hang out with my husband; and run up huge phone bills to my siblings. What organisations are you a member of? The Georgian Group, National Trust, Friends of Winchester Cathedral and HampshireWildlife Trust. I also intend to reinstate my Garden History Society Membership later this year. Which one issue would you particularly like the IHBC to campaign on? Definitely and without doubt balancing the resources for local authority conservation officers. They can be under so much pressure with so many calls on their time that it affects what they can realistically achieve. Ultimately this can, sadly but inevitably, affect the historic environment for the worst. Carole Fry, who writes Context’s ‘Architecturally speaking’ column (p47), is an architectural historian and conservation consultant with AHC Consultants. Who has been your greatest inspiration? My great grandfather Louis Decrop, who I only met as a baby. He ran away to sea aged 14 to save his mother the worry of trying to feed him during desperate times and rose to become a captain in the Belgian Navy. He saved countless lives during the second world war undertaking daring and secret missions against the Nazis. Louis was incredibly brave, not just once, but over and over again. Fortunately, he was never caught and lived to a ripe old age growing espalier fruit trees, mainly pears, in Oostende. What has been your best idea? Pursuing architectural history as part of my career. I absolutely love it. What would you like to have been if you had not become a conservationist? Secretly, a ballerina, though I grew too tall. How do you reply when at a party someone asks what you do? Normally ‘I work with historic buildings’, which nearly always provokes genuine interest and a good conversation. What is the biggest frustration in your job? To be honest there is very little frustration, it’s the best job in the world. I guess the most frustrating part is when my research turns up something amazingly interesting about a historic site and the owners just don’t get it. Or worse still see it as a hindrance. Fortunately, most owners catch the excitement, so it does not happen often. What would you like to be doing in five years time? More of the same, definitely What is your favourite building? What an impossible question! If pushed I would have to say the Chateau Vendeuvre in Normandy by JacqueFrancois Blondel. It is one of the relatively few classical buildings that seems happy in its own skin rather than being aware that it is on show and itching in its best clothes. Vendeuvre’s air of quiet elegance, in the middle of rural France and surrounded by cows in meadows, is something to behold. Your favourite place? Low-minded answer: the beach in Gran Canaria, where I can always be found at some point during April. Higher-minded answer:Winchester Cathedral: the most peaceful, prayerful and evocative building on the planet.
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