Our Patron's visit to Hindhead

The day was Friday 11th February and the weather may not have been good, but the rain stayed away long enough for us to trundle around the Hindhead area and speed off for lunch to a rather fitting location in Grayshott.

We met Mark in the Devil's Punchbowl Hotel, Undershaw's contemporary where he was given a lengthy spill by Mr Gibson of it's history, and there is an awful lot of history that goes with this great house. Mark was very attentive whilst John Gibson reeled off dates, events and names directly from the top of his head, where Mark showed great interest and passion towards his role as Patron and to the information that was being fed to him.

He felt sure that if we had been the owners of this house, monies could be raised through several of his ideas as fundraising schemes, but of course we don't own it and this is what changes the whole situation.

As far as the media attention is concerned I believe Mr Gatiss will promote the campaign wherever possible linking it to the next series of 'Sherlock'. He did a short interview for us which we may use as a possible press release or just for our benefit on the website and was happy enough to sign the 50 cards that will make up an 8 postcard set due for release to coincide with the Judicial Review. These will be auctioned off on e-bay. The content of the card is a close kept secret until their release.

The meeting was very successful and Mark is very much the gentleman that I had imagined him to be. Instantly you feel as though you have known him for years, feeling very relaxed in his company.

It was unfortunate but the meeting took most of our time and visits to Doyle's family graves had to be aborted until Mark's next visit.