The David Jones Sale Of The Year
Sun Herald
Sunday February 4, 1996
Charles Lloyd Jones is clearing out the cupboards, as JAMES ORAM discovered.
IN the valley nothing stirs in the heat. Not a bird or a beast or even a breeze. The only sound is the panting, like far-off steam engines, of three cocker spaniels sprawled in the shade of the wide veranda.
"You know," says Charles Lloyd Jones, looking out over Irish-green paddocks in front or his house, "if I was still running David Jones I wouldn't be sitting out here now.
"Life has to go on. If you dwell on the past and things that are unfortunate, you only end up being very sour. Life's to be lived and enjoyed."
Charles Lloyd Jones, 63, could be forgiven for dwelling in the past, for there was a time when he lived in the grandest of homes, the Woollahra mansion called Rosemount. Sydney society swirled around his parents, Sir Charles and Lady Lloyd Jones.
In his garage was a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and a Bentley Shooting Brake. Dobells and Streetons hung on walls of rooms filled with antiques. Georgian silver gleamed at dinner parties. Calvi marble and bronze busts stared blankly at guests.
He was to become executive chairman of David Jones, which was established by his great grandfather and heir to the great retail fortune. In the mornings he would walk through the Elizabeth Street store, past the polished brass, the glittering crystal, the porcelain and pottery from around the world, would sniff the expensive perfumes, admire the displays of stylish clothing and the staff would nod and say, "Morning, Mr Charles."
Then John Spalvins entered his life. "That's a name I don't like," says Lloyd Jones. "He ruined a perfectly good business. But of course it was the finances he destroyed, not the character of the shop."
In the greed of the 1980s, fuelled by recklessly generous banks, Spalvins added David Jones to his bloated and structurally complicated company, Adelaide Steamship. The company went belly up in one of the biggest financial disasters of the period. Charles Lloyd Jones saw his shares, of which he had a goodly number, plummet from $12 to a few cents.
Rosemount was sold in 1981 for $2.5 million, much of its contents for another couple of million. "No, selling it really didn't faze me and I had lived all my life there," he says, picking at a small portion of the chicken salad he has served for lunch on the veranda.
"I was surprised to find mother's chauffeur used to go back there and sit on the stairs, when the house was empty for six months, thinking of the good old days. I thought it quite strange."
Four years ago he sold another house at Watsons Bay, before moving to the 260 hectares in Yarramalong Valley bought 27 years ago, where he bred murray greys. Neville Wran has a house a couple of ridges away. John Laws lives further up the valley.
Last year he sold much of the property and homestead he had built, moving into a smaller house on 40 hectares. He plans to replace the murray greys with belted galloways.
"I think they're the most marvellous looking cattle, black with a white stripe around their middle," he says in the manner of a gentleman farmer. "They'll look pretty out in the paddock, don't you think?"
Now he is selling what will not fit into his new home. More than 600 items will be offered by Pickles Auction House on the property next Saturday.
"It's a giant, upmarket garage sale," he says cheerfully.
"All the things I no longer have a need for. I work on the basis if I haven't used anything since I've been up here it can't be that important.
"I mean, Rosemount operated with eight dinner services. I'm hard pressed to use one now. And what can you do with 80 baccarat martini glasses?"
He walks among the pieces to be auctioned.
There are reminders of the rich and famous who dined at Rosemount, of his parents, of the days when the David Jones Elizabeth Street store was a palace in the city. But there are no ghosts, only sweet memories.
He points to a pair of red lacquer chairs used for the Prince of Wales' investiture at Caernarvon Castle, Wales, in 1969, one of which has been savaged by the cocker spaniels.
"Bought them from a chap who said he was Bing Crosby's butler," he says. "How he came to have them I'll never know."
Two other investiture chairs are not for sale. One was occupied by his mother at the Welsh ceremony.
Another two chairs, also far from the reach of the auctioneer, have the Queen's insignia woven on their backs. His parents sat in them during the Queen's 1953 coronation at Westminster Abbey.
He walks to an 18th century chinoiserie bookcase containing jade and rose quartz pieces, Meissen bird figures and porcelain, all numbered and ready to go. Over there is a 19th century French chandelier, past a room full of Dobells sits an 18th century ceramic casa pupu bird cage.
Outside is a 1926 Albion fire engine, said to be the first fire engine in Canberra, which Charles Lloyd Jones half owns with John Laws.
"We got bored with it after a while," he says.
Later he talks fondly of David Jones' Elizabeth Street store, opened in 1927 and inspired by Sachs Fifth Avenue, New York. He mentions that some of its furniture was made by Captain de Groot, who not only unofficially opened the Sydney Harbour Bridge before Premier Jack Lang could snip the ribbon, but was a cabinet-maker.
"I can remember as a child going as a treat to the restaurant in David Jones for afternoon tea. A full orchestra used to play. It seemed I always wanted them to play Run, Rabbit Run, whatever the hell that was."
He shakes his head when asked if it's painful for him to go back to the shop. "No, not at all, I think the existing management has done an amazing job in maintaining standards."
Coming from a privileged background, he often attended dinners at Government House. He remembers further back when his father's country house near Moss Vale was next door to the Governor's country house.
The Governor's wife, Lady Wakehurst, would pop in for a cup of tea. "But Lord Wakehurst would not. The Governor never went to a private house."
Some of the Government House dinners were "unbelievably pompous". He names one Governor's wife who curtsied to her husband when leaving the dining room.
Which brings him to the present arguments about Government House. "It would seem Carr hasn't judged the people correctly on this one," he says, carefully choosing his words.
"And it would seem the objection to it is the lack of consultation. I don't know if he understands, and he should understand, how involved the Governor is with worthy sections of the community.
"Carr is a shrewd politician. He should have gauged the feeling of the people. And I think it's a fool of a thing to do before a federal election because it's divisive."
Having said that, he nods vigorously when asked if he favours a republic. "I certainly do. I believe it's inevitable and I believe it's necessary.
"First of all you must have a referendum. But I can't believe a referendum will succeed until my generation has passed."
The sudden sound is from a coming storm, not the agitated rattle of red lacquer chairs bearing the Prince of Wales plume.
© 1996 Sun Herald
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