Ralph Vaughan Williams's father died when Ralph was two years old; his mother took her three small children to her own parents' house, Leith Hill Place, near Dorking, and brought them up much as she had been brought up herself. Besides the children, the household consisted of grandparents and a maiden aunt, and a staff of servants, mostly local people. Judging from a photograph of a group of them, none was young, and all were slightly eccentric.