in his flat overlooking the nudist beach. My accountant has had 2 heart attacks and his stand-in annoys me beyond belief. I think I shall give him the tin-tack. We attended the opening of the Drag Hunt’s new Kennels near Lambourn. The Master saw fit to make a speech containing three exceptionally vulgar stories which shocked the adults but were greeted with howls of delight by the many children present. Mrs Surtees came to lunch in the garden last week and I provided a delicious hock cup. Nidnod and Mrs S both felt very poorly afterwards and I think I must have overdone the ‘special offer’ Bulgarian brandy. I had quite a bad headache myself. No news of your brother who, as far as I know, and I don’t know much, is still unemployed. Mr Parkinson is lumbered with his mother-in-law who is driving him round the bend as she drinks a lot, never stops talking and is inclined to be incontinent. Mrs Gaselee is recovering slowly from a fractured skull. We did not go to the Lambourn Lurcher Show yesterday: too many gypsies and thieves of every description.
Best love,
D
My father’s letters were better than any gossip column and probably more accurate.
Budds Farm
Monday
Dearest L,
So sorry to learn that Rebecca’s godfather and your great friend had died. I assume not unexpectedly. It is sad when some old buffer who has been a friend of mine for years drops off the hook: it is infinitely worse when a young man in his prime is the victim.
All my sympathy to you and Henry.
D
Andy Loch was – and still is – sadly missed. At his memorial service half the congregation was made up of crying girls!
Home of Rest for Impoverished Members of the Middle Class Burghclere
11 October
Dearest L,
I hope all goes well with you. Plenty of rain here and the garden very muddy in consequence. Nowadays Mr Randall turns up in very posh clothes, attired for a luncheon party in SW1 rather than for digging manure into the vegetable plot. This week-end he and Mrs R are off on a coach tour in Devonshire. They have a much better time than Nidnod and I do. It has been truly said that the pleasures of youth are not really pleasures, and that the consolations of old age do not exist at all. Jane is glowing with pride after her article in the ‘Daily Telegraph’. I worked for the DT for eight weeks in 1955. The Sports Editor was always sloshed by teatime and I had the utmost difficulty in getting paid. We went out to dinner with some very nice people last Wednesday, rich too, but the repast was revolting. The first course looked and tasted like Sunlight Soap. I sat next to a fearsome old bag, Lady Grimthorpe, who feigned deafness. In my view she is an absolutely ideal candidate for the lethal chamber. The following day we had a very good lunch with John Abergavenny who is giving up his job as the Queen’s Ascot Representative. I think Nidnod was sitting next to a trainer who has become a millionaire by shrewd property deals. Most of his horses belong to an Arab who runs a series of highly profitable abortion clinics in Hammersmith. I was introduced to a v small Polish girl whom I thought was having a day off from a local school. However later I saw her with her noggin in a tankard of the hard stuff and discovered she was 26! Poor old Solomon is getting very frail and simply could not jump up on my bed this morning. His appetite, though, remains unimpaired.
Did you hear about the lady who had three whippets? She called them ‘whippetin, whippetout and whipe-pet’.
I hate my new accountant who looks like Himmler and is liable to behave like him, too. Mrs Hislop recently met Loopy’s first wife, I think her name is Cecilia, and said she was very good looking still. Someone I met, possibly Emma’s brother, mucks in with Henry’s brother at Bristol Univ. I hear the glamorous Miss Blacker is being courted by an individual called ‘John the Barman’.
Best love,
D
Did you know that Harry Randall is rhyming slang for candle?
My father is
Best love,
D
My father’s letters were better than any gossip column and probably more accurate.
Budds Farm
Monday
Dearest L,
So sorry to learn that Rebecca’s godfather and your great friend had died. I assume not unexpectedly. It is sad when some old buffer who has been a friend of mine for years drops off the hook: it is infinitely worse when a young man in his prime is the victim.
All my sympathy to you and Henry.
D
Andy Loch was – and still is – sadly missed. At his memorial service half the congregation was made up of crying girls!
Home of Rest for Impoverished Members of the Middle Class Burghclere
11 October
Dearest L,
I hope all goes well with you. Plenty of rain here and the garden very muddy in consequence. Nowadays Mr Randall turns up in very posh clothes, attired for a luncheon party in SW1 rather than for digging manure into the vegetable plot. This week-end he and Mrs R are off on a coach tour in Devonshire. They have a much better time than Nidnod and I do. It has been truly said that the pleasures of youth are not really pleasures, and that the consolations of old age do not exist at all. Jane is glowing with pride after her article in the ‘Daily Telegraph’. I worked for the DT for eight weeks in 1955. The Sports Editor was always sloshed by teatime and I had the utmost difficulty in getting paid. We went out to dinner with some very nice people last Wednesday, rich too, but the repast was revolting. The first course looked and tasted like Sunlight Soap. I sat next to a fearsome old bag, Lady Grimthorpe, who feigned deafness. In my view she is an absolutely ideal candidate for the lethal chamber. The following day we had a very good lunch with John Abergavenny who is giving up his job as the Queen’s Ascot Representative. I think Nidnod was sitting next to a trainer who has become a millionaire by shrewd property deals. Most of his horses belong to an Arab who runs a series of highly profitable abortion clinics in Hammersmith. I was introduced to a v small Polish girl whom I thought was having a day off from a local school. However later I saw her with her noggin in a tankard of the hard stuff and discovered she was 26! Poor old Solomon is getting very frail and simply could not jump up on my bed this morning. His appetite, though, remains unimpaired.
Did you hear about the lady who had three whippets? She called them ‘whippetin, whippetout and whipe-pet’.
I hate my new accountant who looks like Himmler and is liable to behave like him, too. Mrs Hislop recently met Loopy’s first wife, I think her name is Cecilia, and said she was very good looking still. Someone I met, possibly Emma’s brother, mucks in with Henry’s brother at Bristol Univ. I hear the glamorous Miss Blacker is being courted by an individual called ‘John the Barman’.
Best love,
D
Did you know that Harry Randall is rhyming slang for candle?
My father is
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