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events, he enjoyed himself. We went to a cocktail party with the Gaselees last Friday: a large number of people in a confined space and I never heard a word anyone said which in fact was not an intolerable deprivation. We had supper at The Swan at Shefford afterwards which is only slightly more expensive than Claridges but they do mushrooms in garlic rather well. Relations between your mother and Aunt Pam remain rather colder than those between Russia and America. I expect they will make it up eventually and then both turn on me and rend me limb from limb. I may come up to London this month as I have been asked to an oyster party at Bentleys and a lunch at the Savoy which will make a change from tinned spaghetti hoops. I really rather envy Lupin in Kenya. I gather he has taken over the hotel motor-boats with the result that none of them are working. I had lunch with Mrs Hislop last Saturday. As a non-stop chatter she is superior even to your mother and talks almost as much balls.
    Best love,
    D XX
    Lupin is blissfully happy on the island of Lamu in Kenya tinkering with boat engines and in the evening reading out my dad’s letters to a small audience on the veranda of the Hotel Peponi.
    Budds Farm
    26 February
    Dearest L,
    Thank you so much for asking me to the christening and the party afterwards. I enjoyed both of them very much indeed and I think they went off very well. Rebecca behaved with singular decorum. I hope I struck up rather a beautiful friendship with Henry’s grandmother but I am not absolutely confident on that point. I trust the photographs came out well! I had a baddish drive home as your mother was very cross and gave me a fearful bashing which continued till she went to bed.
    At all events, thank you both very much indeed.
    Best love,
    RM
    Rebecca’s christening is the first jamboree that both sides of the family have attended since the marriage blessing. Our best friend and Rebecca’s godfather, Andy Loch, kindly allowed us to use his flat in Lennox Gardens for the christening party.
    Tuesday
    Dearest L,
    Very many thanks for your charming porcine card which I greatly appreciated. We motored up to London yesterday to go to the Press Derby dinner where I received a presentation. Those present were for the most part boring and ill-dressed. The Chairman, Lord Rothermere, made a ghastly speech but there were rather more entertaining ones by Wilfred Hyde-White and Robert Morley. I had a drink beforehand with Emma E’s father and step-mother: they are worried about E who is swanning about Brazil and no one knows quite where she is. At dinner Nidnod sat next to a son of the late Prime Minister, Lord Attlee, who was accompanied by a lady with lemon coloured hair and a slight impediment in her speech. Mr A himself was, I think, pissed and achieved the notable feat of outtalking your mother. I was next to David Langdon, the cartoonist who does a lot of work for Punch. I spent a night last week with Cousin John at Brighton. He has a superb flat overlooking the Marina and the nudist bathing beach. By a fortunate chance he owns a huge telescope which he says is for studying the stars. Douglas Byng came to dinner. He is 87 and used to sing in drag at the Café de Paris in the nineteen thirties – very funny and vulgar. He is still very much on the ball and obliged with ‘I’m Milly, a messy old Mermaid’ and ‘Twenty years a chambermaid in a house of ill repute’. Peregrine has been poorly and Nidnod has been in quite a flap. The garden is very dried up and ugly. We went to a fearful local party and got nothing to drink bar weak and tepid Pimms. I had a very coarse post-card from Freddy B-Atkins about Charlotte’s engagement.
    Love to all from all of us,
    D xx
    My parents and their friends could be described as many things, boring not being one of them.
    Budds Farm
    4 August
    Dearest L,
    Thank you for your interesting letter. All is fairly quiet here though your mother’s conduct is liable to be