Debutantes Timewatch

I don't think they were very innocent, really honestly. And some of them certainly were not.

NSIT, Not Safe In Taxis.

In other words, don't be left alone with him, whatever you do.

MTF - Must Touch Flesh. That was one of the dirty old creeps that pinched your bottom.

There was that magic bit between the top of your stockings and the bottom of your...

Your knickers had strong elastic, you know. Well, they did, you'll have to believe me!

And there was something like two inches of bare, bare skin.

And that's the most wicked thing.

I was so ignorant, that I would sit bolt upright on the edge of my seat in case somebody kissed me.

Because I thought if he kissed me, I might have a baby. I was 17!

Think of nowadays!

I think romance has gone out of the window.

-It's "Your place or mine?" now.

-Yes, it doesn't exist any more.

The annual Debutante Season

was designed to introduce the new crop of society girls into the upper class marriage market.

In 1939, with war approaching, the season carried on as usual.

One of the highlights was Queen Charlotte's Ball.

It was a joke. It really was a joke.

Curtsying to a cake!

But it was one of those things that,

as the Americans would say, you ticked off.

You did it unquestioningly.

Elizabeth Northumberland, Sarah Churchill,

Bridget Elliot and I, were banned

because they thought... we thought it was slightly funny.

We had to wear hearts round our necks. We thought we looked ridiculous.

We were considered to be a disruptive influence.

-I

-think she's probably right, yes!

I think she IS probably right.

I teased Elizabeth Northumberland much later on

when she became the person who cut the cake for the Queen Charlotte's Ball. I thought, "What a change!"

I was Queen Charlotte.

Other people had to come and curtsy to me. That was quite funny!

There she was in her tiara being very correct!

Each deb had her own coming out dance.

There was often more than one in the same evening. Some of them small, some, like the Holland House Ball,

rather grander.

My cousin, Lord Ilchester, lived in it.

And his granddaughter, Mab Fox-Strangways,

was one of my early girlfriends.

And I used to go to picnics there as a little boy...

and in Holland Park, which was the garden, for God's sake!

Quite a large garden! It was all in private hands. And I think they had a pheasant shoot there, too.

Lord Ilchester had a high contralto voice -

"Hello, Martin, how are you this evening?"

And his wife, who was my cousin Birdie,

had a bass, a double bass voice, "Hello, Martyn!"

Occasionally got them mixed up, of course.

But they were old-style aristocrats.

Lord Ilchester had lent his house for the coming out ball of Rosalind Cubit,

the mother of Camilla Parker-Bowles, and the granddaughter of Edward VII's mistress, Mrs Keppel.

Unusually for a deb's dance, the royal family was there in full force.

It was a bit awkward, cos if the Queen came into the room, you all had to stand up

when you were sitting out with some delicious young man.

However, she was sweet and said we could sit down again.

But you couldn't leave the room...

I remember the horror of that ball, my first dance...

people queuing... I couldn't find the hostess to say how do you do.

My father danced me round the room once, I was then lost.

And I couldn't see a soul I knew and just found my parents and I said, "I just must go home!"

"I can't bear it, I don't know anybody!

"I can't see anybody! It's horrid, it's a squash!"

Anyway, after that, one went to friends' houses and there were lovely balls and the summer flew by.

I suppose a lot of people were aware that it could be the last.

Holland House was an early casualty of the Blitz.

One wing was saved and is now a youth hostel. The 500-acre estate

has become the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's largest public park.

# And as long as my heart will beat

# Lover, we'll always meet

# Here in my deep

# Purple dream! #

I think the really beautiful dances

were ones that took place in the country. They were the nicest of all.

We went to a very good one at a place called Dutton Homesall.

It was splendid. There was a suit of armour in the hall

which had a radio inside, which we thought was very dashing!

I had never seen that before!

It was the first time I'd seen someone fully-clothed dive into a swimming pool.

I thought that was... We thought we were seeing life!

# The sun is sinking low behind the hill

# I loved you long ago

# I love you still. #

You'd walk round these lovely gardens...

with nightingales singing and roses growing...

and the music of the dancing in the background.

And especially if you were wildly in love, it was just...

I can't think of anything more romantic.

I wouldn't want anything more romantic.

I found them rather boring, really.

Lots of rather dim young men, or stupid young men, I thought.

Or perhaps it really was that I was rather serious and not much fun.

Debutantes were stamped as having officially come out into British society

by a formal presentation at court.

They had to sit in their cars waiting in The Mall,

while the hoi polloi would come and look at them.

They would peer in and make frightfully rude remarks at you.

"That one's not so good..." This sort of thing.

In 1939, five sessions were needed to process 1,000 debs.

You had to wear Prince of Wales ostrich feathers in your hair,

and curtsy to the king and queen in turn.

There was always this problem with keeping your feathers in your head.

I've got rather bad hair. So it's rather difficult getting them all skewered in!

Looked slightly like circus horses, looking back!

Curtsying to the king and queen.

I couldn't do it now. I'd like to show you, but not since my hip replacement!

I'm tempted to try and say I can still do it, but no!

I could show you!

I remember we used to stand like that.

One foot in front, the other behind, and down you went.

I was glad I'd done it. I enjoyed that.

It was fun going to Buckingham Palace.

And...eh...

It was an archaic idea, really, wasn't it?!

I remember something which was called The Poor.

The poor came down and a huge tent was put up for them, and they came from Bermondsey.

My mother obviously thought she was doing the right thing.

These poor women came down and were given strawberries and cream...

in this lovely garden... It was a very beautiful garden. And it was The Poor.

I suppose we were in a sort of no-man's-land. We considered ourselves poor,

because our relations were much better off.

But when we saw, outside our house in Cambridge Square, barefooted children

and scantily-clad children...

I minded dreadfully.

I realised then that...eh... we weren't...

We weren't poor at all.

After the War, I worked in an orphanage, and that meant a lot to me.

It sort of wiped out at a single stroke

all the things sitting heavily on my conscience.

Of course we were well off.

There were four servants in the house, as we called them.

And...eh...we wanted for nothing.

All the people that looked after you, they were... they were much more like friends.

The nursery maid who became my children's nanny...

she actually died in this flat when she was 86.

She used to go and visit her relations.

I think she really felt more at home in the end, with us,

because she'd spent the whole of her life with us really, you know.

She was a policeman's daughter from Staffordshire

and all her relations were miners.

When my husband first put up for Parliament, he put up against Mr Shrimble.

He had a very big majority against him, 38,000.

And he didn't know a lot about the coalmines.

So he was sent off to one of Nanny's uncles, who gave him a quick week on how mines worked!

Then, when he went down them, they actually thought he knew a great deal about it.

It was very well organised by Mr Gibbs.

Some debs refused to co-operate with the system.

Unity, the fourth of the six Mitford Sisters, found the deb circuit deadly.

Her sister, Jessica, described how she let her pet rat loose at dances

and wrote letters on paper she'd stolen from Buckingham Palace.

Unity soon found spiritual fulfilment in the arms of the Nazi Party.

The Party gave her a flat in Munich.

But when I met Unity...

I'd been at school there doing music and German -

finishing schools, really...

I just loved it there, just as Unity did.

We were Nazis to a T, the whole lot of us, and I'm not ashamed of it.

It was great, great life...

German.

And it was um, Hedy Vine...

She was kind enough to produce a...

..an escort for me.

Well, I mean a member of the SS.

She had one and I had one too, and we went partying together.

What the girls would call clubbing now.

That was the sort of thing we did...

sometimes.

I was quite unashamed then.

Quite unashamed.

You see, for a year, I was right out of it.

Back in England, it was quite, quite different.

I really hadn't realised what was going on and what had been going on. I had no idea.

I always defend Unity about one thing,

which is, I know that she definitely told Hitler that if there was a war,

that the British would fight,

when people were saying they wouldn't.

She also said she'd shoot herself if there was a war, and she did. Only she missed.

'Though reported to be wounded,

'Miss Mitford got home safely, Hitler having placed no obstacle in the way of her return.

'Her parents saw her safely in and accompanied her to their home at High Wycombe.

'Here, her sister, Deborah, was waiting.'

I've never been embarrassed by my sisters at all.

They all had their own lives,

and I suppose I was entirely taken up with mine.

I've always been terribly fond of them. Never had any differences with them.

I think people took people as they found them

and there was room for a bit of eccentricity.

Now everybody seems to be like peas in a pod, they've all got to be exactly alike.

-What do you think?

-Yes. Yes.

My friends weren't the least bit interested in politics.

They knew there would be a war and they'd go to the war and everything,

but that was nothing to do with daily life.

-Mine was very different.

-Yours...

-My father was in the House Of Commons

and we were tremendously politically-minded.

One wasn't really aware

of the undercurrents that were going on, I think, most of the time.

I was taken by my parents to Italy

and learnt quite a bit of Italian and saw wonderful pictures.

In Italy one saw Hitler and Mussolini meet.

And they were two unattractive little stout, square men,

striding towards each other!

They just looked like joke people.

In March, 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, violating the pact he'd made

the previous year in Munich. Neville Chamberlain's Policy of Appeasement had failed.

Munich was really in many ways more important than the outbreak of War.

Without the shame of Munich - and it was a shameful episode,

I don't think this country would have gone to war again so soon after the slaughter of 1914-18.

Munich was like taking the safety-catch off a sporting gun.

-We were all aware, any thinking person knew, a war was inevitable...

-..By 1939. Because I really do think

it was a kind of frenzy. You absolutely knew

it was the end of life as you knew it.

-"So, tomorrow, who cares?" it was a question of, don't you think?

-Yes.

But I suppose people are always wild when they're young. Awfully depressing if they weren't.

I found a letter from my mother to one of my sisters, saying, "Two boys are going

"to the cottage at Swimbrook - Andrew Cavendish and a friend. I hope they won't break it up"!

Dear Andrew.

I can't say he wasn't wild.

He was always...unwashed.

He and the Cecils were related.

And the Cecils... were always covered in ink...

..and marmalade and stuff, and didn't give a damn what they wore.

And Andrew was a little bit like that.

He smartened up as he got older!

Oh, he was lovely! Great friend.

Martyn and I's life has gone very much in tandem.

We had the same governess when we were seven and eight.

We had the same private school.

Same house at Eton. Same college at Cambridge.

And until the Coldstream debacle, we would have had the same regiment!

There was a ball going on in London,

which curiously enough was my future wife's coming out ball.

And funnily enough, I sat next to her at dinner.

And then I had to set off at 3am to the Coldstream Guards Battalion,

which were having an exercise near Southampton.

And I was driving with a friend of mine called Howard, reading the map.

And he lost the way, silly arse!

And so we arrived 10 minutes late,

with the whole battalion

out there surrounding the Commanding Officer,

who was reading out the notes on the exercise.

And this little sports car rolls up in a cloud of dust

and two dishevelled officers get out 10 minutes late.

And, of course, it was one of the most awful moments of my life,

walking up this little hill, saluting,

and knowing that I'd had it!

And indeed I had.

I got a letter from the King, George VI,

saying, "You will resign your Commission from my Coldstream Guards."

So that was that!

In the end, I had a go at the Welsh Guards,

Great fun.

I was burning the candle at both ends. Lord, yes.

I'd been to a party the night before and got back to Windsor rather late.

Very late.

And just had time to change into uniform

and go and supervise the recruits' physical training.

And my future brother-in-law was there.

And I remember I sat on one of those horses you have in a gym...

and practically went to sleep.

He came up and he said, "For God's sake, wake up and get the lipstick off your face!"

But, you know, quite hard work it was, but I was young then!

There were a tremendous number of parties.

There was a dance called The Big Apple.

-The Big Apple.

-The Big Apple was certainly one.

-God knows how it went. I can't remember now.

-You danced like this, didn't you?

-I think it was one of the first ones when you danced alone.

-Yes.

-Usual nowadays.

-It was very unusual then.

-People clung together.

'The Big Apple is a round square dance.

'It consists of trucking...

'Suzy Q, Charleston and shake.'

In those days, you called them, young men in those days, chaps.

You tried to stir them up and get them going.

Some were very monosyllabic and you got rather bored.

"What have you been reading?" you'd say. And then you'd get a grunt!

So nobody seemed to help themselves very much!

The Alphabet Game, do you know about that? That was rather amusing.

You started with apples,

and then if that didn't answer, you went on to, I don't know, bramble jelly...

and then you went to C, cats.

I once got to R with somebody.

I thought, "This is desperate."

I saw the end of the alphabet coming... and then what? Z was a bad one.

And then I found out that what he was interested in was Roman London.

I was, what, 19 at the time.

This was the beginning of the War. I still get postcards, and he's 90 now!

# In my heart

# A glowing ember will remain

# As I sigh at summer's end. #

I found that I was too nervous to eat the delicious meals that were served.

Some people could guzzle them down, with better nerves than me. But at the time...

I hadn't made friends with the whisky bottle,

which, in my old age, I find an ally which never lets me down.

I had to wait a long time for that happy relationship!

A touch of transcontinental allure

was added to the English season

by Joe Kennedy, the American Ambassador, and his family.

-They were wonderful.

-They were very much centre stage.

They lived round the corner from us in Princess Gate.

-Kik, who married Andrew's brother, and us, were great, great friends.

-Great friends.

Kathleen "Kik" Kennedy met the Duke of Devonshire's eldest son, Billy, at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party.

When they married, she was set to become the next Duchess of Devonshire.

But four months later, Billy was killed in action on the Belgian border.

Kik herself died in a plane crash after the War.

And then these two immensely handsome boys...

-Joe was heroically killed flying his regimental aircraft...

-Incredibly good-looking.

..And Jack who became President. My mother-in-law made this extraordinary remark.

She saw him at a dance and said, "That young man might well be President of the United States."

It was queer, wasn't it?

They were so nice-looking, and so jolly and so friendly. Not like stuck-up English people!

-Everybody loved them, didn't they?

-Everybody.

-Especially Kik. She had more go about her than anybody, don't you think?

-Vitality.

Than anybody I've ever met probably, except Jack.

-Ali Khan was a bit older, wasn't he?

-Who?

-Ali Khan.

But he wasn't President of America!

-But he became a great feature later on.

-He was quite a feature.

-Who was he married to, Joan?

-Joan, at the time.

And then he married beautiful Rita Hayworth. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

She had charisma. But I suppose Jack, of all the people we've ever known, had the most.

-And Sir Winston.

-Winston?

-Yes.

-Charisma?

-Yes.

-Do you think?

-Oh, certainly, yes.

-Oh!

-Lester Piggott.

-Oh, no.

-He's got charisma.

-No, he hasn't!

-He has!

-No!

-He does have!

Uncle Harold, in a sort of way, did.

-He had style, not quite the same as charisma.

-That's right.

-He certainly had style.

-He was beautiful to look at.

And Elvis, of course. I never met him.

-Your hero.

-Yes.

-Don't you think it's better not to have met him?

That's what I wonder, is it better, perhaps?

We used to divide people always, you know, that dance with you.

There were good dancers and moderate dancers.

I was amused by how different the way people danced were.

Some handed you round like a plate.

And other ones danced, sort of, very jiggy,

and you never knew whether to jig too, or try and, what I call, clamp them to the floor.

My brother-in-law once told me that he counted 17 shoulder straps

on a girl he was made to dance with.

I couldn't think why it was an odd number, because you'd think it wouldn't be an odd number.

But he said there was 17! I don't know what she was wearing underneath that dress!

Nowadays they don't bother to have shoulder straps, do they? They just have shoulders.

Men wore white gloves, I'm glad to say.

It was very nice that they wore gloves.

Because then your dress didn't get stained behind with the sweat from the hand.

I reckoned that I was quite a good waltzer.

I used to enjoy waltzing.

I rather fancied myself, I must admit. But I think people were much better at it than they are now.

I don't see the point of dancing when you stand about 6-foot away from whoever you're dancing with.

The whole idea was to get a hold of the girl, put your arm round her and dance properly.

All the chaperones, of course, were sitting around the room,

you know, eyeing one, watching to see that you behaved yourself.

They'd raise their lorgnettes, and look and see what you were up to!

No, no! Took more than that to put me off!

One had to be chaperoned.

My mother had to come with me every night to every dance.

And, of course, she met all her old girlfriends.

And she would sit on her little gilt chair and gossip.

Very occasionally, the odd father would turn up.

And that was absolutely lovely. They were all thrilled - some boyfriend of 50 years ago!

Well, my mother, I was the sixth daughter, sixth girl, so she'd done it six times when I was growing up.

And she used to look longingly at her bed which was ready to get into,

having had a boiled egg or something at 7.30, and had to change into an evening dress and come to the dance.

But can you imagine doing that night after night?

And then they used to stay until the girl wanted to go home.

And sometimes if she was enjoying herself, it was about three in the morning.

The old dowagers... Actually, they were young! We thought they were as old as God's governess!

But they were very young. It must have been terribly boring to sit on the bench.

But they were very good, they did. And we were on pain of death - we were not to go to a nightclub.

But, of course, I did. That was half the fun!

Doing something you're not allowed is MUCH better than being a good little girl!

Oh, terribly risque, terribly dangerous, awfully naughty!

What one did was one was, one made an assignation with a chap.

And one went home rigorously, either with one's mother or something.

If my mother had gone home before me, I had to put my shoes inside her door so she'd know I was home.

So I would creep upstairs, put my shoes inside her bedroom door, change into something less formal,

and meanwhile, the chap would be waiting two or three doors down, and one would sneak out quietly!

There was a taxi parked further down the road. I thought, "Where is HE?"

Then I saw this lid wobbling and Ian crouching underneath it!

Luckily, my mother hadn't seen, she was so keen, poor darling, to go to bed!

One time, my mother left me in Sarah Churchill's mother's hands.

She was a very fierce character. I slipped away...

and when I came back... there were these long stairs...

I think it was Londonderry House... ..long stairs to walk up...and there she was, standing at the top.

"Elizabeth, where have you been?"

"I've been to the 400, terribly sorry, please don't tell Mummy!"

"I won't if you promise not to do it again." "Yes, I promise."

I don't think promises held out very much!

Sarah always remained one of my greatest friends.

She's marvellous fun. She's very, very tall and full of life. Never drew breath.

And didn't seem to be shy like me so she was a great friend to have. She would do the talking.

If she was here now, she would do the talking!

And then, poor woman, she had the most horrible end a year ago.

They thought she had cancer.

When they operated, they cut through the artery and they couldn't stop the bleeding.

And she died on the operating table. Most awful story. In New York.

Think of it.

They cut into an artery

and they could not stop the bleeding.

Sarah had this wonderful dance at Blenheim.

That was just out of this world. It was magic.

You know, all the friends one has ever met were there.

That was all great fun.

This was all, of course, just before the War.

We had all this...and then the War.

Finish.

We were gathered in front of the wireless - I can remember that very vividly.

And couldn't believe, until Neville Chamberlain actually said...

war had been declared. One couldn't believe that such a dreadful thing should happen.

One really thought it would be the end of the world.

But the one marvellous thing was that nobody ever conceived it possible that we were going to lose.

-It was quite astonishing how normal life went on.

-Yes, astonishing.

-We got married on April 19th, 1941,

height of the Blitz.

I should be terrified now.

-But we were young.

-It's different.

-Quite different.

It was very exciting. We used to go to nightclubs at that time because he was still in London.

I was here until November '43,

then, rather belatedly, I went to Italy where I had an absolutely marvellous time.

Oh, dear!

One moment, I was being so lucky and spoilt and drinking champagne,

and the next I was working in a factory in Cricklewood,

helping to make a bomber called a Halifax, which had four engines and was very splendid.

But that was 7.30 in the morning till 6.30 in the evening and it was hard physical labour the whole time.

It WAS work.

I found myself very ostracised.

And one of the girls said to me, in a moment of frankness, "Why do you talk in that silly way?"

When I explained to her that I wasn't putting it on,

it just happened to be the way my family talked, after that they were fine.

It taught me what work really is.

And that, I feel, is a good thing in one's life.

I think that the deb period was fairytale.

It was lovely, it was magical. And I suppose all magical things come to an end, really.

But the great thing about the factory in Cricklewood where I worked

was that it had a direct line underground to...

Is it still called Green Park? That tube station just outside The Ritz?

We'd rush out of the factory, jump on the underground and half an hour later we'd be in the Ritz Bar!

And nobody minded that we were still in our terrible old dungaree working clothes.

I say, speaking of lovely women!

I was a mechanic. I was given a series of huge books,

told to go home, read them,

come back the next day and take charge of the electrical bench.

I was 18, and had underneath me

two boys and a girl, aged 15 and 16, who wanted just to send me up rotten.

So I had to - I HAD to succeed to stop them knowing how little I knew.

It was in a garage mending jeeps, Chevs, lorries and things that came back from the Front.

My particular thing was the electrical parts of carburettors, the starting motors.

It was underground in Shepherd's Market.

Particularly on the night shift, it was unbelievable stuffy. Really was horrible.

So these two great friends of mine...

Vie and Edie they were called,

used to go out for a stroll, just to sort of get some air into our lungs.

And the only place to stroll was down Piccadilly,

which was quite an interesting stroll at one o'clock in the morning sometimes!

There were the ladies of the night proffering their... whatever they proffer.

And we got to know them very well, actually.

We were all very jolly together. It was extraordinary.

Extraordinary, really.

I had to wait till...

March '42...

to be called up for the Wrens as Wren Scott.

I did four trips, New York, Boston

and two to Halifax,

bringing back about 8,000 troops each time.

My brother was in the Navy, and on one of these trips

came signals from my brother's escort group.

One saying, "Have spotted U-Boat."

Next one saying, "Am about to fire."

And a French signal saying, "Have sunk U-Boat."

I longed to go round saying, # My brother sank a U-Boat! #

But, of course, because of secrecy, I didn't like to.

Then one day the Signal Officer came to see me and said "Oh, Scott, we're going to send you to Australia."

"Australia?!

"Why Australia? It's far too far away."

But there it was.

I loved every minute of it, having thought I'd hate it.

This is all on top of having been

a quiet little debutante in 1939!

So many things opened with war...

that there was no time to think of an ordinary life.

So an ordinary life never sort of came my way...

until I married really.

'The wedding of the Duke of Northumberland

'and Lady Elizabeth Montague Douglas Scott

'was the first big society wedding at the Abbey since the War ended.'

After the War, things didn't seem to have changed much.

And being of a somewhat...

Leftish frame of mind... very slight, may I say...

we hoped that it would all sort of calm down and be much more...

..ordinary for everybody, I suppose.

Surely we couldn't have these awful class distinctions for ever and ever, you know.

But, no. Before you knew where you were, people were climbing into long dresses again.

But I didn't...eh...

fancy that sort of a high-powered life, really.

Fairly soon after that, I met Jack.

I came back after the War, very left wing...

decided to go to Veterinary College.

And my sister was married to her brother.

Didn't think her little brother could possibly look after himself in London,

so she asked her sister-in-law to keep an eye on me, which she did.

-I didn't think anything very much would...

-We weren't interested in each other.

We both thought we were rather dull and serious people! Then we decided to go...

for a bicycle ride along a tow path.

Suddenly we were poring over an ordinance survey map,

and suddenly, it was as if somebody had hit me over the head.

I realised there was only one thing in life -

I couldn't go on without this lovely girl to go through life with me.

The difficulty was to persuade her!

And I reckon I proposed under most of the trees in Hyde Park.

And, eventually...

just as the snowdrops were breaking through from their sleep, she accepted me.

And I've lived happily ever after!

-In a nutshell!

-Yes!

And then, oh, I had various pangs because I couldn't think that

I could possibly bring a lovely person like this

into a veterinary assistant's house, one up, one down,

smelling of tom cat!

I was much happier marrying someone who was working with real people in the real world.

And he was much the nicest that I had met.

Early on in my coming out year,

I met, I thought, the most wonderful person in the world and fell wildly in love with him.

And he quite liked me too.

He was the handsomest man in England, that is without a shadow of a doubt.

He was very clever and funny.

And in the old-fashioned meaning of the word, gay, you know, full of jokes and fun.

And we were all so well brought up then, and so, you know, it was... What a waste of time!

When the War started, he went off the whole idea!

Oh, but look. I think I have it on. Let me turn my pearls round.

Does it have a little blue clasp? Have a look.

A little...? It does?

That was my engagement ring to the sailor, and he let me keep it.

And anyway...he's dead.

I mean they always say that the one person a woman always remembers is the first person she makes love to.

I don't think that's necessarily so. I think the first person one LOVES is much more important.

Priscilla, my wife, when I first saw her, actually, she was at a deb ball and she was whirling around -

she was a frightfully good waltzer -

with a man who subsequently became an ambassador, called Sir John Beethe.

And he often told me when she died,

he said "I wanted to marry your wife, but you were in the way!"

Anyway, she was dancing with him, waltzing around in white. I picked her out at once.

I said to my friend Howard, "Who's that?", and he said, "Oh, she's Priscilla Brett.

"She comes from a very eccentric family!" And despite our disparate natures and characters,

we got on like a house on fire for 58 years. A long time.

And she died...

..on the 2nd of January, 2000.

She just got into the millennium.

And then she died that morning at 2.00am.

I shall always miss her.

There has been no-one else like her who...

She was out on her own.

Mm-hm.

And...eh...

I've survived her a year so far.

I have quite a social life, actually, with my friends,

and I'm constantly occupied.

And I'm very, very lucky.

Lucky with everything - birth, childhood, army - got through unscathed, and then marriage.

And architecture, for heaven's sake, we haven't spoken about that.

Charles died about 10 or 11 years ago now.

I hate being alone.

They say, "Grow old gracefully." It's extremely difficult.

You're deaf as a haddock, you're batty, you forget everything!

It's, "What did you say?"

I lost touch with all the people that I'd known in '39 -

most of them - and picked up only with a few.

Oh, little Jack Younger, he was one at my dance, looking like a little pink penguin.

He's one of my oldest friends. We ring each other up at intervals

and discuss euthanasia and suitable subjects like that!

"How are you today?" "Bloody awful!"

It was unique.

It'll never come again. So it's a lovely memory.

I think I enjoyed it... I wonder if other people do...

..more in retrospect than I did at the time.

It was like living in inverted commas, really.

So much happened so quickly - coming out, the War, the job...

getting married...

It's really lovely in old age...

having tied up all your loose ends.

When one's past and one's present sort of...

sort of merge together...

it's an enormously happy time. Perhaps the happiest of all.

# When the deep purple falls

# Over sleepy garden walls

# And the stars begin to flicker in the sky

# Through the mist of a memory

# You wander back to me

# Breathing my name with a sigh... #