7 April 2011

This afternoon, Douglas Gordon, my erstwhile stockbroker- now retired – husband of Cecilia, my erstwhile piano teacher, kindly spent the best part of the afternoon with me. He arrived in a magnificent open top Bristol which he has owned for 25 years. In addition, regular readers might recall he also owns a very beautiful ancient Rolls-Royce, which once belonged to his father that had been sold out of the family Amazingly, some years later, Douglas somehow came across this car when it was on the open market and bought it back. He came here to take me out to lunch on 6 May last year, the day before I fell off the train at Bishops Stortford, and break my leg, and turned up with this fantastic car, but sadly I found it utterly impossible to mount the high running board, so the poor old chap had to go home again and bring back a modern car. In the meantime, I returned to my office and having weakened my legs attempting to mount his car, fell backwards onto the lawn, fortunately, the first of a number of falls when I could have easily broken my neck! No harm was done, on that occasion, and when he returned we went off to the Axe and Compasses, for lunch, in the adjacent village of Arkesden

Douglas very generously bought me a bottle of Cotes du Rhone, 2005, a delightful reminder of the wine he served at the party to celebrate his 70th birthday, a party which I was able to attend. Sadly I missed the 75th but will enjoy drinking the earlier bottle and remembering times past..

Douglas is an amazing man who, for many years has edited the best village magazine in the country, The Newport News. He is fascinated by people and their history, which is what makes his magazine so very readable but, in addition, he commissioned a local writer to write the history of his family from one of his great-grandfathers, born in 1814,. I think he said that they had eight children and five of those married and had children and so. I might not have these numbers absolutely right, but no doubt the book, now published, will be absolutely fascinating, tracing, as it does, the lives of all of these offspring. The book is now published and being distributed amongst the lucky members of the family, most of whom are featured in it