Sunday 6th July 2025

Two have died and been spared the rising tide of Socialism.

Not that Manny Maude would have minded the rising tide. Sir Trerew Vyvan Trerew on the other hand…

I wasn’t planning to attend Manny Maude’s Mem but Rufus Pitman urged my presence and we lunched beforehand. Harry Rollo and Reggie Cresswell were also in the party. Harry has developed a new approach to ‘plant-based’… cake is plant-based, he says, sugar is plant-based. Why did nobody say this before? Only a genius can unearth the obvious when it’s been buried.

Manny Maude is important. At his lunches and dinners in the 1980s names began: Beryl Bainbridge was spoken of but never materialised. Her matching pair, Bernice Rubens, on the other hand did. So did Josceline Dimbleby and Tristam Powell. Jane Grigson and Maria Aitken hovered convincingly in the background.

Most important, Manndy Maude was the path for me, Adrian Edge, to Rufus Pitman and thence to Harry Rollo and Reggie Cresswell. There might have been other paths or there might not.

Once I took New Year on a regular basis with Manny Maude and his later husband, Denzel Lomax, who started out a semi-kitchen but ended a mogul. I was always round. But from 1996, after I’d moved to the other side of London and grown nearer and nearer the Throne, a frost descended. Manny Maude’s mother had been in service at Buckingham Palace. Royalty were not top of the list. Happily though, at Frankie Wainwright’s funeral in January 2024, I had one final jolly confab (as it evolved) with Manny Maude on the topic of Barbara Cartland.

Manny was a lasting writer. His mem was a big affair although outfits were deliberately reduced to a minimum. Within minutes of opening, the C word had been uttered. The Vicar, pinnioned in full view on a dias, had no choice but to roar. Then it happened again. So in closing remarks, the Vicar had to say it himself, as well as disclose the possession of a husband. Mega-stars did readings, famous musicians played music. One of the readings was about a terrible fart-gas incident in Rome following artichokes. Ethel Bellows, the artist, read out all the preposterous made up names Manny had put on the envelopes of the letters he’d sent her – inevitably blowing up her credibility with the postman and her wider neighbourhood, not that she could give a damn. They went something like: ‘General Leading Lesbian, Director of Lesbian Services West Norfolk Area’ or ‘Major-General Massive Lesbian, Lesbian Brigade, Salvation Army Lesbian Division’. She said that if ever one mentioned one’s own health, Manny changed the subject.

Manny was a bit of a nightmare. But great. His mem was a noble effort to stamp him forever on eternity but really there is no need… he’s already fully stamped on.

Sir Trerew, like Manny, was taken before Christmas. He’d already been mem-ed once at the cathedral of the far far West, so this was the London branch. Bang opposite the Academy for ease to access to the after-function. A sea of navy in the church, all the Royal Academy ladies of Rutland Gate and Ennismore Gardens suddenly out of their wheelchairs and clucking forth, even without sticks. Sir Trerew had been a stunner in his day, known as ‘Sir Pash’. Later his knack was for getting money out of people. Huge projects. Everybody said, ‘It’s impossible’. But he did it. To me, Adrian Edge, he always seemed somewhat vague. He never quite knew who one was, despite the Gay Granny’s best friend having been one of his tenants and his father’s before that, and his mother having lunched with the Gay Granny and the Gay Mother in the 1930s, which has recently come to light, as the Gay Mother has new memories. Maybe that was part of the perf. Anyway, he only had to murmur and wallets burst open, millions pouring out.

Aunt Lavinia was also on friendly terms. In December 2019, after the Messiah at San Paolo di Londra, Aunt Lavinia boarded a bus for Fulham and discovered Sir Trerew and Lady Trerew on the bottom deck (they were returning from a City dinner). The three of them yacked away until Chelsea which was the T’s stop.

The King and Queen, the Glou and Princess Anne were represented. Sir Trerew was only 85. So mem goers not severely ancient, just quietly turning. Still smart and neat in navy. Their like will not be seen again. Afterwards all three rooms at the front of the Royal Academy packed. Wine only. The new Sir Trerew a little the worse for wear by the end. All the past Presidents of the RHS (as are living), Christies, the National Trust (of 20 years ago), the Royal Academy greatnesses – taking one last look back.