Tuesday 9th December 2025

The Gay Mother comes in bursts. She is 101, almost 102. She emerges from a long trough with a remark about Queen Elizabeth the First or even the Second.

It was some months ago, when Robert Nevill and the Maharajah were down, that I was plumping cushions at the close of the day. ‘There’s nothing worse than a squashed drawing room first thing in the morning,’ I said as I plumped. ‘There might not be anything left of those cushions with all that bashing,’ the Gay Mother flashed.

This time she was by the fire towards tea-time. It was being a very quiet afternoon of extreme old age. In the morning she had planted bulbs for indoors, then ordered sherry as a reward. ‘The late Queen didn’t want clergy in red,’ she said with the kind of emphasis that would suggest the topic was of riveting world-wide currency and on everybody’s minds. ‘She was most particular about it,’ the Gay Mother continued. ‘She thought red was a royal colour.’

Next day she opened the day that Cousin Marion had made beds with the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was when they were student nurses. The Gay Mother went on to boil up dishcloths and clean behind the kitchen tap with an old toothbrush.