Romanian 50th Birthday for Angus Willis One of the Most Original Yet «

Romanian 50th Birthday for Angus Willis One of the Most Original Yet

Wednesday 28th September 2011

I’ve been cut off in Romania, as well as busy, busy, busy – on a horse and cart largely, in Transylvanian forests.

Poor Little Rich Gays are stunning, they really are. Who else would have thought of a 50th birthday in Romania? Angus Willis, the international food writer and stylist, bade me to Viscri, a remote Transylvanian village, where Saxons from Germany lived for hundreds of years, for reasons unknown to me at least.

I travelled over two days, via Budapest (such memories of days there with Anthony Mottram) and gained this deeply challenging environment on Saturday afternoon. Imagine a great sweep of broad dust track (it hasn’t rained for months) with curious low box-like houses ,dating from the Middle Ages, placed side-on to the ‘street’. No other buildings, to speak of, no fountain or attractive square for outdoor gathering. Yet, it can’t have been a poor place, for the houses are large. Perhaps they put everything into the spectacular fortified church at the far end, separated from the village. The general scene is not exactly pretty but rather haunting and strange; quite unlike anywhere else.

But it’s poor now. Some residents fetch water from the well. At night, with darkness total, I was mystified by a tremendous pervasive clattering; peering, I saw bicycles being ridden over the rough dirt road with water churns on trailers rattling behind.

Poor Little Rich Gays had to resist the temptation to the picturesque. I wore stout Prada clucks and my Dries van Noten summer scarf as a dust veil.

Of course one felt grandeur and cruelty.

The raging confusion was that the guest house where I stayed belongs to the Prince of Wales. He’s been there. I was sharing his bathroom.

Well, I’ve set the scene.

Come back later to find out how Poor Little Rich Gays shaped and re-made Viscri, Romania. Also, an explosive encounter with two middle classes, as well as an enchanting ride in a rough horse-drawn cart, such as might have taken Marie Antoinette to the guillotine.

The party, by the way, was: Judi Dench, the food writer, Charlie Hurling, hotelier and bar designer, who thinks of the worst thing to say and says it, his partner, Archie Brahams , who doesn’t, Fern Willis, Angus’ sister, who has a lot to put up with, Merle Barr, head of Social Services, and Olive Wildish, the textile designer.

So much to say about all of them, which you wouldn’t believe.