Friday 12th July 2013

Disturbing news of Robert Nevil, biographer of the Pony Club of Great Britain.

Tomorrow I board for Normandy, missed last year owing to pressure of engagements – the Jubilee, followed by the Olympics. Laura Malcolm and Matt Driver have driven through into the barn and established a panoramic Norman drawing room. It’ll be quite different there now. I’m planning evening outfits as well as day. We’re going to pass the time dreaming up names for the Royal Baby – how about ‘Royal’?  Anne is called ‘Royal’ after all. A precedent is set.

Meanwhile, Robert Nevil is in Bulgaria, with the orphans. ‘With’ carries more weight than might be expected. I’m getting news from Anthony Mottram, ‘consultant’ of Prague, whose ‘business’ sponsors a Summer drama festival for the orphans of a remote mountain village in Bulgaria. I was there myself in 2009, before great polar ice jammed between Anthony Mottram and myself. Robert Nevil has been there every summer since, leaving me, Adrian Edge, behind. This year they’re doing ‘Le Petit Prince’.

But Robert Nevil’s gone native. He’s not just ‘with’ the orphans. His hair has turned the virulent copper favoured in Bulgaria. At mealtimes, such as they are, Anthony Mottram sits alone over the flaccid re-formed chicken segments in the village eating-house. What one gives to help those less fortunate.

Where is Robert Nevil?  You won’t believe it. He’s scrabbling on the floor. In the orphan canteen. Well, actually the sausage is not thrown down for the orphans to fight for on the floor. That was the scene in Robert Nevil’s own childhood kitchen. His mother had dogs and children and scattered the food for them both equally to get what they could. An excellent system and the making of a Poor Little Rich Gay  but now it seems Robert Nevil has merged with the orphans entirely,

It’s doubtful he’ll return. Or resume the literary life. What a turn of events.

Bulgarian Hotel Decor