{"id":190,"date":"2009-08-07T17:46:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T16:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=190"},"modified":"2009-08-07T17:46:35","modified_gmt":"2009-08-07T16:46:35","slug":"in-the-country-with-the-gay-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"In the Country with The Gay Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The Gay Mother's superb garden <\/p><\/div>\n

Tuesday 4th<\/sup> August 2009<\/p>\n

\u00a0Bruce MacBain returns to London by train. He actually has to work. But he is self-employed, of course. Very few rich gays are employees; if they are, there\u2019s trouble.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remain for a few more days with the Gay Mother. We have a nostalgic couple hours after lunch on Monday recalling her old frockage. Rather I recall. She has forgotten.\u00a0 The Dior-esque summer dress in a sweet pea print circa 1961, the plainer straight up and down navy frock with large white spots\u00a0 –\u00a0 a complete blank.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a nutshell: I was born and began immediately to find fault. Didn\u2019t like gloss for the woodwork. Why not eggshell? Why magnolia throughout? Poor Gay Mother \u2013 no wonder she thought one child enough. By the age of five the effort of urging her to greater and greater heights of frockage was wearing me out. \u00a0She had plenty of jewels, hats, gloves, bags and associated garments but endless excuses for not wearing them. So what if she was gardening or it was too hot\/too cold? My cousin, George, had better control. His mother rarely got\u00a0more than\u00a0half way down the stairs before she was\u00a0ordered\u00a0 back\u00a0for a re-fit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Looking back, the Gay Mother put up a pretty good fight. Now I\u2019ve come to appreciate her taste. Her drawing room has an impressive unity, like a painting, all subfusc (Spellcheck has never heard of this word: I\u2019m holding out) blues, greens and browns. Her garden this year is glorious. But she cannot be persuaded to open it under the National Gardens Scheme. Once she is gone, I\u2019ll be very much alone in the world. I cannot bear to think of her home, where she has lived for 56 years and where I was brought up, in other hands.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nevertheless there is the matter of the overhead light in the dining room. And table-laying and styling is not a strong point (see below).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Anthony Mottram\u2019s mother poses flirtatiously if ever he takes a photo of her. Lord Arrowby\u2019s is taking an excessive interest in his gay clergy friends. But she must be thrilled that her son is a lord. I would be. My friend, Edward Jasper, the bed linen expert and another genuine multi (I\u2019m sorry. I love money. I really do) had a whole floor of his house re-modelled (walls knocked down, new bathroom etc) for his mother\u2019s ten-day visit from abroad this summer.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Is it that with gay mothers there is always an element of competition? We must return to this theme. The other day Mottram had the cheek to say to me: \u2018You\u2019ll never have a boyfriend for as long as you\u2019re tied to your mother.\u2019 Speak for yourself, I thought. \u2018Boyfriend\u2019 is a rather Central of Europe expression, don\u2019t you think? Rather behind the times. We say \u2018partner\u2019 now, especially in our fifties.\u00a0 But then, not all boyfriends are partners. And not all partners are boyfriends.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The

The Gay Mother's table styling<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday 4th August 2009 \u00a0Bruce MacBain returns to London by train. He actually has to work. But he is self-employed, of course. Very few rich gays are employees; if they are, there\u2019s trouble. \u00a0I remain for a few more days with the Gay Mother. We have a nostalgic couple hours after lunch on Monday recalling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrain-edge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poorlittlerichgays.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}