Monday, June 30, 2014

I remember thinking that Big Chief I-Spy was actually writing to me.

I remember accepting a lift on a moped to school and I'm pretty sure that the sixth former in question didn't have a spare crash helmet. You didn't in those days. Gosh I'm lucky to be alive.

I remember being taught in a history lesson about Ireland where I think it was Roman Catholics (but it might have been the other persuasion) were only allowed to own a horse worth say £5. So if someone came up and asked them for their horse, they had to sell it for £5 or they'd be arrested. Which I though was fascinating. Not right, indeed totally unfair, but fascinating. A bit like putting a woman on a ducking stool. If she doesn’t drown, she’s a witch. But, of course, she does. Not right, but still fascinating.

I remember going to an after-party for an orchestral concert that a friend of ours conducted at Chelsea Old Town Hall. It was in an amazing house nearby. There was someone pretty big in piano-playing there - Rubinstein? Rabinowitz? Horowitz? Alistair Cooke's wife. An actor who invariably played posh people. I spent quite a lot of time chatting with the servants, a Spanish husband and wife who lived downstairs.