The weather is freezing again and the weekend is meant to be the same. And to think that last weekend I was beavering in the garden in sunshine.

Yesterday I met Flamenco at the Bluebird café, on Kings Road, for a catch­up. I met Flamenco in 2003, when Hugo started at Sussex House, his preparatory school, just behind Sloane Square. Flamenco is married to an important banker, M. As we stood on the pavement waiting for our boys to emerge from the Arts and Crafts building on Cadogan Square, we were often first and would smile at each other. Eventually we started to talk to each other. Eventually we started to have lunch together. Eventually we introduced our husbands to each other and eventually we became close friends, confidantes. Eventually we went on holiday with them and other Spanish friends to Andalusia. We were included in her large, lavish, stylish, relaxed parties at their incredible flat on the Thames.

Flamenco lives a big life, a scenic life. Every day is an adventure, to be grabbed with both hands. She is 100% engaged in the moment. Life is a full of family, friends (both in London and Spain), fashion, culture, politics, art, travel, skiing, food, all at an exceptional level. There is nothing mundane about multi­lingual Flamenco. Even how she appears: tall, regal, shiny dark hair, big smile, chocolate brown eyes and always dressed impeccably.

One of the main things we had in common was that we had married Brits. Like me, Flamenco had to navigate the terrain of British life in the 90s, but she did so on her terms. Becoming a pheasant was not on her radar. She made Chelsea her habitat, but she did not evolve, she adapted. I started off in Wandsworth, a stronghold for pheasants and stags. So while I was wearing Alice Bands and Russell and Bromley shoes, she no doubt was wearing Valentino and Lanvin. What are on her radar are new emerging designers, chefs and artists.

Whilst I was married in a meringue, Flamenco was married in couture. After Geoffrey proposed, I was in a state of euphoria. I was in love and intoxicated by it. The reality of leaving Aussie culture and the life I had known since dot was not something I thought about. Geoffrey became the centre of the universe and that was that. Even a bottle of wine and cheese on toast at the kitchen table was wonderful. If Geoffrey was near, I was ecstatic.

Shortly after we were engaged, we were due to have a quick drink with his sister, Rachel, at her flat in West London. I wore a demure shirt, but decided to team it with a black leather skirt. When the door opened to her flat, to my great horror, I found the Wilmot family assembled for a surprise engagement party. “Surprise,” they cried in unison. There was his mother, Eve, dressed in a floral Laura Ashley dress. And all Wilmot women were similarly attired. I spent the whole evening trying to pull my skirt over my knees. I did not fit in. My hair was too blonde, my face too freckly, my clothes all wrong. At some subliminal level I committed to evolving into a Wilmot woman, worthy of bearing Wilmot children. What a mistake. Authenticity is what I most value in a friend. And in Flamenco I found it in bucket loads.

After we moved to Limerston Street in Chelsea, I tapped back in to the sun drenched kid I had once been. The one with the skinny body and sunburnt freckly face, who ran around a scorched backyard (garden) with her dog Skipper and jumped in and out of swimming pools and the sea. But for some years from marriage onwards I remained a pheasant. But you can’t stop the Kanga from jumping out eventually.

Today Hugo is coming home from Warwick University where he is studying Chemistry. Tons of dirty laundry no doubt. I am having a coffee with my friend Inca. She is half Peruvian.

Lovely weather again today. Sunny and warm.

Yesterday I met my sister in law, Susan, for lunch at the Hurlingham, where she had her wedding reception in September, 1988. We had a quick whizz around the stunning gardens.

Dinner was with Mr and Mrs Springbok, our former South African neighbours, in Clapham. They have lived in their large Victorian house in the Abbeville Village for twenty eight years, after relocating from Johannesburg. Very informative discussion on South African infrastructure and politics. Mr Springbok’s family owned a property for generations in Nature’s Valley on the Garden route. Mrs Springbok is an exceptional chef. Beetroot rosti topped with salmon. Veal with mushroom sauce. Their daughters are in the supermodel league.

The day after we moved into our Clapham house in December 1995, I gave birth to Hugo. Anna was almost two. For the next 8 years, Mrs Springbok kept her protective eye us like a lioness. Our mutual displacement from the Southern Hemisphere forged a bond that has lasted twenty years.

The years before children, however, were dominated by working as a solicitor in the City, while not hanging out with the Gang. With the deregulation of financial institutions in 1986, the Big Bang, Antipodean lawyers flooded through immigration at Heathrow to make hay while the sun shone. They were hired in droves to handle the exponential increase in legal transactions.

There were a pack of Kiwis at Barlow, Lyde and Gilbert, where I worked. The Kiwis welcomed the lone Kangaroo. The partners provided a formal lunch for legal staff.  The Antipodeans sat together like a battalion. I felt like an Aussie at Gallipoli, under the repressive orders of British officers. There was no kookaburra laughter over that meal. It was a sombre and stiff occasion.

My best Kiwi mates were Giselle McLachlan and Margie Beattie. Margie’s father was the Governor General at the time. Giselle and I shared an office and a telephone line. The first time Geoffrey rang, she answered, covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said, “Some guy called Godfrey wants to talk to you.” She calls him Godfrey to this day.

There were other Aussies scattered around the big law firms like shells washed up by the surf. In the early 90s it was fashionable for female solicitors, like men, to wear striped shirts, with cufflinks and bow ties. I was shopping near Liverpool Street station in Tie Rack and put my hand into a bowl of silk, elasticised cufflinks. Another hand went in and the hand belonged to my old mate from law school, Kylie Virtue. We looked at each other at the same time and she exclaimed, “Pottsie! What are you doing here?” By then she was married to superstar Rob Clarke, who was working for an advertising agency. He played school boys’ rugby for Australia. Kylie, Mosman bred through and through, is like a bubbly cockatoo, alert, chatty, taut – a dynamo. Whenever we met for lunch, I could spot the plume of her short blonde hair bobbing above the crowd as she strode faster than everyone.

Anne tipped up for a year to do a Master’s degree soon after I was married.

The Antipodeans were like rays of sunshine before I acclimatised to damper weather. They eventually all downed tools and migrated back to the Southern Hemisphere, but for a bit, they brought home to me.

Today, I am meeting my Spanish friend, code name Flamenco, as she is very private, at the Bluebird in Kings Road for a catch up.

Yesterday I went to the Botticelli at the V & A with Gill, my Sheila friend, in London. Had a cuppa and shared a carrot cake (we both needed the comfort) at the stunning Victorian tiled café. I wanted to see the Birth of Venus – I love the shell, but it wasn’t there. A lot of Madonna and Child and two Venuses with no background. The heavy gilt frames were works of art in themselves. The V & A is a haven and is my go-to place if I am upset, along with Hurlingham. Many times, if it was raining and dull, I would head to this treasure trove and wander for hours amongst the ceramics, silver, jewellery, interior installations, glass, textiles, sculptures, clothes, paintings, objets d’ art – and always a cuppa. The pond in the Italian style courtyard is tranquil in the sunshine.

Today, I had a thank you letter from another Hon., Hugo’s godmother, Ghislaine. She and her husband, Peter, another lawyer, came for dinner recently. They live in Scotland now. Her mother was Belgian and her brother is a peer. Ghislaine was/is part of the Gang. Most of the Gang are still around.

Geoff worked out, and I worked out pretty quickly, that we didn’t want to be apart and two months after Susan and David’s wedding, he proposed in a Chelsea restaurant called the English Garden near Sloane Square, the centre of the Sloane world and obviously from where Sloanes derive their name. Ghislaine was an angel in the early years and guided me through the terrain of being a Sloane wife. She realised pretty quickly that I was a lousy cook and bought me a cook book, which I still use. She led by example. If she sent me a thank you card it was on headed cream paper and the script was from a blue fountain pen. I observed how to entertain. How to talk to the man on your left during first course and then switch during main. And she was KIND. Is KIND. She is indeed aristocratic, but she has a natural, noble nature. Her husband, Peter, was a firm supporter too. He used to sing Seekers (Australian band) songs to me. “Train, whistle, blowing…” from “Morningtown Ride”. He was a hot shot solicitor and I looked up to him enormously. He was the youngest person appointed to the Takeover Panel back then.

Not long after I was married Ghislaine asked if I’d like to have tea with her brother at the House of Lords. This is over 25 years ago, so he was a pretty young baron and his star had just started its ascent. I accepted of course. I adored all that history stuff. The date was set. And then, because I was hopeless at running my diary (Sloanes are sewn to their diaries –something I had to learn), I forgot that my best Uni mate, David McElveney, was coming to stay. In typical Kanga form, I rang and asked if he could come too. I can’t believe in retrospect that I had the cheek to ask. It didn’t occur to me that this was not the done thing – what Sloanes think of as very non-U, meaning  Non-Upper Class, ie, bad manners. Ghislaine was of course gracious and said, “Marvellous.”

Of course, when David arrived on the morning of the actual trip to the Houses of Parliament, he was as excited as me at the prospect of having tea at the House of Lords. But he was back packing. No suit. And he was not the same size as Geoff, so off we went and bought a suit from M & S and that afternoon we were both cleared through security and finally sipping tea with Thomas and Ghislaine.

Today I am having lunch with my sister in law, Susan Wilmot. And then dinner at my old neighbours in Elms Crescent, Clapham, where we lived until we moved to Chelsea.

The weather has imploded. Cold and grey again. Good day for a museum trip with Gill.

Yesterday I drove to see Nicky for lunch, always a tonic. The drive from Petersfield to Winchester is breathtaking, along the top of the Downs. The patchwork of fields below, green after the plentiful winter rain, reminds me of the patriotic hymn Jerusalem “In England’s green and pleasant land.” Nicky is a farmer. She runs the show like my Auntie Wilma did in the grasslands of New South Wales. She has sheep, chickens and agricultural land. I love walking through her fields when the wind is swishing the crops from side to side. It takes me right back to the days when I had a pet kangaroo.

Nicky was my trusted confidante during my courtship with Geoff. Geoff was part of a close knit group of pheasants and stags (the Gang) and Nicky was part of the Gang. Leisure time included walking in the Lake District, shooting weekends in Dorset, the endless weddings of the time, dances, weekends at Stone House or other country houses in the Home Counties and trips to Scotland. All country pursuits. It was unusual to find a Sloane in London over the weekend. They considered the country to be their natural habitat. Still do. During the week, dinner parties, the pub or a cheap Italian or curry. The gastro age had not arrived. Celebrity chefs like Nigella and Gordon Ramsey were of the future.  Sloanes worshipped Mary Berry and Delia.

Many of the stags in the Gang owned estates or were land agents, having trained at Cirencester Agricultural College. So we went to where they were based and they laid on the shooting and walking. I had to buy a Barbour and Wellington boots (gumboots). I was drenched from top to toe on many occasions. My hair looked a mess. I looked a mess. Pheasants, however, suited the environment. They looked all rosy and glowing with their flawless English complexions.

On one weekend in the Lake District, the Gang found themselves suddenly engulfed in thick cloud and rain. The temperature plummeted. I was freezing, my bones ached and I had snot dripping down my face. Where was the beach? Where was the golden sand? The sun? Where on earth was I? How did I get there? I was delirious with cold. Geoff noticed the snot and discreetly wiped it off with his pristine white handkerchief. He thought I was a trooper. I wasn’t. I was pretending to be the perfect Sloane like the other pheasants. I was faking it.

And let’s turn to the shooting weekends, which were rough shoots, pretty low-key events. Not the blood baths you would find on commercial shoots. The men had the guns (these days women do too and I imagine the Queen always has had a gun) and the women (some with babies strapped to their backs) and farm labourers – called the beaters – went through the woods and hedgerows making loud noises and banging trees with sticks to flush the pheasants out. Labradors and springer spaniels are the Sloane’s favourite breeds, precisely because they are integral to shooting. Nicky has two springer spaniels.

I was in love. I wanted to be with Geoffrey, not whacking trees. And it often rained and I was cold and not really deep down very happy to be so cold and wet. I did love the lunches though. You had a big pig out when you finished. Stilton and cheddar, fresh bread, pork pies, soup. In the evenings you scrubbed up and the men changed into a jacket and tie or black tie and the women found their Laura Ashley dresses and pearls or a velvet evening dress for smarter dinners, again with pearls.

Today I have tennis with pheasants my age or thereabouts. And then I am meeting my Sheila friend Gill who I have known for almost fifty years and we are going to the Botticelli exhibition at the V&A.

 

 

On Friday the fence was installed and I did in fact make the men endless cups of tea. The weather was beautiful, so I cleared the driveway of twigs and found excuses to stay outdoors with Domino frolicking around.

We built a big bonfire on Sunday afternoon, with as much garden refuse as we could lay our hands on. Geoff almost blew himself to smithereens when he was too generous with the petrol. I stood and fed the fire for hours in the sunshine, making sure that the last twig was incinerated. If only you could burn up life’s problems so easily.

On Friday, I told you about Susan and David’s nuptials. Getting ready with the expert help of the hairdresser and makeup artist was a new and luxurious experience for me. I wasn’t very into grooming in Australia. Never had a manicure or pedicure. Randomly had my haircut. The sun highlighted my hair in the summer. I was a tomboy.

I soon noticed that grooming was a part of London Sloane life. Pheasants went to the hairdresser regularly and had their locks coloured. My hair fast lost its goldenness and I resorted to highlighting it. I still do.

When we moved to Chelsea in my early forties, the pressure to be well turned out pumped up. Sloanes and foreign residents in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea were well groomed. I had to up my game.

The issue was brought to the fore when I met my new neighbour, Caroline Stanbury, almost fifteen years ago. She was a stylist then, but now she’s the star of “Ladies of London” on Bravo television. Caroline was, and still is, the most glamorous person I have ever met. During the time we were neighbours in Chelsea (she moved onto to better house after a few years), I admired her effortless ability to look chic, whether in a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater to go to Starbucks or in an evening dress about to attend the Summer Party at the Serpentine with Cem (her husband), who was looking like James Bond. She accessorised perfectly. Her hair was always expertly blow-dried and her nails gleamed with glossy nail polish.

We became an odd couple. I would help her housekeeper with cooking tips and Caroline would give me fashion advice. She was also generous and handed on designer clothes to Anna, a budding teenager. She explained that I needed to treat my wardrobe like a library. I needed so many pairs of jeans (good quality, not Gap), tailored black trousers, a selection of day and evening dresses, flat and court shoes, evening and day bags. You get the idea. And it all needed to be filed properly in the right place so I could access things quickly. The first thing she told me was that my jeans were far too big and that I should get properly measured. I didn’t have a huge budget, but she said to buy investment pieces at the sales, at places like Harrods and Harvey Nicholls. Thank you Caroline. I’m indebted.

After we’d been living as neighbours for a bit, she bumped into me with Anna on the pavement and asked if I’d consider doing a makeover with her for the Daily Express. Anna said, “Go on Mum. It will be fun.” Well, the day came and we were chauffeured to where I would be transformed. Nando, who works for the royal hairdresser Richard Ward, cut off all my hair into a layered bob. Next, makeup. Then, dressed in Zara clothes and a pair of Caroline’s Valentino stilettos. Finally, photographed with Caroline (looking like a supermodel) and then interviewed.

Both Caroline and I were not amused when the article came out. The journalist put words into my mouth and into Geoff’s. They rang him to find out what he thought of his gorgeous new wife. He said, like any gentleman, “That’s none of your business.” He was reported as saying that he couldn’t get over his wife’s new glam look. And the headline was “Cash Strapped Housewife in a Style Rut”. And I think they photoshopped me to look older. I was appalled. The good news is that from then on I had my hair cut and coloured at Richard Ward and it has been worth every penny.

Tomorrow I am meeting up with Gill my Sydney friend of almost 50 years to see the Botticelli exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Knightsbridge.

 

 

Today I am in Hampshire again and the weather forecast is fantastic for the weekend. Spring is on its way. A tree surgeon managed to smash the boundary fence when felling a 150 year old beech tree with a fungal disease. So today two blokes are installing a new fence. That means that every two hours I’ll make them a cup of tea. But isn’t it amazing I had a 150 year old tree, once.

Before leaving London, I had a quick circuit with Domino around the Hurlingham Club gardens, the venue for Susan and David Wilmot’s wedding reception on 10 September, 1988. The day is still crystal clear in my mind. Susan did not wear a meringue dress. She wore a unique dress she had bought the previous February with Joanna and me in Palm Beach, Florida. Louis and Joanna had relocated there after their stint in Sydney and I was invited to meet the future groom, David Wilmot, with Susan, travelling from London. The Kangaroo was out of her depth.

Palm Beach was a revelation to me. The sea was not unlike Sydney sea, but the town was not at all like Sydney town. It was all soft pastels and white; groomed elegant people like the Kennedys –  Jackie O was everywhere; mansions made out of coral; manicured perfect lawns and tropical flowers; serious yachts and on Worth Avenue, exclusive shopping, with immaculate children in Lily Pulitzer outfits. My eyes were out on stalks as I took it all in. I longed for the grit of Sydney, the kookaburra spirit of it. The Kangaroo was not at home.

Susan and David’s wedding felt like a mini Royal Wedding. And I was part of it. I was ants in my pants excited on the day. Susan was calm as a cucumber. The hairdresser turned up to transform our locks at dawn, but it was exciting to be getting ready for the big event. And Susan looked stunningly beautiful. Like a princess. The wedding service was a traditional and stately. It was not country wedding charming.  Joanna looked sensational in duck egg blue. The Queen would have nodded appreciation for her outfit. The flowers were dense and regal, not country garden pretty.

And the reception at the Hurlingham Club was buzzy. The forecourt entrance is so familiar to me now, but back then it felt grand and imposing. I felt like an extra in a film. But all through the day, was the dashing best man, Geoffrey, my Mr Darcy, occasionally catching my eye with a smile. The whole of his family were there too. All but one of his seven siblings were in attendance with partners if married and children in the bridal party. After a happy reception Susan, now Wilmot, changed into a lilac ensemble with the matching hat of course and then disappeared off into the sunset with David. It was my first Sloane wedding and exhilarating. Sloanes had a lot of fun on these occasions.

It wasn’t long until I’d be engaged to be the next Mrs Wilmot. On paper it was a dream coming true, but I am an Aussie Sheila through and through. I might try to be a princess, but I am not. I am just an ordinary kid from Down Under, who happened to meet a gentleman, who decided that he liked the way I laughed and the stories I told and thought I was a genuine person. Of course I had blonde hair, a regular face, but I think, I hope that it was the guts of me that captured my Mr Darcy.

On Monday over to Nicky Barber’s in Winchester for lunch and then tennis training at Steep Tennis Club.

 

Yesterday evening had a happy meal with fellow Aussies at the pub, the Scarsdale, in Kensington. Pubs in England, especially in country villages, are very different from the suburban pubs I knew growing up in Sydney. The English variety are charming, welcoming, cosy – low back leather Chesterfield sofas in front of a glowing log fire, with a friendly publican chatting animatedly to customers while he or she pulls pints of foamy ale (warmer than lager, which the Aussies prefer).  Last weekend, we went to the Thomas Lord pub in West Meon, named after the founder of Lords’ cricket ground.  Above the bar there was a glass cabinet showcasing a cricket match in an English village scene, but played by stuffed squirrels and weasels.  Could only happen in England. And dogs are welcome. A posh old gent in an old sailing shirt was drinking a pint while feeding his lurcher treats and chatting to him as if he was a child.

The ‘Watering Holes’ in Sydney as they were called were male only (women in a separate lounge), where white blue-collar workers imbibed large amounts of lager before heading home after work. The pubs were utilitarian places, with lino bar counter tops and tiled walls – easier to clean the sweat, dirt and spillages and the occasional chunder (vomit).

In 1916, a law was passed that pubs had to close at 6pm, so if the Aussie worker wanted to consume his full quota of beer, he had to down it in an hour, with obvious results! The “six o’clock swill” was finally abolished in 1955, but the male only beer culture had by then been firmly established in Australia with almost religious fervour. It was an Aussie bloke’s territory, ie non Europeans, aborigines and women were not welcome. With the advent of the women’s movement in the 70s, this attitude became more relaxed. In 1982, massive random breath testing was introduced and the male only pub culture was clobbered.

Male only drinking establishments in England are at other end of the social spectrum. These are exclusive gentleman members’ clubs, many founded in the mid 19^th century by the upper classes in central London. Many now allow woman guests, but White’s in St James, Piccadilly, still prohibits their entry. To date the Queen has been the only female guest.

Soon after my date with Geoffrey at the Savoy, etc, he invited me to a weekend away on the Norfolk coast with some friends, ostensibly to show me the seaside. The North Atlantic sea was so different. Slate grey and forbidding. And instead of golden sand there were pebbles. Over the weekend we went to pubs after sodden walks in the countryside. Young unmarried Sloanes often hung out in pubs after desperately cold, wet walks. On the way home we went to Cambridge where Geoff’s grandfather and great grandfather studied at Trinity College. We went to the Free Press pub for lunch. Pubs in those days sold solid, traditional British food: roast beef, cottage pie and fish and chips. That sort of thing. Now this fare has given way to the gastro pub, with fancy stuff on the menu. Romance blossomed despite the wet weather that weekend. Against the odds, we found that this kangaroo and this stag actually had a lot in common.

By the 10^th September, 1988, Susan and David’s wedding at the Hurlingham, Geoff and I were an item, with no fixed port of destination obvious.

 

Yesterday was ground hog day. Lots of admin. Yawn. Boring.

Today the weather is mixed. Tonight, I am playing tennis in the new Racket Centre with Geoff, followed by a quick dinner in the cafeteria, called the Harness Room, as the first international polo match between England and the United States was played at the Hurlingham. Sloanes revere horses and all pursuits involving them. They also revere dogs. All other animals they can take or leave. 

Yesterday, I described how younger Sloanes have integrated global fashion into their attire; you will now see Cartier love bracelets on wrists, Louboutins on feet, Hermes Birkins over arms and Tom Ford sunglasses perched on ears. Are they usually worn by London dwelling Sloanes?  My guess is yes.  Sloanes may still don a string of pearls, but they may be Chanel.

In the 1980s, Sloanes did not, on the whole, wear foreign brands apart from Gucci loafers. Look at Diana. (She was born the year before me.) After her marriage in 1981, her style was ruffled collars with a ribbon adorning her the neck (Elizabeth I inspired), feathered and netted hats, puffed sleeves for long and short shirts, and gathered skirts with gold belts.

When Andrew Morton published “Diana: Her True Story” in May 1992, we all, sadly, learnt that the fairy tale marriage was over. Diana’s wardrobe changed tack overnight. Her evening dresses became figure hugging and cocktail dresses were even slinkier, shorter. More of the décolletage was shown. She was best friends with Versace, a designer and a foreigner.

Older Sloanes don’t really like foreigners. Think of the war! She sat beside Elton John at the designer’s funeral. Elton is a pop star. World class photographers like Patrick Demarchelier and Mario Testino photographed her for VOGUE, a glossy mag, with her hair gelled back and looking like a supermodel. Not very HRH.

By the time of Diana’s sad death in August 1997, she was very different from the young girl marrying Charles in St Paul’s cathedral, physically and in all other senses. She was, however, always a wonderful mother. I think that the Sloane evolved, largely because Diana evolved, and she was a fashion icon for them. 

Although Sloane pheasants have on the whole morphed along with fashion trends, there are some stalwarts, that have, refreshingly, stayed frozen in the 1980s/90s mould. And I love them for it. Look at the Queen. Never changing. The hair, always, as if someone has forgotten to remove the rollers from her bangs. And the black handbag and sensible shoes. 

So when I met Geoffrey in August 1988, I was crafted on the pre-divorce Diana, the uber- Sloane. He eventually rang me and asked if he could show me the sights of London. By then, I had landed a job as a solicitor in the City (big C for the business sector around Bank Underground), and I had splashed some cash on clothes for my new job. He suggested we meet at the Savoy on The Strand, near Covent Garden (featured the climactic scene in the Hugh Grant movie “Notting Hill”). I arrived first. This was a grand establishment. I was bouncing around nervously inside like a kangaroo, although I tried not to fidget. 

The last time I’d seen Geoffrey he was in shorts, but this time he was in a tailored suit, tie and polished black brogues. He glided through the revolving doors, and smiled as he spied me sitting on one of the stuffed leather sofas. I thought, “Strewth, I am out of my comfort zone.” He said, “You look smart,” which means clever in Oz and nice in Britain. I thought he was commenting that I looked ready for work.

So we headed for the American Bar where someone was playing the grand piano, and once seated, he asked me what I’d like to drink. I had sometimes had gin and tonics with Susan’s parents, so I ordered one of those. As I lifted the glass to my lips, my hand was shaking so much that I thought that I was going to spill it down my ‘smart’ clothes.

Next we went to see a West End show, in theatreland, “Me and my Girl”, and after to Smollensky’s Balloon for steak and chips. By the end of the meal Geoff, smiling, said, “I feel like I’ve known you forever.” Oh dear, panic. Impossible to fall for a Brit. Well it is possible and I did. I’ve lived more than half my life in Britain and it has been a good life.

Tonight I’m catching up with Gill from Australia with her husband Gary and we are going to a pub in Edwardes Square, Kensington, and tomorrow I’ll tell you about falling for Geoffrey Wilmot Esq.

Weather: Grey, but it is not raining. Just back from a dog walk along the South Downs, with views that stretch miles upon miles. It’s as if you are in heaven up there on a clear day. Then for a flapjack (bit like an Anzac biscuit) and coffee at the National Trust mansion, Uppark, also perched at the top of the Downs. I had the café all to myself with views as far as the South Coast.

I have just read an article by Peter York (The Independent-23rd April, 2011) who defined Sloanedom in his hit 1982 book The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook – people took it very seriously – the Bible for poshness. It was about Kate and William’s wedding almost 5 years ago and how society had changed since Di and Charles’ wedding in 1981. He posed the idea that Sloane rule had been usurped by a global super wealthy “over-class”. He made the point that even the aristocratic top tier – with hereditary titles lurking around, like Duke, Earl, Viscount and Marquis (see Burke’s Peerage) – had been largely overtaken in terms of wealth by newcomers. The Rich List, since it was first published in the late 80s, apparently reflects this social change. Does money now rule?

One aristocratic friend who I shall refer to in future blogs as The Hon. (meaning her father was titled), explained to me that in her father’s day, Oxford and Cambridge were dominated by the male aristocracy (inherited titles) and upper middle class (gentry, including some life titles that would evaporate with death), forming the Sloane world. They shared a Public School education (i.e. private in Britain) and were the captains of industry. This is much less true today; for example, the City (the equivalent of Wall Street), or the world of “Tech”, have people from all walks of life reaching the top. That’s true of most sectors actually.  And they are the ones now snapping up the big houses in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. And they are often foreign. And they are of both sexes. 

After the deregulation of the stock exchange in 1986 and the switch to electronic trading, known as the Big Bang, foreign banks, principally American, gobbled up a big chunk of the City. The Old Boys’ Network, run by Sloanes, was engulfed. The increase in the cost of oil in the 1970s and 80s made the Middle East rich. China’s economy has been growing to the size of a ‘dragon’ for decades. London has become a haven for the world’s super-rich.

Yesterday’s Book Club was on usual fine form and its profile reflects these social changes. Seven pheasants, including another Hon., two Americans, a Zimbabwean and me. The pheasants who are my age, or thereabouts, would have dressed like Diana in the 1980s and 1990s. With the emergence of the super-rich, their dress sense has morphed too. I was amused to see that four of the Book Club wore fur gilets (loose waistcoats). There wasn’t a Barbour (waxed outdoor coat), husky (vinyl quilted jacket), striped/checked shirt, pearls, pleated woollen skirt, flat sensible leather shoes (with a gold chain) or a velvet Alice band (the Sloane uniform – think the Queen on non-State occasions) amongst them.

Tailored jeans and the odd label (the effect of globalisation) were the priority. I admired the Zimbabwean’s trousers – Dolce and Gabbana. And some serious bling was on display. Sloanes in the 80s90s wore small, understated jewellery: gold studs, a gold chain with cross and a sensible watch. It is now okay to wear diamonds, other than your engagement ring, in daylight.

One thing that hasn’t changed is schooling for Sloanes and internationals. In the case of this Book Club, it is mainly boarding schools for boys: Radley, Harrow, Wellington, Stowe and Ampleforth. 

Conversation: children’s progress at school, birthday parties (was it appropriate to give a rabbit along with membership to a smart (not clever, but posh) nightclub for an 18^th birthday present, cookery courses, skiing (hostess had injured her arm at Klosters, the resort favoured by the Royals), charity events to attend, a series on Israeli/Palestinian relations to attend in Covent Garden, art exhibitions, films, possibility of a holiday abroad together and, yes, a little bit about the book. You see, Book Club is not really about the book. It is about friendship.

The rest of today is a ground hog day.

   

Mother’s Day was spent going through all the old photos stored in the basement and photographing them for the diary; stirring up a lot of memories.

On Friday, I mentioned that Susan took me to meet her in-laws, the Wilmots, at Stone House, Kent, on my second day in England in August 1988 on an idyllic summer’s day. And how this was the first time I met Geoffrey, my future husband. Little did I know that Susan’s in-laws would become mine in six months’ time.

The first thing that I noticed was how quintessentially English their way of life was. Croquet on the lawn, scones and cakes at 4pm, on the dot. And their voices – just like the Queen’s. Tony Wilmot (father) was wearing a safari shirt. He and his wife, Eve, had lived in Africa all their married life until retirement. In fact, Eve’s father was a missionary doctor in Uganda and Ruanda, so once she married Tony, he essentially took her home. Tony first met Eve in a boarding house in Wimbledon just after WW2, and it was love at first sight for him. (He had been mentioned in dispatches for his war service in Africa, where he was rapidly promoted to colonel-in-charge of ciphers in East Africa.) They were formal, but warm and friendly.

I was obsessed in 1981 with the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, starring  Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons (I once saw the latter on a return trip to Madrid and he was so dashing), which was partly set in Oxford. Tony was educated at Oxford, where he was taught by C.S. Lewis.

Stone House had that same air as Oxford after the Second World War: Empire, Queen, country, manners, formality and cerebral pursuits. I noticed a study full of books, African artefacts, the tick-tock of a grandfather clock somewhere in the distance. I later discovered that Tony and Eve always filled in the Daily Telegraph crossword after lunch and that the family regularly played Scrabble after dinner. Before bed, there were prayers.  This family was into words. They had memorised most of the Oxford Dictionary. 

And now let’s talk about Geoffrey – Geoff. The first thing I noticed was that although he was trim and fit, he had relatively white legs compared to an Aussie male. He was polite, but aloof. He had that British reserve. I was not in the least bit attracted to him. He was too different from the sort of bloke I had rubbed shoulders with in Oz, in both looks and manner.

Susan and I gave him a lift back with us to London as he was going to see a Jacobean play (the period after Elizabeth I – 1567 to 1625) with a female friend – not a date. Can you imagine an Aussie bloke ever attending such an evening! He was bemoaning the fact that it was going to be boring. I suggested that if the evening became really dull, he could spice it up and give her a “cuddle”. I didn’t know that their relationship was platonic. He burst out laughing. He later told me that when I made him laugh, that was the first time he really clocked me.

Susan suggested he might like to show me the sights of London as part of his best man’s duties. We agreed to meet up sometime, with no fixed time planned.

So later is Book Club.