I just have to share a couple of paragraphs from the Duchess of Devonshire's book Wait For Me. Bursts of laughter from me have been known to startle my pups at different times while reading this delightful memoir.
"My father did not wish for a social life. Muv would have enjoyed one but seldom suggested anything he would not want--she was aware of the hazards. Lunch guests were rare, but a memorable exception was the Duchess of Marlborough, the American Gladys Marie Deacon, second wife of the Ninth Duke, who came over from Blenheim. She produced a paper handkerchief, the first any of us had seen, blew her nose and stuck it into a yew hedge. My father was outraged."
"Swinbrook village and its inhabitants seemed eternal. Winnie Crook, whose initials gave us children such pleasure, ran the post office. She served tuppence-worth of acid drops in a twist of paper, weighed on the same brass scales as the letter. Our other delights were Fry's peppermint cream, which broke off into conveniently sized bits, and good old Cadbury's tuppenny bars. I do not know if she sold anything more expensive but these were what we could afford. There was the village idiot who chased Nancy and no one thought anything of it, Mrs Price, who lived up a bank and was nearly a hundred years old, and at the Mill Cottage, Mrs Phelps, whom Father mistook for a heifer calf when she was bent over weeding her garden."
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