and feather fascinators in her hair.

Dinner – long evening dress with train, vast rubies or diamonds or sapphires, high heels encrusted with precious stones, and tiaras or ostrich-feather head-dresses and velvet capes that flowed around her like water.

Stains were simply not an option.

Babyhood, as you may remember, is a pretty stain-heavy phase of life. Poor Celia had the great misfortune to be brought one morning to her mother by the nurse, just for a brief visit. Lady Gray was in a coffee gown and little Celia in a delightful concoction of rosy ruffles and frills. As Lady Gray raised up the gurgling babe, Celia threw up in spectacular fashion, liberally spattering her mother and several nearby attendants. As a result, Lady Gray refused to touch her until she was seven. This probably accounts for Celia’s difficult character. Cyril was sent to boarding school when he was two and a half and only saw his parents fleetingly on school holidays when there was some sort of ‘do’ and both children had to be dressed up in scratchy clothes and wheeled out for inspection by a lot of grand people they didn’t know. Cyril called his father ‘sir’ and, as far as he knew, had never been kissed or hugged by either parent or anyone else, for that matter. So. Have a little sympathy.

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The Diary 8

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Weather-cover scenes triumphant. Asa Butterfield, who plays Norman, and Eros Vlahos, who plays Cyril, acted wonderfully. Asa has been in lots of other things, like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and stuff, so he’s used to filming. Eros is a stand-up comic – he writes his own material and performs it in places, like at the Edinburgh Festival. He’s fourteen. I am amazed. They are both extraordinary. All the crew are very impressed. Beryl the cow is back on set with her giant googly eyes and psychological issues. I’m in what we call ‘stage three nose’ (large) but no warts. We’re hoping to get a shot of me in silhouette tonight. After eleven hours in the damp, I feel as though I’m covered with a very fine layer of mould. Horrid. And possibly true. Such a good day though. Home to eat lemon meringue pie for Greg’s (see Glossary) forty-third birthday. I met him when he was twenty-eight. Good grief.

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The Story 8

There stood Cyril, watching as the chauffeur, whose name was Blenkinsop, got into an increasingly violent struggle with Celia, who was refusing, absolutely, to get out of the car. She clung to the luxury interior as a drowning person clings to a lifebelt, screeching all the while:

‘No! No, Blenkinsop! Take me home! Take me away from here!! It’s not nice!’

‘Let go of the drinks cabinet, Miss Celia,’ pleaded the hapless Blenkinsop, who might have had a very smart chauffeur’s uniform but was paid very little for driving the Grays around whenever they wanted and wherever they wanted at all times of the day and night.

Finally, of course, Celia did let go, and without any warning, with the result that poor Blenkinsop went careering over his own shoulders into the duck pond. Meanwhile, Norman and Cyril had been exchanging insults and enraging each other to such a degree that the inevitable occurred – Norman rushed at Cyril, who bought himself some time by grabbing Celia’s boxes of new clothes and throwing them at him. The boxes opened and broke, spilling all the exquisitely fashionable items into the mud, which then got ground in by Megsie and Vincent running after Norman and Cyril to join in with the fun. Seeing this, Celia’s screams doubled, startling a flock of pigeons several miles to the west.

‘No! Not my Chanel tea gown and matching slippers!’ she shrieked. ‘Not my Lucien Lelong silk jersey pyjama pants and wrapper!’

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She picked up each bedraggled article and gnashed her teeth and yelled, finally running after the others screaming, ‘I’ll kill you for this!’

Blenkinsop, finding himself briefly alone, decided to make his escape. Just as he was lowering his dung-smeared rear on to the pristine leather of the driver’s seat, all the children came roaring around the side of the barn, slapping at each other. Blenkinsop started the engine.

‘NOOOOOOOO!!!’ screeched Celia, so loudly that everyone had to stop and put their fingers in their ears and several people in the nearby village thought it was an air raid and hid under their kitchen tables. Celia ran to the car. Blenkinsop, about to pull away, saw the desperate look in her eyes