I think the meal at Le Caprice was my parents’ idea – to celebrate my qualification as a Chartered Accountant along with Uncle Michael, Auntie Pam, Stanley Bloom and his good lady (Sharit?).
Le Caprice was a trendy place even then – I’m not quite sure what would have made mum and dad choose it. Perhaps to show off a bit. Perhaps because they had heard that it was a restaurant that was able to cope with fussy eaters…we had at least one in our party that day in Auntie Pam.
Roll the clock forward 30 years and I note that Kim likes that place, perhaps for similar “trendy but able to cope with a fussy eater” reasons.
I don’t believe any photos were taken that evening to mark the occasion – such meals were not seen to be the thing of photos necessarily back then. But it is just possible that I’ll stumble across some pictures when I delve into dad’s “late works” box of negatives and prints, which still awaits my trawl.
“Kates” means Kate (Susan) Fricker’s place. I’m pretty sure Kate was, at that time, living in a pied-à-terre flat in Hampstead, part of the house that had been the family home before her family moved to York.
Evenings with Kate were always pleasant. We both enjoyed cooking and eating good food. We both liked decent wine and we would always have interesting conversations. I’m sure that Saturday evening would have been such an evening.
I’m guessing that we would have both been in celebratory mode, work-wise, at that time – Kate was called to the bar around the time I qualified.