We wanted to visit Charlie in Cambridge before she finished her law degree at Girton. January of her final year was leaving it almost as late as would be feasible. We had a pretty full itinerary of short trips March/April and Charlie had finals to start thinking about.
We booked the Felix for the last weekend of January, went and had a good time.
We had a wander around Cambridge on the Saturday and saw some interesting things, the most memorable of which was the Pepys Library. We went with Charlie and some of her friends to a comedy show after dinner on Saturday. Sub-Footlights, had its moments. But for some reason no photos from those bits. Oh well.
Traditional gathering for the breaking of the fast, not that many of us fast. Even fewer this year, as this was the first such gathering without dad. I’m not sure anyone was quite on best form that year with the shock of it all, apart from Jacquie who will have laid on a magnificent feast as always.
Briegal table from a later year but the look would have been similar.
26 September: Middlesex AGM?
This cannot have been the AGM, which has to be in April, so perhaps it was just an end of season forum. Sportnetwork has lost the vital 2007 MTWD reports, but fortunately this one was written by Barmy Kev who sent his report to me for editing and uploading. So here it is:
Janie and I went to see Micky’s new offices in Hatton Garden and then went on for a meal with Kim & Micky. I cannot remember where we ate that time but it might well have been The Bleeding Heart.
29 to 30 September
We went out to Chipping Norton to help Charlie celebrate her 21st birthday. We stayed in the Crown and Cushion, where the event was held. Janie and I took The Duchess with us.
I remember we hated staying in the Crown and Cushion. Several times we hinted to Tony that we’d prefer to stay somewhere else, but he would insist that the management had changed or a refurb had been done since the last time…
…but in truth our sense of the place was that it simply got worse every time we stayed there.
You’re not exactly spoiled for choice in Chipping Norton.
Anyway, it made sense to stay there on this occasion because it was the venue for the big event. The family gathered as did friends and in-laws. Charlie seemed very happy with the event and I recall some informal gatherings before and after the main event to make a bit of a weekend of it.
The second was at the Glass House Kew. Trendy and very good food if I remember correctly. Click here for reviews.
I originally thought the second evening was 4 August, but we needed to postpone that one due to my dad’s indisposition, so we rescheduled for 7 September.
The weekend before that, 1 September, Anthea and Mitchell came over to to Sandall Close for dinner.
Judging by all the scribbles in Janie’s diary, she put a heck of a lot of effort into arranging a family do at Sandall Close for her mum, Pauline (Duchess of Castlebar)’s 70th birthday.
The out of town bits of the family will have stayed at local hotels.
The menu and arrangements look to me as though she got Murray Tollemache aka The Pie Man to cater this one. He was certainly one of our favourite dudes for Z/Yen functions at that time and the order list of pies is a bit of a giveaway.
Strangely, 25 years after the event (and many more years after Murray started The Pie Man business, he’s still going strong under the name TPM Catering.
Most of the family probably appreciated the effort that Janie had gone to. The Duchess almost certainly didn’t.
Coincidentally, Janie and I went to see Dinner With The Family with the Duchess the following week.
No doubt a plan mainly cooked up by Janie and Kim and Phillie. Notes in Janie’s diary suggest that she took control of the arrangements:
9:30 to 5:30… Boat trip… £150. Nobby and Phil. Deposit £500. Ring Elisabeth Mainelli. Open cabin cruiser £150. Bray Boats. Nobby. [presumably the boat man, not my car, which was at that time, coincidentally, a Honda CRX named Nobby].
Janie, with Nobby, at his last resting place
Us lot. A boat. A river. What could possibly go wrong?
Actually, I don’t think anything went wrong. I think we had rather a splendid day out, in fact.
I did have a contretemps with a swan at one point…
In truth, I’m not at home on a boat
…but we resolved our differences and were able to share the river in harmony for the rest of the trip.
Micky – more at home on boats than mePresumably that’s Nobby, with Phillie and Janie supping wine beyondStunning river scenesCharlie & Phillie
Janie cannot really add to the memory pile, other than concurring that we all had a memorable and enjoyable day.
Update: Charlotte indeed remembers:
Oh my goodness, yes I do remember this.
I think it may even have been the trip where my Dad felt he was the boating ‘expert’ and got grumpy when Mum and Janie took control of navigating some of the Locks!!! He may have had a point though as I think mum’s shoe fell into the river as part of said activities at one point!!
But the most shocking point to make is WHAT was I wearing?! Honestly, that’s a crime against humanity!
In truth I remember little about this day out in London.
Charlotte, who was about 12 at the time, might remember it a whole lot better. I’m not sure that Phillie & Tony were with us for the outing, although I’m pretty sure that Phillie, if not both of them, joined us at least for the meal at Good Earth in the evening. Both my diary and Janie’s diary describe the outing as “Charlie”.
The London Planetarium was clearly something that Charlie was keen to see, so see it we did. Janie’s diary is full of copious notes booking the place up and arranging to park in Chiltern Street.
After that, the trail gets murky. Janie was clearly considering Planet Hollywood or The Fashion Cafe for an in-between stop off, but I have a funny feeling we ended up in Madam Tussaud’s, which came as part of the deal with the Planetarium. Possibly we snacked there (or at the Planetarium) for lunch, especially as we had a dinner booked.
I think I might remember having been at the Fashion cafe, especially if all of them supermodels were hanging around in there, as implied by this write up. I did used to see Claudia Schiffer in Moscow Road occasionally in those days – I think she had a pied-à-terre around there. But I digress.
I’m pretty sure it was the Knightsbridge incarnation of The Good Earth that we tried that evening and jolly good food it was too.
Update: Yes Charlie does indeed remember more than us!
Charlie writes:
Wow, Ian, thank you for sending me that diary reminder from 1998. I remember it so well…even to the extent of Janie doing my hair in an ‘on the side’ ponytail and me wearing a hideous luminous yellow jumper 🤢
It was a wonderful weekend; we did Planetarium and M Tussauds followed by lunch at Fashion Cafe. I’m not sure mum did join us for dinner in the evening as I have a memory of going to tennis with you both on the Sunday and me having a tennis coach. I think you both also bought me some Speedo swimming costumes?!!!!!!!
So we did go to the Fashion Cafe, but I guess the supermodels weren’t there that day. Still, it’s just as well we went when we did, because the Fashion Cafe apparently opened in London in 1998 and went bust in 1999! The global story is of an even more spectacular failure.
The tennis coach would have been Jeremy or Shola, probably the latter, at Lammas Park in those days. It was Shola who introduced me and Janie to Boston Manor.
