Past Imperfect

I was leaving when I had to ask one last question. ‘Are you really a Catholic?’

He laughed. I suppose the wording was rather fu

I shook my head. ‘So you “lapsed”?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

His answer interested me. ‘Why “afraid”? Would you like to believe?’

Damian glanced at me patronisingly, as if I were a child. ‘Of course I would,’ he said. ‘I’m dying.’

The car was waiting patiently outside, but I knew there was a train every twenty minutes and so, with the immaculate chauffeur’s permission, I allowed myself a little wander among the stalls of the fête below. I thought about Damian’s unexpected words as I looked at these tables of old, unreadable books, at the piles of lamps from all the worst periods, at the cakes and jams, painstakingly made and all soon doubtless to be outlawed by the Health and Safety Stasi, at the dolls without their voice boxes and the jigsaws ‘missing one piece,’ and I, too, felt a kind of comfort and balm in the decency they represented. Naturally, it was very old-fashioned, and I am sure that if a New Labour minister could be offended by the Last Night of the Proms, she would be rendered suicidal by the sight of this comic, uniquely English event, but there was goodness here. These people had worked hard at what I would once have judged as such a little thing, yet their efforts were not wasted on me; in fact, they almost made me cry.

It is hard to be certain from this distance, but I think I’m right in saying that Ascot came after Queen Charlotte’s Ball. I had anyway, as I have said, met Joa

Ascot as a fashionable event is almost finished now. No doubt sensibly, Her Majesty’s Representative has decided the meeting would better earn its keep as a day for racing enthusiasts and corporate entertaining. To this end the Household Stand (their sole remaining perk, poor dears, in exchange for all that unpaid smiling and standing) and various other, arcane sanctums were eliminated from the wonderful, new grandstand, and the famous Royal Enclosure is no longer workable in the altered layout. Once the Court felt unwelcome, many of its members found other things to do and after this retreat it followed as the night the day that first the smart set and next the social aspirants, those who do not live and breathe horses anyway, would start to drop away. Soon, most of them will abandon it, I would guess forever, since once British toffs are given permission to avoid a social obligation it is hard to make them take it up again. Some will say it was high time and the racing crowd will be glad that horses have once again become the business of the day. But whether or not we would agree with this now, in the 1960s we enjoyed it like billy-o.

For some reason, that year I had gone with the family of a girl called Mi

I think Mi

We had finished our lunch and it was time to make our way over the road and on to the course, so we strolled together down the high, laurel-lined path to the entrance. The police were managing the traffic, as they did even then in those comparatively traffic-free days and we were obliged to pause. ‘What on earth is going on?’ said Mi

She was right. On the other side of the road, by the main entrance, the gathering of what later came to be called Paparazzi, was going mad. As a rule there were far fewer of them then, not much more than a handful from the fashion magazines and the odd red top, but the public’s taste for what celebrities were wearing was easily assuaged in 1968. On this day, however, you would have thought there was an item of international news being played out before us all. We crossed to the other pavement, passed through the gates and walked into the little courtyard where the disorganised could buy their badges on the day itself, and moved on to the gate into the Royal Enclosure. Something happening at the barrier was what was apparently fascinating the photographers most. Some were resorting to that trick, familiar now but novel in those days, of just holding their cameras above their heads and snapping away blindly, on the off chance that something worth printing might come out.

Armed with our badged lapels and a sense of entitlement, we pushed through the crowd and there was the cause of the riot. Joa

‘But this is almost a skirt,’ replied Joa

‘ “Almost” isn’t good enough, I’m afraid, Miss. Now if you’d like to stand aside.’ He beckoned to us and we started forward.

‘Hello,’ I smiled at Joa

She laughed. ‘It’s my mother’s idea. She’s put me up to it. I thought she was wrong, and they were bound to let me in. But it seems not.’

‘Come on.’ Mi

But I was too intrigued. I couldn’t understand what Joa

Joa