Selected articles
Memorial address for Alida Harvie
For the beautiful young Alida was warmly embraced by Lloyd George, beamed at by Mr Baldwin, Ramsay Macdonald bestowed a wintry smile, the be-monocled Austern Chamberlain offered a more formal salute and even Mr Winston Churchill gave her a puckish smile.
A brave bitch
A cold shudder struck us both and we raced to the cliff edge walking along it, staring down at the shingle beach about 80 feet down a steeply sloping ridged drop.
Funeral address for Keith Rogerson
Though enchanted by the sea, he was not a natural cog within any system. When they shared a cabin together, Andrew Waugh remembers how my father used to ‘lose’ a portion of his paperwork by posting them into a crack he had opened into the metal bulkhead.
China Tea in Gibraltar
For a skilled submariner could piggy-back his way through any surveillance, by waiting patiently and then tagging its way along by following (a bit like a limpet) underneath a noisy ship.
My Mother / Kathy's Youth
... on one memorable occasion we arrived home to find her racing around the garden in her car, apparently trying to run down my father
Spirit of Place
He remembered with documentary accuracy what an indifferent, if not bored and shirty, student he had been as both boy and young man, only interested in music, films, cigarettes, booze and girls.
Observing the Baring family
The first Lord Ashburton was a brilliant young diplomat who won over the hostile society of colonial America after the 1812 war and was arguably the first to establish the special relationship, sealing a new style of peace-making by taking an American girl home to be his wife.
Memorial address for Nico Rogerson, 1943-2017
Nico was always active, as close to Peter Pan as any mortal I have met. He lived life to the full, wonderfully alive to the moment, and forever charmed by the prospect of the next adventure.
John Baring - Lord Ashburton
John was knighted twice, built two country houses, was married twice, served as the Chairman of two great British institutions and helped establish two Country Operas. He had worked for the Prince of Wales and was a personal friend of the Queen. It is not a record that is likely to be equalled.
People of the Gardens: Five generations of the Rochford Family
Whether for real or in their imagination they looked back to a 14th-century heyday when they were in possession of slender tower-castles in the West of Ireland
Venezuelan Gold
We took coffee of a jaguar hunter who lives alone in his commodious hut in the jungle ...
Carriages to Klosters
We were on a green mission: to travel from the streets of London to the snow-covered pavements of Klosters in twenty-four hours by train ...