I do not like being photographed, and am definitely not an exhibitionist. But somehow, if a photo opportunity arises in some crazy situation I draw the short straw. And if somebody else gets implicated I get the blame.

Decades ago I persuaded a friend to accompany me to London for a bit of harmless fun. We were reasonably good looking, smart, well-spoken Englishwomen. She was pretty well up on art. We decided that I was the owner of a stately home, death duties had forced us to sell an Old Master and we needed a replacement. 

We started mildly, with Harrods. Emboldened by a good lunch we did over the Bond Street Galleries. No, that might not please the inheritors. The dowager would certainly NOT like that one. That would be too much in shadow. That one was perfect, but way beyond our budget.  We went happily home. That evening her husband phoned, wanting to speak to Mr G. “My wife is never going out with X again, she is shattered at all the lies she told”. We remained friends. In fact they could not have children, and when we adopted our first they did the same, two lovely boys.

At our second huge house we held big parties in the farmyard for the local Agricultural Association. For the second we decided to liven things up a bit, and hired go-go dancers. Busy organising we saw 6 cars roar out from the parking: six wives saying their husbands could walk home. By accident, the go-go dancers’ tassles came un-stuck, and what we did NOT know was that they had bought their pimp with them. Four of the men got lifts, leaving us with two, who claimed, over tea and sympathy, that their wives did not understand them.

Another super party was in the garden of our first house. I was wearing a wrap-around skirt which tied at the back. Some joker untied it, took it off, climbed a tree and tied my skirt like a flag. It was not a very big tree, so I went into the shed, got a saw, sawed the tree down and put my skirt back on again. Now that was cool before the word became fashionable.

My best party trick was standing on my head at 2s6p a minute (old money). The host tried it, just got balanced and they poured beer down his trousers. We bought rough cider at 44/6p for a 6 gallon barrel. We had a girl student to help with the kids. We and the male students tied her to a chair with a long telephone cord and started to slow-roast her with candles. But we were short of chairs, so gave up.

In Paris for my 70th birthday there was a fountain where jets of water came up intermittently. The trick was to miss them, I did not, got soaked – reminded because got the same skirt on today.

In your mis-spent youth (or life) do you think ‘Did we really do that?’  Or ‘boy, those were the days’. 

The Gardener

A Moodscope member