On Family and the Importance of Hats.

A very pretty 21-year-old woman said ‘love you’ to me today, which was rather sweet. And the fact that she was one of my granddaughters made it really quite moving. And the other two (I have three, you know) told me several times how glad they were that they had inherited my (slightly unconventional) genes. If I may reprise a sentence which appears about a hundred and fifty times in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca: ‘I did not say anything.’

I should mention that I had a visit today from my daughter and three granddaughters. My daughter told me the story of her aunt’s misgivings regarding her marriage way back whenever it was. On the day before the nuptials were to be performed she had communicated her fears to her mother and said that she didn’t think she was able to go through with it, to which her mother replied: ‘You have to. We’ve bought the hats.’

Her aunt and uncle are, incidentally, still married and apparently despise one another.