The Tumbrel Diaries

Lately an excellent colleague of mine, an enormously learned young man, has directed my attention to Mrs. Piozzi [Hester, previously Mrs. Th...

The following day we approached the chalk cliffs between Seaford and Beachy Head. The most extraordinary aspect of this stretch of south coa...

Last weekend we stayed in a little cottage on the South Downs, hard by the ancient smuggling village of Alfriston, East Sussex. Two places, ...

Among the assortment of old gramophone records that lived in Dad’s study at number 18 Denham Place was “Callas à Paris,” a collection of Fre...

This rather beautiful drawing by Dame Laura Knight is coming up for sale late this month at Lawrences in Dorset, for next to no money. It sh...

Ronald Searle has died at the great age of 91. By all accounts he felt oppressed by his enduring association with the Belles of St. Trinian...

New Year’s Day? It’s incredible. The accelerating rate at which it arrives! I suppose the reason for that is that each passing year forms an...

When I was a rather shy and extremely inexperienced undergraduate in the early 1980s, I indulged an immoderate enthusiasm ...

Just before Christmas I sent the following message to the editor of the Paris Review , hoping it might be included in the advice column in t...

We go the whole way back, my bear and I. His name is “Brownie,” though I’m not sure why: The threads are dappled grey, not brown, with which...