Nicky Haslam
DESIGNER’S NOTEBOOK
‘V
olcanic temper... suspicious of
everyone... irritability, mood
swings... terror stalking the shadows...
devastating collapse of Europe’s
economy... rampant insecurity,
unbridled hypochondria...’ Trump?
No, it’s Henry VIII, according to
Robert Hutchinson. But the ‘king’
across the water is uncannily like the
Tudor tyrant; the discarded wives, the
wenching, the rival heirs, the fawning, the
flattery, the broken treaties. Palm Beach
is his jousting ground; Mar-a-Lago his
gaudier Nonsuch.
A
s I was writing a review of the very
wordy Dressed: The Secret Life of
Clothes by Shahidha Bari, who believes
that every stitch we put on has some
deep inner meaning, up she pops on a
radio programme to say that fashion has
never been as diversified as now. What?
Has she not looked around? Though
the denim tide is gradually receding,
its ubiquity has been replaced by every
male, even the more mature, shuffling
about in sloppy shorts: the young live in
trackies, and all women wear trainers.
In the past the streets were vibrant with
variation: uniforms, civil and military,
the latter deemed unsafe. You now see
very few nuns and priests, bowlered City
gents, tycoonesses in power-shoulders,
neat old ladies or rampant dandies. The
police are indistinctive in yellow hi-vis;
there’s a dearth of skinheads, Teds,
meter-maids in stern skirts and bike-
messengers in leathers. Remember how
their wind-blown locks would curl round
their helmets like Mercury’s wings?
F
rogmore House, lying in its lush
18th-century landscape below
Windsor’s castle, couldn’t be a more
sylvan setting for post-wedding
receptions. At a recent one I went to,
as younger royals sunk gratefully into
chairs, the Queen stood for more than
45 minutes, listening to each speech,
mentally annotating every word, and left
with no ceremony. Nearby, hidden artlessly
in a grove of trees, nestles Frogmore
Cottage, seemingly a modest two-up,
two-down job; but it also has a long,
clearly newly renovated, wing. Years ago,
in this diary, when Debo Devonshire, a
full-on Elvis aficionado, asked for new
names for Chatsworth, I suggested ‘Her
Gracelands’. So what about ‘Frockmore’
or even ‘Sprogmore’?M
y most recent book was published a
couple of months ago. I won’t bore
you with the usual dreary litany of lit fests,
which have become a latter-day version of
Women’s Institute meetings. One book that
seems to have slipped through the ever-
expanding dragnet is Devoid of Shyness,
the pre-war diaries of Alan Pryce-Jones, the
editor of the Times Literary Supplement.
Names that have now become boulders are
lightly dropped in riveting detail, plus there
is plenty of personal hedonism. ‘Tonight I
painted my face white and my lips scarlet...
smoke eight or ten pipes of opium, laced
with a little cocaine, and heroin as well...
and some Pernod and pate de foie gras.’
Tell that to our drug czar.M
y beloved soulmate of 65 years, the
irreplaceable Min Hogg, died very
recently — mercifully, ‘without knowing
it’, as Cocteau said of Raymond Radiguet.
I was still at Eton when we met, and my
friends adored her on sight. She was the
founder of that visual rocket, The World of
Interiors. Her flight path was taste in all its
spheres, her destination universal, her fuel
a slow-burn humour. Hearing that Mama
Cass had died after eating a ham sandwich
at midnight in Shepherd Market, she said: ‘I
do wish somebody would tell me whereI could get a ham sandwich at midnight.’
I imagine she’s already sorted the colour
of Heaven’s kitchen.O
ne wonders what path the ‘deecor’
of No. 10 will take under its new
management, as I imagine Mrs May had
to put that off as well. Judging by her
hasty turnaround, Boris better not think
about ‘buying his own furniture’. I went
there once, in the Major years, and wrote
about the banality of dull photographs
of PMs ranged up the main staircase.
Soon came a letter in a tiny neat hand:
‘I placed those photographs there, and
I like them very much indeed. Yours
sincerely, Mary Wilson.’N
ot long ago, white peaches were
an expensive rarity. Now they’re
a quid for six on my local barrow. A
month ago, on their home turf, the south
of France, I needed some for the most
sublime summer dessert. There were
none in any market — street, super or
black. I couldn’t even find the flat ones
which the French call ‘au turban’, though
we ploddingly say ‘doughnut’. Turns out
they are all sent to Britain. As they’re
available for a bit yet, here’s the recipe...
you’ll need eight ripe white peaches
(a couple more if flat), some ice-cold
gin, and caster sugar (white). Peel the
peaches as you would tomatoes, cooled,
after a minute in boiling water. Slice
thinly into glass bowl. Squeeze lemon
juice over, cover and refrigerate. Take
bowl from fridge 20 mins before needed.
Bring to table with the bottle of cold
gin and packet of caster sugar. Pour on
a good slug of gin and spoon in plenty
of sugar (don’t make it too liquid), stir
thoroughly and eat immediately. Do not
substitute. It doesn’t work with yellow
peaches or vodka or granulated sugar.
And oddly, won’t make you drunk.
Lady Diana Cooper always said the
only definition of that overworked word
‘gorgeous’ is ‘a ripe white peach... or
Ava Gardner’.