Old men don’t always forget.
I remember St Patrick’s Day at Pirbright in 1970 when I was at Eton aged fifteen. A collection of likely candidates for the regiment were invited; a couple of us had some Irish ancestry but the Irish Guards was then as now prepared to spread its net wide. Not for nothing it was (is?) known as the Foreign Legion.
Like a few Public Schools in those days there were lists of clothes, kit, furniture, subscriptions to papers and magazines that my poor mother grappled with. All I can remember is an instruction that donkey jackets were forbidden. Donkey jacket? We didn’t have a clue but thought it unlikely one was in my meagre wardrobe.
The one item of attire not required was a suit. My mother, frugally, thought it would be an extravagance for a growing adolescent. Fortunately Jamie’s expensive, tailored, grey flannel suits fitted me perfectly. I could hardly pitch up in Eton uniform. To digress my godmother’s husband was a bit rattled when I did and asked me to turn up in mufti in future. My mother explained mufti to me.
An ensign was detailed to take care of us. Maybe, remember this was more than half a century ago, he went on to great glory on battlefield and in boardroom but more probably to delivering boredom. In those days in the flush of youth, to his credit, he thought a better opportunity lay with a good looking girll he’d rather pleasure than a bunch of spotty schoolboys. I like to think his career flourished because he had his first taste of action when after a prolonged buffet lunch in the Mess he gathered us up, a squiffy bunch, to be presented to the Queen Mother.
We were just about vertical but it was probable horizontal was imminent. He manoeuvred a hefty sofa so that we could stand, glassy-eyed, propped up against it. Like her daughter, the Queen Mother was enough of a pro to appraise the situation and pass swiftly down the line looking us in the eye but not stopping to chat. The next St Patrick’s Day I remember was in Belize in 1973 when I was eighteen. Remind me to tell you.