My maternal grandmother is a Cator. If you’d like a thumbnail sketch the Cators are genetically rich and pathologically mean. There is probably no connection, although … My paternal grandmother is a Jameson – less rich and wildly generous.
Ages ago I met two cousins for lunch in the City. When the bill came they both pulled out wallets and I got my first glimpse of receipts from a pawnbroker. They both used the same one. This reminds me of an episode when an impecunious friend took advantage of his parents’ absence on holiday to hock their dining room chairs. He had some difficulty redeeming the pledge but got them back in the nick of time. It was unfortunate that the taxi driver bringing the parents home mentioned that he’d been to their address. He remembered it because his fare crammed six chairs into the cab.
In 1944 both Nancy Mitford and James Lees-Milne hock diamond necklaces. Why J L-M had one is a mystery but it wasn’t as good as Nancy’s. She raised £2,500, he only got £525 from her pawnbroker in the Strand but Spinks had valued it at £400. It seems strange that they needed to raise money as they both had jobs: Nancy at Heywood Hill and J L-M at the National Trust. He dines at almost every high-end hotel in London as well as Wilton’s, clubs and restaurants at one point giving a dinner party at the Ritz and she is paid very little so that explains it.
https://youtu.be/9qhovT-x6S8