Vanished ladies

During these short, dark, cold days I often think of that particular bygone breed of elderly English ladies who would spend the Winter in Southern France and return to England when the weather improved at  Springtime.

Of course, they had to be moderately wealthy to do this, and were spinsters or widows of means. Only the nouveau riche or recently retired would take their husbands to British enclaves in Spain or Portugal, and most of them have been impoverished by the Lloyds collapse which gobbled up their pensions and investments. 

I think these charming old women must have all died out now and I miss them. They represented a much more gracious era than the one we live in today, or so it seems to me. They had a discreet style.

I met two of them once in one town - Marlborough, the home of one of the most expensive and exclusive schools outside Eton. They were not connected.

Lady Darwin was an elegantly dressed little woman with a quiet and very posh voice. She commissioned me to make a simple pedestal sundial as a birthday present for her nearest neighbour in Marlborough. We discussed the design and price and it was agreed that I would deliver it after she had left for the South of France in a month or so. She paid up front because making a bank transfer from another country was not her style.

I only met her that one time, and her parting words to me before she left my workshop were, "Oh, and Mr Stephenson, if you let me down I will kill you."

This was said with such a sweet smile.