All in One Basket by Deborah Mitford Duchess of Devonshire

Author:Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire [Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-11-13T11:00:00+00:00

The Organ Recital

When two or three old people are gathered together in the name of lunch, you can be sure of the subject of conversation to start the ball rolling. Illnesses of all shapes and sizes are the thing and the Organ Recital17 begins. Heads, bodies and legs are dissected; noses, throats and ears, skin and bones, arteries, liver and lights, and (Blair’s favourites) hearts and minds. Once you start on minds you are in for a basinful. Of the two it is better to stick to hearts and whether or not you are allowed to walk upstairs.

Hips and knees lead to bones. Stomachs, teeth and gums, closely allied as it is not much use having one without the others, can lead to a dissertation on dentistry. Impacted wisdom teeth are good but there is a trick called root canal treatment that takes almost as long to describe as the lengthy treatment itself, with your jaws jammed open till the cows come home. There is a strong sense of competition, even as to the waiting time at hospital (length of); tales of woe are capped and re-capped as the Organ Recital progresses.

Various syndromes that I’ve never heard of are trotted out as a part of everyday life and sympathy is expected from the listener. Doctors come in for praise or criticism. Surgeons are either haloed magicians or bunglers who ought to be struck off. A curious thing is that they are always described as ‘my GP’ or ‘my surgeon’, when they are ordinary independent people who don’t belong to anyone. Consultants are described as ‘you know who I mean, the big kidney man’ or whatever the man’s favourite bit of body happens to be.

Look out when it comes to food, which is either very good or very bad for you. Lumped together as ‘diet’ it is dangerous ground because the dish you are giving someone for lunch will have come in for a pounding before they sit down to it. An extraordinary phenomenon, unknown to our parents, is fads. An invitation, especially to a municipal or university celebration, often has ‘Special Dietary Requirements’ printed on it, with a space for you to fill in. What you and I never see are the replies, so we don’t ever know if the invitees just put ‘caviar’.

If a grand person is among the guests, his/her PA will telephone to say, ‘I thought you would like to know that X cannot eat…’ and then follow all the most delicious foods one after another. Next time this happens I plan to say, ‘Why can’t they just say “no thank you”?’ If the guest is very grand indeed and suffers from some strange religion, there is little you can safely offer. Better steer clear as such social life has become full of pitfalls.

You must leave at least ten minutes for the Organ Recital, which leads seamlessly, as they say now (what are these nonexistent seams that people go on about?), to Trolley Talk, the romance of

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