Friday, January 17, 2014

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Oh, those Russians!

Wednesday

In my younger day I spent more time at my London residence – Bonkers House in Belgrave Square. In those days the more affluent parts of London were home to many Russian aristocrats who had (very wisely) fled the Bolshevik revolution. Trouble was, they adopt the ways of their hosts and would be up till all hours playing the balalaika, boiling their samovars and slicing the corks from champagne bottles with their sabres.

As I recall telling them one evening after a nasty incident involving a peasant and a knout: “If you are in Britain and you are coming to live in Britain and you are bringing up a family here, you have got to be sensitive to the way that life is lived in this country." My words must have hit home, for today the leader of our own party is sprung from just this stock.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers's Diary

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