Lord Bonkers' Diary: Drinking gin with Matron

I may have got the idea that Matron is too fond of gin from Sheila Hancock, who played Miss Hannigan that way (to Stratford Johns' Daddy Warbucks) in the first London production of Annie.

Wednesday

I was sad to see my fellow hereditary peers expelled from the Lords. I am not affected by the recent change in the law because mine is a Rutland peerage and thus I am guaranteed lifelong membership of the House under the provisions of the Treaty of Oakham. I forget quite when it was signed or who signed it, but I have a copy – indeed the only copy known to exist – safely locked away in the Library here at Bonkers Hall. 

And so to my Home for Well-Behaved Orphans, where excitement is running high at the prospect of Friday’s Beltane bonfire. How sweet their voices sound as they practise their songs! Though I have to say that in my young day folk songs were about chaps setting off on May mornings, with the occasional drowned sailor thrown in. 

I don’t know if the Wise Woman of Wing has been drinking gin with Matron again, bringing some of her lore with her, but the words the little inmates sing are alarming: The Unquiet Grave would count as light relief in their company.

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

Earlier this week...

• A cloud passes over the sun
• In return for a chunky donation