"They'll eat you for breakfast!"
The Reverend Hughes calls at the Hall with some disturbing
news. He has decided to hand in the keys of St Asquith’s for a while and go off
on a Mission. “You ‘re not going to live with the headhunters of Borneo, are
you?” I ask sternly, knowing what he was like when he got One of His Ideas. “I
did think of that” he replies, “but it seemed so tame. No, I am convinced the
Lord is calling me to convert the more primitive tribes of the Upper Welland
Valley.” “Don’t be a fool, man,” I tell him. “They’ll eat you for breakfast,”
but he is not to be moved.
I detest such disruptions to the smooth running of things
here on the Estate and in the village. I remember when Meadowcroft (or was it
his father?) got it into his head to go off to France and grow grapes. Whilst I
was busy persuading him to return, a colony of moles established themselves on
the lawn in front of the Hall. It took years – and several closely argued
pamphlets from Meadowcroft – before I could get them to leave.
The Revd Hughes is not to be moved, and he tells me he has
arranged for a locum vicar to take Divine Service and visit the sick whilst he
is away. “He’s young and keen and believes every word of the Liberal Democrat
manifesto is the literal truth.” I eye him levelly: “It’s not Farron, is it?”
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.
Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary
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