Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Saucy Baroness Scott

With the cancellation of Seaborne Freight's contract yesterday, shares in Rutland Ferries will probably rise further when the Oakham Exchange opens on Monday morning. Did the old boy know something we didn't?

Thursday

A blowy day on Rutland Water as I join the crowds thronging Oakham Quay to watch the day’s ferry sail for the Hook of Holland. The Empress of Rutland is certainly a fine vessel, and it happens that my majority shareholding in Rutland Ferries has proved something of a goldmine of late.

I had a phone call from one Grayling (he managed to cut himself off twice during our conversation and sounded as though he had got his head stuck in the wastepaper basket at one point) asking if I had any ferries to spare. I told him I had, partly to stop him crying and partly because of the extraordinary sum he dropped into our conversation.

If I am honest, the Saucy Baroness Scott has been in dry dock for a couple of years, while the First Lady Bonkers has been grounded on the mudflats beyond the harbour bar for longer than that. Still, I did not get the impression that this Grayling is the sort who investigates the goods he buys too closely.

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

Earlier this week...

• Remembering Sir Paddy Ashplant
• Curled up with the Wise Woman of Wing