Lord Bonkers' Diary: The little girl who asked for my autograph and then demanded I sing 'The Way I Feel Inside'

It looks as though Lord Bonkers has escaped from Camley Street Natural Park, but I won't relax until he's back at the Hall.

Incidentally, I once wrote an article about Camley Street for the New Statesman, but it's no longer on their website. "That's Socialism for you," as Lord B. would say. 

I miss the old brute.

The little girl who asked for my autograph and then demanded I sing 'The Way I Feel Inside'

I will not deny that I did well for myself. It’s not just that the visiting schoolchildren were generous with their sandwiches - I fear that more than one will have been marked down for listing a gorilla among the wildlife they spotted that day, though I rather fell for the little girl who asked for my autograph and then demanded I sing ‘The Way I Feel Inside’ - it’s that the neighbourhood proved to be thronged with pop-up restaurants that offered every cuisine known to man. So enticing were they that I had to have my costume let out twice during my stay there.

Then, one evening as I rolled home from a favourite eatery, I spied a familiar van: the fellow was delivering the East Midlands’ most prized product to an all-night delicatessen! We fell into conversation and it transpired that his grandfather had been a deputy in one of my own Stilton mines. He kindly agreed to give me a lift home as the Hall was not far off his route back to Cropwell Bishop. 

One thing worried me: "What about the smell?" I inquired. "Don’t worry, your lordship," came the reply, "it won’t affect the cheese."

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

Earlier this week

• Refuge to the wanted gorilla