Lord Bonkers' Diary: “Oh Mr Meadowcroft, you’re so sweet!”

I hadn't been intending to do this. Instead, I had been dreaming of a public row at Liberal Democrat HQ that would give me a pretext for getting rid of Freddie and Fiona altogether. But having had the idea, I realised that their buying a weekend cottage in Rutland might have hilarious consequences.

Fiona's “Oh Mr Meadowcroft, you’re so sweet!” was inspired by a half-remembered Posy Simmonds strip about the manners of the weekending classes.[Amazingly, after writing this I found it online.] And with it, we finish another week in the company of Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Sunday

As the Revd Hughes Went On A Bit at St Asquith’s, I have called in at the Bonkers Arms for a restorer before lunch. To my horror, I encounter Freddie and Fiona at the bar. “We’ve just exchanged contracts on a weekend cottage here,” they announce. “We love your Notswolds”. 

Worse than that, Meadowcroft is playing up to them shamelessly, singing folk songs of his own invention and retailing country lore that I for one have never heard before. “If polling day falls when the wheat be green, then turnout will exceed the mean” is just one example. 

“Oh Mr Meadowcroft, you’re so sweet!” exclaims Fiona, kissing his beaming, rubicund face. Feeling suddenly unwell, I make my excuses and leave.

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

Earlier this week...

• From the pubs of Oswestry to the crumbling walls of Ludlow
• Matron told me at the party last night
• Commander Gideon, Dr Simon Sparrow and the girls of St Trinian's
• Rescuing fallen women or scourging himself
• We feed them sausages and plum bread
• My failure to make a television detective of Jeremy Thorpe