And of course England is in the midst of a most awful depression. You only have to look on any street corner at those tragic men standing with signs saying Will accept any kind of work to know that things are pretty grim for most people. Not for most of my social class, however. For most of them life goes on unchanged, with yachts on the Med and extravagant parties. They probably don’t even know the country is in a bad way.

So now you know why there is no Bentley and chauffeur parked outside Rannoch House, our family’s London home on Belgrave Square, and why I can’t even afford to take a taxicab too often. I do usually try to avoid the tube, however. For a country-bred girl like myself the descent into that black hole has always been a cause for alarm—and more so since I was almost pushed under a train by a man who was trying to kill me.

But on this occasion I had no choice. Central London was so unbearably stifling that I decided to go and visit my grandfather, who lives on the fringes of London in Essex, and the District Line was the way to travel. Oh, and I suppose I should clarify that I’m not speaking about my grandfather the Scottish duke, whose ghost is still reputed to play the bagpipes on the battlements of our ancestral home, Castle Rannoch in Perthshire, Scotland. I’m speaking of my nonroyal grandfather, who lives just outside London in a modest semidetached with gnomes in the front garden. You see, my mother was an actress and the daughter of a Cockney policeman. She was also a notorious bolter. She left my father when I was only two and has subsequently worked her way from an Argentinian polo player, to a Monte Carlo rally driver and a Texan oil millionaire. Her romantic exploits have truly spanned the globe, unlike her daughter who has yet to have a romantic exploit.

After she bolted I was raised at Castle Rannoch. As you can imagine, I was kept well away from my mother’s side of the family when I was growing up. So I have only just got to know my grandfather and frankly I adore him. He is the only person in the world with whom I can be myself. It’s like having a real family for once!