Country life
A matter
of counting
Leanda de Lisle
There are 17 people who count in this house, and to say I am intimate with all of them is the understatement of the century. I grant you some of them are animals, but a quick glance at my diary indicates a fash- ionable lunch at 'The Kitchen' with myself and the four other core members of my family. Excuse me, I have a message com- ing through on the internal telephone sys- tem. It's the nanny. She has asked the gardener for the latest information on the raspberries in the walled garden. If you want them before the public is offered them, I can get them. Meanwhile Sarah, our Chief wiper and cleaner, tells me the Light Sussex chickens aren't performing. We need good eggs, but they just cluck about. Like Michael Meacher, they aren't long for this world.
Brian, our 'on the grounds man', says PM (Peter Myhusband) must be complete- ly ruthless. If Blair's bantams (as he myste- riously calls them) are no more than a flock of feather-bottomed birds, incapable of doing anything of worth, we should wring their necks. One nod from myself or PM and Brian will do the job. However, our three goldfish, two Lavender Arucanas, one (large) dog and one (small-ish) ham- ster are quite safe in their positions as household animals. If you are prepared to stuff my bank account with £250 an hour I'll introduce you to them any time you want. Some of you may say, 'What about your Netherlands Dwarf rabbit?' Well you can meet him too if you so desire, but he's not one of the 17 who count. In fact, he doesn't count at all.
We hate rabbits in this house. We hate them so much we climb onto the roof and shoot them with rifles fixed with silencers. You should see us crouched behind the brick parapet. It's like seeing The Day of the Jackal with his family and friends. I work as a spotter, scanning the lawns below for unsuspecting bunnies. When I've found one, I call the rabbit assassin over to join me, softly, softly. He then mouths some- thing at my eldest son and lines up the rab- bit in his rifle's telescopic sights. There's a whispered 'thwack' and the rodent leaps in surprise before falling down dead. It's easy to shoot a dozen or so rabbits in an evening, but don't think that the odds are in our favour.
The day after any rabbit massacre, we'll see double the numbers — not simply nib- bling the grass, but sunbathing like rows of German tourists at a Cosmos hotel. I expect the man who invented myxomatosis knows how we feel. But whom, I wonder, might Derek Draper want to shoot from a roof top? Observer journalists, perhaps — although I'd rather he went for the once powerful old men who expressed such delight at his political demise. I've never met Derek and I'm sure he has done much I would disapprove of, but of all the people who have written a Spectator Diary' over the past couple of years he sounded the most fun.
You'd have to be pretty small to hate someone, not because they are a bad boy, but because they were a rather successful boy. But such midgets aren't only to be found amongst those suffering from senile shrinkage. Why, I wonder, were so many commentators rude about Derek's north- ern vowels? After all, we can't all learn estuary English at a minor public school. The answer is, because Derek's number one crime was to rise above those who con- sider themselves his betters. Nothing would make them happier than to see him become a television presenter in the Jimmy Tarbuck mould.
However, it seems Derek has become a columnist. One who may gradually find more and more doors closed to him. If he doesn't want to grow as bitter as those who cheered his downfall he'd better reappraise his list of 17 people: from those who count to those who matter to him.
'It's Humphrey the Downing Street cat.'
Previous page
