Many years ago, when I worked as a stage hand

at the Old Vic, I walked into the canteen and found a young woman who had been thrown in to the deep end. The night before she had opened in Antony and Cleopatra and was quite simply too young and inexperienced to cope with playing such an amazing character as Cleopatra. She was sobbing her heart out and I felt embarrassed useless and impotent trying to cheer her up. Even the odd barb thrown at one by a critic writing about one's biography, let alone autobiography, can hurt quite a lot. When I read that I have been solidly drunk for the last 62 years it upsets me, and not Jest because of whether or not it is true, but journalists paint portraits of people they haven't even looked at, let alone known. They paint in the dark.

Long life

A nation of suburbs

Nigel Nicolson

THE A.G. LEVENTIS COLLECTION

19th and 20th Century

GREEK PAINTINGS

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Aimilios Prosalentis, The Welcoming of Admiral Miaoulis in Hydra

oil on canvas, 67 x 120 cm

THE HELLENIC CENTRE

16/18 Paddington Street, London WI

4 - 30 November 1994

Tue - Sat 10.00 am - 6.00 pm daily