To the Manor Born

Flock wallpaper. Once common in Indian restaurants in the 60s and 70s, via Georgian design based on Indian textiles. Probably coming back – ...

Moray Dalton (Katherine Renoir) wrote several mystery-thrillers that deserve more fans. They are very revealing about attitudes of the time...

Toby frill You might think this is one of the limpest titles ever, but for the Cathcarts it's not a simple proceeding. One of a family o...

This novel was rejected by Barbara Pym's publisher, in the early 60s. Perhaps it didn't seem in tune with the times. Pym took it bac...

"Ordinary folk" talk about “making memories”. You do all the hoopla and games so that your children can “make memories”. They als...

What not to wear Vogue’s Book of Etiquette was published just post World War Two.   All etiquette books start “the old rigid formality of th...

My upmarket accent means that people have always made assumptions about me. When I left university, I needed a job, any job. It was my ambit...