Last week the belongings of the late Debo, Duchess of Devonshire were sold at auction; among them an Epstein sketch used as a coal shovel by Lucian Freud, a pair of antlers, sprayed gold and transformed into a hat rack, and the monogrammed wooden boxes she used to transport her pet hens to shows. Her extensive collection of Elvis memorabilia, including a telephone that rings to the tune of Jailhouse Rock, was also up for grabs. I had to ban myself from going for fear that I would try to buy it all.
Debo’s death, at the age of 94, mattered not just because she was the last of the Mitford sisters (her sister Nancy always referred to her as Nine, arguing that she had never developed mentally beyond that age), but because she belonged to a dying breed.
It is only recently that I have realised how much I miss the toff. And I don’t mean the blonde girls called “Buffer” and “Mimsy” and “Nugget” who congregate in the haberdashery department of Peter Jones with Coutts cards and bottoms the size of Norfolk (a friend points out that rahs always move in herds, and at least one will be the size of a bison). I mean the old guard who were bred in country piles, cocooned in tweed and mated with their cousins. They emerged into the world like anaemic butterflies — rich, frail and utterly unable to cope — and provided us with hours of entertainment.
Take the Fifth Marquess of Anglesey, known as “Toppy”, who modified his car so that its exhaust sprayed perfume instead of petrol fumes, or Viscount Tredegar, who taught his parrot to climb up his trouser leg and poke his head through his flies as a party trick. Also worthy of mention is Sir George Reresby Sitwell, who not only invented a miniature revolver with which to shoot wasps, but also decided that the cows outside his house were dull and had them painted with watercolours. These eccentrics had enough money to behave appallingly and were arrogant enough not to care (the modern equivalent is Kim and Kanye).
They also inspired some of the most memorable characters in fiction, from Nancy Mitford’s Uncle Matthew, who would “hunt” his children across the countryside with bloodhounds, to Jilly Cooper’s Chessie France-Lynch, who liked to do backstroke topless just to shock the staff.
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In comparison, the modern toff is a sad, beige creature, crippled by inheritance taxes and chased out of Chelsea by the oligarchs. They gather at Twickers for “cheeky pints” and have no greater aim in life than one day bosching Millie, who does PR for Quintessentially. There are one or two exceptions to this rule: Isabella Blow, for example, who gave great Sloane, and the Marquess of Bath, with his terrible murals and legion of wifelets. There is Mark-Francis Vandelli from Made in Chelsea, once memorably described by Popbitch as “a diamond in a sea of turds”, but mainly it’s just Ben Fogle, smiling dimly at us like a Labrador. No one wants to read about that. I’m sure Pippa Middleton relishes the pursuit of tennis and stockbrokers, but there is more excitement in the Boden catalogue, and life is a little greyer as a result.
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I am familiar with the pitfalls of the shorter man (unlike Nicole Kidman, I’m quite happy not to wear heels), but I’m now realising that tall men might be more of a problem. The Man is a clinical giant (or at least this is what he tells airlines in the hope of gaining extra legroom). Practically, this means that smug couple selfies are out — we only ever managed to get his head and the upper inch of my forehead. I have now bashed my head against his shoulder so much that I have a permanent bruise (I have tentatively suggested he puts a kneepad there) and have had to adjust to the fact that he quite often can’t hear what I’m saying because he’s too high up. Even in heels, which elevate me from armpit to collarbone level, I look like a porg (person of restricted growth). How on earth has Rod Stewart coped without a ladder?