Lady Glenconner's Picnic Papers E-Book

Anne Glenconner

• Herausgeber: Bedford Square Publishers
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 296

Beschreibung

'Full of delightful stories...a wonderful insight into the British obsession with al fresco eating' - Travel Gourmet From the peaks of the Himalayas to the historic grounds of Hampton Court, there's always a perfect spot for a picnic! Anne Glenconner invites both old friends and new acquaintances to join her in The Picnic Papers. Featuring contributions from Bryan Adams, Graham Norton, Lorraine, Rupert Everett, Tina Brown, Freya Stark and many more, they explore the curious British obsession with dining alfresco, despite our famously unpredictable weather. Picnics, it turns out, spark strong opinions. HRH Princess Margaret insisted on having hers at a proper table, while the indefatigable John Julius Norwich enjoyed 147 picnics over seven weeks in the Sahara. In stark contrast, writer James Lees-Milne simply loathed them. Brimming with extraordinary tales and a few nostalgic recipes (though this is not a recipe book!) Lady Glenconner's The Picnic Papers is an invitation to a delightful feast of memories and culinary delights.

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BEDFORDSQUAREPUBLISHERS.CO.UsK

LADY GLENCONNER’S PICNIC PAPERS

and other Feasts with Friends

To my friend Susanna who was

the inspiration for this book.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Princess Margaret – Picnic at Hampton Court

Roddy Llewellyn – Picnic at Glen

Susannah Constantine – Picnic Pandemonium

Angela Huth – The Perfect Picnic

Milton Gendel – Picnic in Rome

Harold Acton – A Picnic at the Ming Tombs

Dorothy Lygon – Picnics from the Past

Clementine Beit – Glory’s Picnic

Jasper Guinness – Whoopee Picnic

James Lees-Milne – I Loathe Picnics

George and Gus Christie – Glyndebourne: A Critical View of the Picnic

Josceline Dimbleby – A Devonshire Picnic

Arabella Boxer – A Picnic for the Air

Margaret Vyner – Dominican Picnic

Mitch Crites – Picnics in India

Rupert Loewenstein – ‘Caldo e Cremoso’

Bryan Adams – On the Road Houmous

Mary Hayley Bell – Picnic in China

Hugo Vickers – Garter Day Picnic

Colin Tennant – Mustique

Drue Heinz – A New England Clambake

Tina Brown – A Picnic at Macaroni Beach

Cecilia McEwan – Marchmont Picnic

Christabel and Jools Holland – A Cooling Water Picnic

Gaia Servadio – The Kingdom of Picnics

Rachel Johnson – Picnics and Scones

Susanna Johnston – Picnic at Bagni di Lucca

Tessa Baring – A Breakfast Picnic

Michael Grant – The Picnics of the Ancient Romans

Hugh Honour – A White Picnic

William Weaver – A Spontini Picnic

John Chancellor – A Country Churchyard Picnic

Clara Johnston – A Maharaja’s Picnic Tea

Patrick Leigh Fermor – The Dales of Moldavia

Penelope Chetwode – Suprême de Volaille with St George in Cappadocia

Freya Stark – Dartmoor Picnic

Desmond Doig – When Abominable Snowmen Went Picnicking

Diana Cooper – Memories of Chantilly

John Julius Norwich – Sahara Picnics

Nicky Haslam – Some Enchanted Evening

Colette Clark – A Picnic in Portugal

Christopher Thynne – The Longleat Picnic

Derek Hill – A Painter’s Picnic

Ian Graham – Picnic in Guatemala

Patrick Lindsay – Fourth of June Picnic

Min Hogg – Autumn Mushroom Picnic

Nicholas Coleridge – A Picnic at the Grange

Larissa Haskell – Russian Picnic

Valeria Coke – A Picnic by the Fountain of Perseus and Andromeda, Holkham, Norfolk

Sylvia Combe – A Picnic with the Poles

Elizabeth Leicester – Holkham Shooting Lunches

Anne Glenconner – Preparations for a Shooting Picnic at Holkham

Carey Basset – Carey’s Cold Collation

Christopher Tennant – A Picnic with Boopa

Kelvin O’Mard – A Caribbean Picnic on Bequia

Mary Ann Sieghart – The Poacher’s Pocket Picnic

Rupert Everett – Bird Island Picnic

Graham Norton – A Patch of Blue Sky

Lorraine Kelly – A Seaside Picnic

Gyles Brandreth – Let Them Eat Cake

Cliff Parisi – My Gi Tar Pik Nik

William Hanson – The Top Drawer Picnic

Picture Section

Picture Acknowledgements

Safelives

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

I am sadly writing this introduction on my own as Susanna Johnston, with whom I wrote the original Picnic Papers, died last year. I have missed her guiding hand on the new edition of this book but I hope she would approve.

Naturally, our undiluted gratitude went to the distinguished contributors who generously shared their picnicking experiences with us. Each and every one gave such encouragement by their enthusiasm and interest that the pleasure of corresponding, planning and talking with them over the venture was intense. Now I have a selection of new contributions to add to the mix and am equally grateful to today’s writers for taking the time to share their memories and opinions of eating al fresco.

Susanna and I had both been dedicated picnickers since early youth and consequently find the subject of outdoor eating wholly absorbing. After all, it is a well-established habit. Our Stone Age forbears could be said to have picnicked after a fashion as they applied flint to firewood, culled berries, or sat with mammoth ribs in hand at the mouth of a cave; but whereas for them there was no alternative, for us there is all the excitement of the break away from daily ritual as we set out to find the perfect place to unpack the basket and perhaps even to find on-the-spot food to add to our provisions.

So – what is a picnic? The Oxford English Dictionary tells us in a few lines:

Picnic Originally a fashionable and social entertainment in which each person present contributed a share of the provisions; now, a pleasure party including an excursion to some spot in the country where all partake of a repast out of doors... The essential feature was formerly the individual contribution; now it is the al fresco form of the repast.

Picnics, if the Oxford English Dictionary is to be trusted, were originally a foreign institution – an institution peculiar to the upper class; the Annual Register in 1802 declares that ‘the rich have their sport, their balls, their parties of pleasure and their pic-nics’ – and a year or two later James Beresford, in his popular work The Miseries of Human Life, or The Last Groans of Timothy Testy and Samuel Sensitive: With a Few Supplementary Sighs from Mrs Testy, describes one of his female characters as being ‘full of Fete and Picnic and Opera’.

During the last hundred years or so picnicking has become such a popular pleasure that the phrase ‘this is no picnic’ is an accepted idiom to describe an unpleasant or unpopular experience. One of the joys of picnicking is proving how much depends on the setting and, cliché though it is, how much better something very ordinary can taste when eaten out of doors. In a bluebell wood with a campfire blazing, try making a dough of flour and water, add a pinch of salt and nothing else whatsoever. Roll it into a messy ball. Squeeze this lump onto the end of a long pointed stick. Thrust it into the flames and wait for it to turn brown. Here you have a ‘damper’ the time-honoured picnic delicacy. It is unlikely that it would be equally appreciated if served at a dining-room table by candlelight.

The very suggestion of a picnic tends to produce a strong reaction. Some people loathe them. Sir Steven Runciman, the historian, certainly appeared to disagree with the modern idea of picnicking as an enjoyable pastime. He told us in a letter:

Memories crowd up of depression and discomfort; not quite dispelled by a picnic with Agatha Christie on Dartmoor, at which we drank champagne from silver goblets. Nor have my picnics been really eventful. I remember once picnicking on a Syrian roadside with a local colonel who had been sent to accompany me because I insisted on visiting a crusader castle near the Israeli frontier. Poor portly man, he had to climb to a mountaintop with me. And when we paused on the way back to eat, the Israelis took potshots at us from across the frontier, and the colonel, good Muslim though he was, consoled himself with the wine (local and awful) that I had brought with me. Or a picnic organised in Jericho (in 1931) by Abdul Hamid’s retired astrologer, where Susanna’s grandmother and I were poisoned. I have picnicked in a snowstorm on the Great Wall of China. In 1931, I picnicked, more happily, with a Rumanian prince on the (then) Bessarabian frontier, looking at suspicious Russian sentries across the river Dniester. That was happier, as was a picnic on a barge on the river Mekong where the royal band played Mozart. But on the whole my experiences have been a trifle triste.

However miserable the author of this letter may have been at the time of these ordeals, there can be no denying that his experiences were colourful. Some people feel that picnics are all very well when necessary, provided they are permitted to stick to the smudgy jam sandwich, hard-boiled egg and Bakelite teacup of their youth. We both look back on this type of picnic with nostalgia but never attempt to repeat it.

Some of those who have contributed to this book, Sir Harold Acton, for example, who was the first person to encourage us in this venture, have described unexpected and often nerve-racking adventures that have come about as the result of setting out on a picnic instead of allowing oneself to be securely tethered to a dining room or restaurant table. Some have shown how a day out of doors can be far more entertaining and educative, not to mention beneficial to one’s purse, than one in a crowded pub.

Whatever our attitude, it remains a fact that we English, in the main, have an irresistible habit of eating al fresco, in spite of our unreliable climate. We will eat anywhere – in swamps, on haystacks, in sunshine, hail, fog or drizzle – anything to escape the routine of the kitchen table.

Not so for Graham Norton for whom ‘planning a picnic is deciding to be disappointed’. For Graham, ‘the only recipe anyone needs for a successful picnic is to see a patch of blue in the sky that is, as my father used to say, “big enough for a pair of sailor’s trousers” and then pop into the nearest garage shop and stock up on some items packed with fat and salt. Consume these snacks somewhere you can at least see a tree and count yourself one of the luckiest people alive.’

I would like to thank Susanna’s lovely daughters Clara, Lily, Rosy and Silvy who allowed me to refresh the original book and produce this new edition. I would also like to thank Johanna Tennant for being unfailingly kind and helpful – nothing is too much trouble, and for her encouragement and eagle eye. My darling daughters May and Amy were also invaluable in helping to bring the book up to date. Thanks to Sarah Harrison and Bedford Square Publishers for having faith in this book and giving me the wonderful opportunity for re-publishing it; thanks also to my agent Gordon Wise for being instrumental in bringing this book back to life. I would also like to thank the Queen who suggested SafeLives Charity which this book is supporting.

Princess Margaret

When we were first compiling this book, Susanna said how marvellous it would be if we could get Princess Margaret to write something for it. I wasn’t at all sure she would, as she hadn’t done anything like that before, but I broached the subject one evening when Princess Margaret and I were sitting in my Norfolk farmhouse. We’d had one or two whiskies, she liked to drink whisky after dinner, and I said, ‘Ma’am there’s something I’d like to ask you.’ ‘Yes, Anne what is it?’ ‘Well, you know Zanna and I are compiling a book of picnics with some proceeds going to the Glyndebourne Trust?’ She said, ‘Anne you know I really hate opera.’ Because she loved ballet, she knew a lot about it and was always going down to White Lodge, the Royal Ballet School in Richmond Park, and knew all the children there by name, but opera was not her thing. Anyway, she said, ‘Well what are you going to ask me?’ And I plucked up courage to ask if she could write a piece about a picnic for us and she simply said, ‘Yes of course.’

Sometimes she surprised you, and then of course she came back to us with this lovely picnic at Hampton Court. That picnic was what she called one of her ‘Treats’, which every so often she would lay on for the members of the household, some of her ladies-in-waiting and some friends. Once she flew us to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and we had a lovely picnic there. Another dinner she arranged for us was at the Tower of London, where they put a table in the midst of the Crown Jewels so we were surrounded by them, that was a great, great treat.

She loved organising these special occasions and being able to control the situation. It was similar when she used to come up to Glen, the house my husband Colin inherited in Scotland. When we were throwing a party, she’d often come the day before and help me with the flowers or check the dining-room table was laid properly. I’d show her the table plan and she’d say, ‘Oh I’d love to sit next to so and so’ she knew exactly what was going to happen. That was what she liked and it actually made her very easy. What she didn’t like was going to someone’s house and them not telling her anything, not knowing what the plan was. She hated surprises and that could make things difficult. I wonder if it was because she was going through a difficult time in her marriage, which she couldn’t control, so she would want to be very exacting about those areas that she could. An example of this was that she knew precisely where everything was on her dressing table and would notice at once if something had been moved. She also collected shells and once a year one of my least favourite tasks was to wash them with soapsuds in a bath, dry them and put them back in the glass cupboards. I could never remember where they were supposed to go but she knew very precisely. ‘Not there, Anne, can’t you remember that one always goes there?’ She was very particular like that.

Picnic at Hampton Court

HRH The Princess Margaret

Nearly all picnics in Britain end up in a lay-by by the road because, in desperation, no one can decide where to stop. I felt that another sort of treat, slightly different and rather more comfortable, was indicated. In my opinion picnics should always be eaten at table and sitting on a chair. Accordingly my picnic, in May 1981, took the form of an outing to Hampton Court.

This mysterious palace is like nothing else – very complex in structure and design. Built first by Cardinal Wolsey, it continued in construction through many reigns. One can wander through buildings dating from about 1514 to Charles II, William and Mary (with the help of Sir Christopher Wren), and George II. George III, when faced with the choice between it and Windsor Castle, mercifully chose the latter, as Hampton Court is rather like a haphazard village.

The Queen kindly let me take some friends. The best plan, it seemed to me, was to do some sightseeing and have lunch in the middle. So I got in touch with Sir Oliver Millar, Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who delighted in taking us round the recently restored Mantegnas, which are housed in their own Orangery. These were saved, happily, from the disastrous sale of Charles I’s pictures by Cromwell, simply because Cromwell liked them.

I asked Professor Jack Plumb, Master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, who had helped in writing the television series Royal Heritage, where we should best have our cold collation. He suggested the little Banqueting House overlooking the Thames. This seemed an excellent place for a number of reasons. It wasn’t open to the public then, it was shelter in case of rain and, as far as anyone knew, there hadn’t been a jolly there since the time of Frederick, Prince of Wales.

The Banqueting House used to be called the Water Gallery and was a retreat for Mary II. When she died William III pulled it down, because memories were too poignant, and built the Banqueting House on the same site. In the main room the walls and ceiling are by Verrio. The hall and anterooms are tiny, and being quite small it is nice and cosy. As three sides of it are surrounded by a sunken garden smelling warmly of wisteria and wallflowers, with the river flowing beneath its windows on the fourth side, it provided an ideal setting.

I took my butler to ensure that everything would be all right.

We started with smoked salmon mousse, followed by that standby of the English, various cold meats and beautiful and delicious salads. Those with room then had cheeses.

We drank a toast to Frederick, Prince of Wales and departed to inspect the famous old vine which has its own greenhouse and Nanny gardener. After that we wandered among the many visitors from abroad, round the lovely gardens and canals, viewing all the different façades of its many sides. We visited the chapel (redecorated by Wren) and the tennis court where we watched a game of royal or real tennis.

It was altogether a glorious day. The sun was shining on one of its brief appearances that summer, and everyone was happy.

Avocado Soup

3–4 avocado pears (depending on size)

1 pint (570 ml) chicken consommé

½ teaspoonful black pepper, salt and sugar mixed together

pinch of garlic salt

1 teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce

a little dry sherry

double cream

Put all the ingredients except the cream in blender. Leave in refrigerator for an hour or until cold. Serve in consommé cups with a little dab of double cream on each serving.

Roddy Llewellyn

Colin and I introduced Princess Margaret to Roddy Llewellyn, who I invited as an extra to a house party we were having at Glen. Princess Margaret was also a guest, and it was clear from day one that it was love at first sight, so I suppose it wasn’t surprising that when I asked him to write about a picnic for our book he said, ‘Well the very best picnics I ever had were at Glen.’ Roddy became one of our very closest friends and he and Princess Margaret often came to stay at the Norfolk farmhouse I bought from my father when I got married. It became a safe haven for the two of them to escape all the awful press attention. Margaret would say to me, ‘Roddy and I think your flower beds need weeding, Anne’ and they would go out and weed side by side, kneeling on a weeding mat. It was one of the things she liked to do when she was here, like cleaning my car and insisting on always laying the fire for me. I wasn’t allowed to touch the fire. ‘I was a girl guide, Anne, you weren’t, I know all about fires.’ She’d fetch the wood from the basket in my hall and set about getting the fire going. She always sat on the chair next to the fire and when I’m here on my own I often feel that she’s still here with me.

When Roddy left to get married, Princess Margaret decided that she was going to make friends with his wife, which we both did. She would load up the car with food and things she thought Roddy and darling Tania, his wife, and their gorgeous girls would like, standing at the boot and supervising what went in.

After her funeral, the Queen held a wake for Princess Margaret at Windsor. I was summoned to see the Queen and she said she wanted to thank me and Colin for giving Princess Margaret such a wonderful time in Mustique, and also for introducing her to Roddy. I thought that was so kind, as she really couldn’t say anything like that at the time. I told Roddy about it and he was absolutely thrilled.

Picnic at Glen

Roddy Llewellyn

Style is something sadly lacking these days, but picnics at the Glen have more than their fair share of it. One magic day, several summers ago, the two main ingredients to ensure a successful luncheon picnic were there – sun and water. Delicious home-made pâtés, pies with thick crusts and galantines made possible the coming of La Grande Bouffe to Loch Eddy. Gin and tonics tinkling with ice mingled with the conversation, which often exploded into laughter. What seemed like an inexhaustible supply of chilled wine helped to wash down the kipper pâté and galantine of grouse, while huge bowls of salad were accompanied by a collection of stalwart cheeses which would have placated Mighty Mouse in his angriest mood. Lunch ended in a bonfire, a gentle row round Loch Eddy and a snooze on a rug or a walk. Whatever one did, one did it without a care in the world.

Kipper Pâté

7 oz (200 g) tin kipper fillets (preferably John West), with most of the oil drained off

1 packet aspic, made up as instructions

juice of half a large lemon

300 ml carton cream

parsley for garnish

Put the kippers, ½ pint (275 ml) aspic (save a little for end), the lemon juice and cream in a liquidiser. When smooth put into an entrée dish and cool in the refrigerator for 45 minutes. Then cover with a little aspic. Decorate with parsley and eat with brown toast.

Galantine of Grouse

4 oz (110 g) calves’ liver

8 oz (225 g) veal or sausage meat

1 lb (450 g) fat pork

4 rashers bacon

a small bunch of chopped parsley

2 shallots

1 clove of garlic

bay leaf

breast of three grouse

Preheat the oven to gas mark 5 (375°F, 190°C). Put everything through the mincer except the bay leaf, bacon and grouse. Put the bay leaf at the bottom of the dish, then alternate layers of veal or sausage meat, grouse and bacon. Cook for about an hour then press down with a plate. Eat cold.

Susannah Constantine

I loved the television series Susanah presented with Trinny Woodall. What Not to Wear was a makeover show in the early 2000s which we were all glued to. But I really knew Susannah from the time when she was going out with Princess Margaret’s son David Linley. They used to come out to Mustique and I always really liked her. She was devoted to Princess Margaret, it was something we shared. And Princess Margaret was very fond of Susannah, almost like a surrogate mother for her. Then, of course, she and David parted ways and I followed her career, but I only really reconnected with her recently when she sent me her memoir to read. She is always so friendly and nice and we enjoy reminiscing about Princess Margaret when we meet.

Picnic Pandemonium

Susannah Constantine

I was never a fan of picnics and have mostly lied about how much I enjoy eating in the great outdoors. It’s not the unpredictable weather, uninvited insects, dribbled ketchup or accidental mouthfuls of sand that put me off, but the work it takes to pull a picnic together. Usually a drive, walk or sail away, you can’t afford to leave anything behind and if you do, the picnic is a failure. You can’t have more than one person at the helm for this reason. Too many cooks leave too much room for error.

I have been on picnics where everything has arrived and been beautifully prepared and packed by a silver-fingered cook. Picnics on Macaroni Beach in Mustique with Princess Margaret were always an event to relish, and I have many happy memories of Ma’am presiding at the end of a pop-up plastic table. But this was because I wasn’t accountable for not forgetting any number of ‘the most important’ ingredients.

We have a home on the Helford River in Cornwall. It’s been in the family eons and as anyone who has holidayed in the UK knows – it’s impossible to avoid picnicking. Resentfully I’ve had to embrace this very British of traditions.

Being extraordinarily greedy and a bit of a foodie I can’t bring myself to lighten the workload with bought sandwiches and a packet of crisps. I’m not a nutritional snob. I’ll eat anything, but one of the primary ways I like to show my family love is through food. And cooking is one of the few things I’m better at than my husband Sten.

Whatever the season or temperature it’s always the same. Chipolata sausages. Home-made garlic mayonnaise and crispy parmesan chicken nuggets. Roasted new potatoes with rosemary. Carrot and cucumber batons, hummus. Tunnock’s Teacakes for pudding. Lots of greaseproof paper, tinfoil and Tupperware. The menu doesn’t change but the venue does and while you don’t expect a picnic to come with danger to life, our best and most memorable involved torrential rain, huge waves and an almost-upturned boat.

It was a calm and beautiful morning when we set off. A gentle breeze nudged our Rib from its mooring packed with cold box, portable barbecue, three small children and a dog called Archie. Health and Safety has never been a strong point in our family, and we thought not a lot as the wind picked up. By the time we approached Porthbeor beach near St Mawes in an ever-increasing swell, it became clear we had been caught out in a squall with gusts reaching 60 mph. Approaching the beach we were reduced to a crawl, battling huge, cold waves and crashing white water. If ever our ex-RNLI Rib was going to capsize it was now. With the surf breaking we were all tossed off the rubber sides but managed stay onboard. Archie fell out and between waves my husband screamed. ‘Jump now!’

Soaked, scared and in peril of losing our picnic I seized the food, threw as much as I could on to the sand and yelled at the kids to grab on to me. We all survived unhurt. There is nothing like adrenalin to boost an appetite. Our picnic never tasted better, and we have never forgotten the day ‘we nearly drowned’.

Angela Huth

When Angela was pregnant and bedridden, she writes about how Princess Margaret used to go over to her house with Tony (Armstrong-Jones) on a Saturday evening with a delicious cold supper, including the china and the glasses, and Tony would set up a film in the bedroom which they would all watch together. Angela was a close friend of Princess Margaret, which was how I got to know her, and we often used to go and stay with her and her husband in Oxford where he was a don. She was a novelist who wrote among others a terrific book called Land Girls, which was turned into a film starring Rachel Weisz. Her story about Princess Margaret shows how thoughtful she could be. I remember when I was having a very difficult time with my two older boys and then Christopher had his terrible accident, she would constantly phone up to see if I was all right and would send a car to pick me up and bring me to Kensington Palace for lunch. She’d say, ‘Anne you’ve got to eat you know, you’ve got to keep your strength up – for Christopher’s sake.’ She was incredibly kind like that, which I don’t think is something many people know about her.

The Perfect Picnic

Angela Huth

There are picnics of the mind and picnics in real life. Most people have experienced both and know the difference between them.

In the imagination the déjeuners sur l’herbe which we attend seem to be very similar. There is always warmth, but cool shade, iced white wine, grass that doesn’t prickle, butterflies – a veritable Impressionist picture, happily out of focus. If the imagination were unkind enough to look closer, the dream would be broken.

In reality the dream is broken, almost inevitably, as soon as the very idea of a picnic is cast abroad, and the hamper packed. (Hamper indeed: where are the hampers of yesteryear, those magnificent wicker baskets, lids slotted with knives and forks, and stacked with their special plates? It is supermarket cool boxes in which we pack our feasts of today, and they are not at all the same.)

But disillusionment is of no matter to the determined picnicker. Once launched on the expedition, he blooms with optimism however black the cloud that billows from nowhere, however large the spots of rain. On, on he drives past those Picnic Areas whose corrugated lavatories and official rustic tables make him sad to think this generation of townsfolk think they are proper picnic places. On to a small stretch of balding coast with a misted view over a grim sea. The wind might die down, but until it does where better to eat than the stuffy cosiness of the car, thick with the smells of melons, cheese and wet dogs? Children shriek, there’s strawberry jam on the steering wheel and, by heavens, it’s almost the fun we had imagined.

For there is probably no hardier race of picnickers than the British. On Bodmin Moor I have watched summer sleet sizzle the flames of the barbecue on which lie dozens of drenched langoustines, where in a nearby bowl fraises du bois turn to pulp. But the smiles of the crowd gathered under their anoraks wavered not. I have seen members of the edge-of-the-motorway brigade sprayed black with mud by passing cars as they enjoy their sliced-bread sandwiches. I have seen trainspotters relishing Chinese takeaways on a stack of mailbags at Paddington Station on a November afternoon.

But happily, whatever the disappointment of real-life picnics, in retrospect it is the delights that are remembered. And thus our nostalgia for picnics. We continue to persevere with them, for when they work they are occasions of particular pleasure.

My own first memories of picnic life were at the age of twelve: curried egg sandwiches at sunless Overstrand. My sister and I – scoffing at our parents’ tweed coats and mackintoshes. Eight years later there were picnic lunches at point-to-points in Hampshire – occasions of supreme sophistication, those. The backs of Land Rovers were let down to reveal the last of the real hampers of delicious food. I don’t remember precisely what food. I have no recollection of quiches in those mid-fifties days – they were to become fashionable much later. But I do remember sturdy wicker baskets with separate compartments for bottles of drink, and standing round with tiny glasses in fuzzy-gloved hands, sipping cherry brandy and sloe gin against the cold.

The point of those picnics was not, of course, the food (or even the horses) but the chance to brush against the fancied member of the opposite sex and be offered a sausage on a stick with a look of such penetrating desire that the legs would tremble in the gumboots like grass in a wind. How beautiful they were, those sporting young men in their riding macs that clacked like a field of cabbages when they moved – their greenish trilbies cocked saucily over one eye, their incredible eyelashes, and small patches of mysteriously long hair on their cheeks. No wonder the contents of the hampers were of no consequence.

But of all memorable picnics the one nearest to perfection of imaginary picnics took place in Cornwall four years ago. It was the inspiration of those master picnickers, Marika and Robin Hanbury-Tenison. She was one of our finest cooks. He is a renowned explorer. They have feasted off rattlesnakes and spiders in many a foreign jungle in their time, but at home on Bodmin Moor their picnics were incomparable.

It was May, very warm. We were asked to wear Edwardian clothes, and to meet in the bluebell woods. These woods were sprawled about along a valley – crumbling old trees, lichen-covered – their frizz of new leaves a-dazzle with spring sun. Our chosen place was on the mossy banks of a stream: a place where wild thyme grew. Tables were laid with damask cloths and spread with a feast in keeping with the Edwardian era. We lay on cashmere rugs, crushing bluebells. We ate iced strawberry soup, chicken and bacon pie, cherries in wine and pyramids of meringues. Suddenly through the trees came our elegant Ambassador to Japan, Sir Fred Warner. He wore a blazer, straw boater and almond-pink silk tie. Behind him rustled his wife, Simone, in forget-me-not blue, who sang to us in her clear piping voice while her small sons fell in and out of the stream. There will never be another picnic like that middle-aged frolic in the bluebell woods, but there will be others of surprising and enchanting character, and in old age we perennial picnickers will still be there, sharing the present delight beneath umbrella or parasol, remembering all the while the hampers of our youth.

Strawberry Soup

2 chicken stock cubes

1 pint (570 ml) water

2 lb (900 g) fresh or frozen strawberries

½ teaspoon mixed herbs

salt, pepper

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 small carton natural yoghurt

2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Combine the chicken stock cubes and water, bring to the boil and stir until the cubes are dissolved. Add the strawberries and herbs, season with salt and pepper, and mix in the ground ginger. Bring to the boil again, simmer for 5 minutes and then rub through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. Stir in the yoghurt, mix until smooth, and serve hot or iced with a garnish of chopped chives.

Milton Gendel

Milton, an American Italian art critic and photographer, lived in what was described as ‘The most wholly desirable house in Rome.’ The Palazzo Pierloni Caetani was situated on the Isola Tiberina, a little island in the middle of the Tiber river. I do remember it was very damp. He had been introduced to Princess Margaret’s best friend Judy Montagu by the British socialite Lady Diana Cooper, and they were married in 1962. Judy was a very old friend of my husband Colin, and we often went to stay with them, as did Princess Margaret. It was one of Princess Margaret’s favourite stops in Rome along with La Pietra which was the home of Harold Acton, which we also visited. Milton and Judy had a little girl, Anna, who had a total of twenty-four very well-chosen godparents, one of whom was Princess Margaret. When Judy died very suddenly at the age of forty-nine, Princess Margaret stepped in and invited Milton and Anna to the royal palaces during the summer when Anna was on school holiday. Milton always had a camera on him and was constantly snapping away, I think because he was always around the royal family he got intimate relaxed photographs of them. He took a rather wonderful one of the Queen wearing a headscarf preparing burgers to feed her dogs at Balmoral. When he asked if he could take one more photograph she apparently replied, ‘Well, I’ll be very surprised if you’ve got any more film left.’

Picnic in Rome

Milton Gendel

For generations the English have been domesticating the Sublime by choosing its precincts for their picnics. There is no beauty spot in creation, on Alp, lakeside or riverbank, in jungle or desert, that has not served as a setting for a group of English people with picnic baskets, spirit lamps and teapots in cosies. At least this was so before the highway picnic became current, with picnickers on folding chairs and the open boot of the car serving as buffet.

Once, in the spring, a few decades ago, Rome offered a happy conjunction of scenic sublimity and picnicking English to provide appropriate foreground figures. Evelyn Waugh, in the Holy City for his annual Easter devotions, was the star of the occasion. Jenny Crosse, daughter of Robert Graves and correspondent of Picture Post, was always the moving spirit on such occasions. She rang up Babs Johnson, the writer known as Georgina Masson.