Rosie Stancer

Kick the mud off me wellies, shake the straw out of my (similarly coloured) hair and dig the dirt out of my fingernails. Time to get back onto track of the social circuit of London. Tentative revving I might add, twinged with nerves on account of being a bit out of practice on the party lap, but at least the first such challenge is to race down to a family-related do: The publication of photographic works by my erstwhile cousin Patrick Lichfield – ‘Patrick Lichfield – Perceptions’.   (Cringe of conscience, Patrick managing to get a book out, done and dusted from the other side of the grave, and mine still sitting unedited pulling faces at me from this side of the kitchen).

Made a priority stop off at the Apple store, cathedral to all thangs techie, to see if my boy’s chipped and cracked screen (big ‘oops’ over stone floor, next house will be done in lino) can be salvaged without taking out a second mortgage.  Already feel as if I’ve turned up in the wrong party outfit.  Throngs of uber-urban beings within the hallowed portals, all of whom bar the odd geek exception, of which notably few, were Steve Jobs-clone like in well put-together smart casual outfits and some bits of original and subtle jewellery on the well-groomed women.

Try to keep my trainers tucked under the worktop but fear a trail of non-urban mud that led directly to me (as well as a few curious looks) gave me away as an outsider.

Price of replacement screen leaves me reeling and I follow my tracks out clutching the same cracked ipad.  Grim but determined to find a solution.

(PS Re Screen replacements:  if you don’t want to pay around £240 for a screen replacement try googling  M Blue ltd in Essex. They’re great guys who had already fixed a smashed iphone screen of mine (clearly this destructive gene has passed on) and have quoted Approx £140 to replace Ipad screen and within 3-4 working days).

The whole Apple experience that day compounded the fact that I clearly come from another planet, one where no one really understands how to use technology, and being tech primates we throw mobiles and laptops around houses with mud and stone floors

And staying on planet Rosebud, it was in through the revolving doors of an unnamed Mayfair hotel and out again in high heels and party dress.  Arrive in a cab at the Mandarin Oriental  looking suitably glamorous (or at least compared to moments before), trying to hide the rucksack from the doorman.  A room full of people and not many of Patrick’s photographs on view, but they’re all in the book – you’ll have to buy it and see!  Some good friends bobbing around amongst the champagne and canapes but mostly rellies, and I make a beeline for ‘Cousin Liza’, (Anson), Patrick’s sister.  I thought she might be finding it emotionally a bit of a rollercoaster but she seems, as ever, to be in control of herself (and most of the guests in the room). Over to Annunciata (Asquith), Patrick’s widow lady-friend, such  a lovely person in all senses and for whom the absence of Patrick must be beyond words in this passage.  And there were the ‘children’  too, all rather beautiful with a certain fragility which is very engaging,.  Rosie all willowy and always refreshingly interesting to talk with, Eloise with huge eyes like Delft dinner plates and l-o-n-g legs (didn’t get much of a talk in here owing to the cluster of men I had to elbow out the way like the brazen 51 year old I am), and Tom still looking faintly surprised at finding himself to be a father with the delicious Henny his totally naturally beautiful wife.

If you’re not confident at these gatherings you can imagine yourself to be really quite plain.
One key omission was failing to bump into Patrick’s loyal PA of so many years Penny Breia, but then I learned that she had shed 5 stone so I wouldn’t have recognised her anyway, let alone spot her behind a cocktail stick.

Barry Humpries lightened up the atmosphere which despite its glossy veneer, I felt was rather poignant and restrained, with characteristically hilarious speech.  Had Patrick been there, I suspect that speech would have been peppered with witty interruptions by his Lordship.
In fact most of the evening, I felt that someone very important was missing. Or was he?

• *                  *

A little thoughtful epilogue

Patrick Lichfield had been a patron of a couple of my expeditions.  He spent a bit of time with me showing me how best to use certain types of photographic equipment and didn’t seem to mind a jot about my clearing all the leaves off the wooded paths around Shugborough with my tyre collection.

In fact, on the last expedition of 2007 and after Patrick had died so suddenly, Shugborough and the family became rather like a secondary base camp and we shared several crackley iridium calls from the ice. I think one of the reasons I was so drawn to make myself a nuisance in this way, was because Patrick was such a dominant character in the ‘theatre of my mind’ when on the ice then. I can remember v v clearly one such occasion when I was lying flat out on my back staring up into the cold grey atmosphere called sky and thanking the angels for saving me again when a huge ice bank had collapsed into the water with me on it (how unfair) and Patrick looked back down at me rather irritated and said  ‘why didn’t you get a photograph?’
I’ll try and do better next time Coz.

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