Enter a Wodehousian world

On 26 February 1969, Roger Mortimer wrote to his son, Charlie: ‘Your mother has had flu. Her little plan to give up spirits for Lent lasted three and a half days. Pongo has chewed up a rug and had very bad diarrhoea in the kitchen. Six Indians were killed in a car crash in Newbury.’

Even 40 years ago, the real-life buffer was a dying breed. Perhaps Roger Mortimer — Eton, Coldstream Guards, assorted POW camps during the second world war, then racing correspondent of the Sunday Times — was the last of the lot. If so, they went out with a suitably sclerotic roar.

For 25 years, he wrote regular letters to his son, Charlie. Like him, Charlie also went to Eton, but left without ‘a single, humble A level’. He then proceeded to rack up an astonishing number of failed careers, including managing a ‘multi-national rock band’ and manufacturing boxer shorts.