Learning with delight the art of having your portrait painted

I have had my portrait painted. It was not my idea. One fault I do not possess is vanity. Indeed I am extremely vain about not being vain. The artist is a young lady called Katrina Bovill. She has been properly trained in Florence where they still have the highest possible standards of fine-art teaching, and she knows exactly what she wants to do and how to do it. She is the best young painter I have come across for many years, and it does my old heart good to relish such a rare combination of talent, skill, professionalism and disciplined enthusiasm. I met her at that magical caravanserai of writers, artists and bibliophiles, ‘Sheila’s Shop’ (Notting Hill Books is its official title), and it was Katrina’s idea to paint me. I agreed at once (she is very pretty) as I had a premonition it was going to work. Her studio is one of those big, comfortable airy ones, with a huge north light, in Bedford Gardens — the most agreeable one I have seen since last visiting 31 Tite Street, the magnificent place from which Julian Barrow, London’s hardest-working artist, operates, and which was once J.S.