Marriage à la mode

It is surely rare to find a book that describes a marriage with such breathtaking intimacy as Diana Melly does in her autobiography, Take a Girl Like Me. Not only are both the leading players very much alive, most of the varied cast are still vigorously kicking. Mrs Melly writes the story of her grippingly unconventional life as the wife of that monstre sucré George with an astonishing yet matter-of-fact frankness. In almost any more humdrum liaison, the facts she recounts would matter like mad, and frankly might deter, even prohibit, any hint of matrimonial harmony.

On the contrary, theirs has lasted, is lasting, for a near half-century, despite a staggering array of lovers for both; and as anyone who had known the extremely young and dazzling Diana before and during her first two more traditional marriages, her third, with its casual sleeping arrangements had, even in those so-called permissive Sixties, a certain thrilling — well — reputation.