She was a most wonderful reader aloud. When we were in her house, we were always… we and the cousins would always spend our Christmases there and things, and we were often there in the summer. Always, after tea, one went down to the drawing room when we were little, and Granny read to us. And she was a superbly good reader aloud. She read Old Scott to us. And it wasn't until I was grown up that I realised how much she'd been skipping, of long, long, long, descriptive passages. And she could read it, sort of, keeping to the story, without all of the heavy descriptions, without one knowing that she was skipping at all. She was a brilliant reader.

[Q] Did you like that?

Oh, we loved it. I mean, we all absolutely adored being read to by Granny.

[Q] So how should one picture that scene? I mean…

You should picture this… this rather attractive white-haired lady in her very beautiful drawing room, sitting on a chintz-covered chair with the children sitting on the floor all around her.