Monday 27 July 2007
Once again I am so sorry for failing to continue my website. The last time I wrote to you, it was with joyous news of our beautiful horse, Monty’s Salvo’s triumph at Worcester: which you can see illustrated in Les Hurley’s lovely photograph. (See right)
Monty raced again at Worcester on June 20th. He was jumping beautifully but was pulled up lame four fences from home. I and fellow members of the syndicate rushed across two parts of the course and the intervening green field, to the stables, where poor Monty had been bandaged up and given shots to ease the clearly appalling pain. Henry Ponsonby, who runs the syndicate, broke the awful news to us that he thought Monty might be finished for racing forever, which was confirmed later in the week.
It was absolutely heartbreaking; I seldom remember anything that upset me so much. Fortunately a new member of the syndicate is going to give Monty a lovely home, so hopefully he will be able to enjoy the rest of his days as a much loved riding horse. But oh, the sadness.
Meanwhile, the week before Monty’s tragedy my darling Leo had had a cataract operation and could not see very well. As a result of this he had a fall in his study, broke his hip and had to be rushed to Gloucester Royal Hospital where he was operated on two days later and given a new hip. This was obviously a dreadful experience for him. Having Parkinson’s he has difficulty walking anyway and this fall has meant that he has had to learn to walk all over again. He spent nearly three weeks in Gloucester Royal and now home is living and sleeping downstairs in his study surrounded by all the military books he published, which is not much compensation for being unable to move out of there. He has been incredibly brave and I’m very, very proud of him but recovering is going to be a long haul.
A bonus was that Gloucester Royal was absolutely marvellous: the nurses, the doctors, the cleaners, the cooks, the orthopaedic staff, the physiotherapists have all been absolutely sensational, and even when Leo came home, the Rehabilitation Unit of nurses came in twice a day and the physiotherapists at lunch time, and I couldn’t praise their merriness and kindness and skill highly enough.
Even so - there hasn’t been too much jollity to write about recently. I have, however, another share now, (a thirtieth), in a lovely syndicate called Thoroughbred Ladies. This probably contravenes the Trades’ Description Act in my case, but I’m trying to be as thoroughbred and ladylike as possible! The syndicate has three horses with the Gloucestershire trainer Tom George and last Sunday I left Leo for a few hours to go to Stratford and watch the third horse, Seafield Bogie race in the 4.30.
Bogie is a lovely bay and looked tremendously well. It was very exciting meeting some of the other Thoroughbred Ladies, who were sweet and welcoming and know so much about horses, (which is very helpful as research for the new novel.)
But sadly, I seem to have a bad effect on horses at the moment, because Bogie ridden by Richard Johnson was running absolutely beautifully and often in the lead until four fences from home, when I think he was probably startled by the roar of the crowd and had a punishing fall. Fortunately both he and Richard Johnson were okay. But it was heart in the mouth and a very tearful time for stable lads and owners alike.
One thrilling bit of news is that ITV have bought
my romantic novel Octavia. Written in the late seventies, and subtitled
The Taming of a Shrew, it follows the fortunes of a very glamorous
rich bitch, who sets out to pinch her friend’s boyfriend.
Here is the first Corgi paperback cover with me, after about four hours
of being made up, posing as Octavia (see right).
I’m really excited about this because it is being made by a wonderful and enterprising television company called Touchpaper, part of the RDF Media Group. and the script writer is Jonathan Harvey who wrote Gimme, Gimme, Gimme so I think we’re all going to have huge fun. If Octavia works, with any luck the rest of my romantic novels might be made into films too, which would be lovely. I’ll keep you posted.
Also Riders has just been republished by Simon & Schuster in America, which is very exciting too, so nice things are happening.
On the dog front, Feather is well and seems to have one aim to curl up on the newly-made bed downstairs every time Leo gets up into his wheelchair. Feather is also getting on famously with William, the new mongrel rescued from Battersea by my son Felix and his wife Edwina. Famously indeed, yesterday William and Feather were photographed and interviewed for a German magazine called Dogs which is rather like a canine Vogue. William, who is a complete applause junkie, could not stop posing for the camera. Feather, being a gentle greyhound, was only too happy to take a backseat. And talking of gentle greyhounds, my friend Judy Zatonski, who is one of their greatest champions, took this enchanting photograph of her dog Jerry accepting an ice cream from two little friends (see right). Greyhounds make the ideal companion for young and old.
