Diary – 20 August 2004

Summertime, and the house is open. Often people ask me what it is like having your home ‘invaded’ by the public. Well, it all comes down to attitude. If you see the approach of a coach, and the theme tune of Mastermind — ‘Approaching Menace’ — starts to well up in your brain, then you really should absent yourself from proceedings. If, however, you and those working with you can give a genuine welcome, then happiness is transmitted and received. Also, so many come who have their personal connections to Althorp: the centurion who was a housemaid to my great-grandfather, yet who had never before been allowed through the front door of the house; the second world war contingent — young evacuees who lived in dormitories here, and gunners from the anti-aircraft unit in the park; the stable lad who caught the young Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon — the future Queen Mother — experimenting with cigarettes behind the straw bales. Then there are those with less nostalgic connections to history: the lady who rolled up her sleeve this week to show me her Auschwitz tattoo, told me to love those close to me, since life is so fragile, and man so destructive. She was with friends, and without family.

In common with other counties, Northamptonshire has been subject to an infestation of insects. With scones and jam being a staple part of the Althorp tea, and ice cream particularly popular in the sultry heat, we have suffered from a constant influx of wasps. The largest nest we have found, in the rafters of the house, was the size of a Mini. How long it had been active, nobody knows. We had to implode it, since any alternative mode of destruction risked raining the nest’s inhabitants down on our visitors. At the same time, we seem to have found the correct liquid to lure them into our wasp traps: over 1,000 of them sluiced around in the sticky juice yesterday morning.