I’d pick the Vero Beach retirement home for old ladies over Annabel’s

Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort Belvedere. We’d been playing for close to two hours. I remember hitting a topspin backhand down the line, going to the net and seeing my ball just miss the tramline. I was perfectly positioned to call the ball out. My opponent, thinking I would approach with a crosscourt, was covering his backhand side. He called my ball in. ‘Ball was out,’ said I. ‘I saw it in and it was in,’ said Galen Weston, my host at the Fort and a very good tennis player. It verged on the parodic, the ensuing so-called argument about who was right. Galen prevailed, and I eventually won the match. He then lent me his best pony to stick and ball on his polo ground and play one against one. He won that one rather easily. If there was ever a better sport than Galen Weston, I have not had the good luck of coming across him.

Last week I attended a memorial service for Galen at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, a moving ceremony for a very good man who died aged 81. The Earl of Wessex and his wife represented the Queen and Prince Charles, and other minor royals took their places up front. The Brits do these things very well. The Dean of Windsor spoke briefly about the contradiction between being a Christian and loving God and going around hating one’s fellow man. Galen’s son and the Duke of Abercorn also spoke about him, and then off we went to the Fort for some light refreshment.