Holidaymakers of a certain class are shutting up their Hampstead homes packing up their Volvos and heading

Holidaymakers of a certain class are shutting up their Hampstead homes, packing up their Volvos and heading for the burnished hills of Tuscany. Along with thousands of other English middle-class visitors (don’t, please, call them tourists), they will lie around at their secluded villas for the summer weeks, soaking up a little culture and a great deal more cheap Chianti. Nice, middle-class ladies too, the sort who no doubt slag off the underclass and the young for their dishonesty. This sour little sight reminds me that we are all, to some extent, freeloaders today Must order those Cab Sauvs..

I watch them sidle up to the unattended champagne stall and stuff a bottle apiece in their bags. One of them catches my eye and gives a little shamefaced giggle; then they both stagger off to the exit. I squinted at it and said, “Would you mind putting your address?” “That is my address,” he said testily. “I am the Earl of Z.” After this shaky start I quite got the hang of this, gleefully summoning frisky nobles: “Oi! Lord Linley! Can I get you to sign the book, please?” “Oh, ra-ther.”This happy reverie about days gone by is rudely interrupted by two very drunk women, who have been reeling around the Fair, complaining about the lack of “goody-bags”. The first man to leap nimbly up the stairs wrote something illegible – “Z” – in the book.

I was instructed to stand at the top of the grand staircase, welcoming guests and ticking them off the list. I think it’s about time, don’t you? Shall we …? There’s some rather interesting stuff here …” and the bottles would come clinking out. With a temp’s diffidence, I kept on dutifully typing or scribbling, but soon a friendly hand would plonk a glass of wine down on top of the typewriter. Analyses of terrifying profundity and detail would float over my head while I sipped, and when they all schlepped off for a bibulous lunch I would rest my dizzy forehead on top of the machine.The fortnight culminated, after days of updating mailing lists, gumming envelopes and collating RSVPs, in a grand wine-tasting at the Turf Club.