I should have told you that dear Michael Brewer died last Tuesday after a very short stay in a Hospice where he enchanted everyone and was spoiled to bits. Richard was with him there everyday after it became impossible to nurse him at home. Richard celebrated his 50th birthday with a party in Worcester in, I think, November which was a magnificent party with musicians, singers, poetry recitals and all Michael’s oldest friends were included. I went to it. Michael loved every minute of it and was in marvellous and most mischievous form. He was a best friend of Bettie’s and a great delight to me. He took Bettie to Glyndebourne regularly and introduced her to all the bigwigs. He took her to Budapest and introduced her to Pavarotti (whom the Lyford Cay Committee turned down for membership of the Club); he gave us the most wonderful introduction to Edinburgh where he had grown up, its secret places, the best of the Festival, the Tattoo, the architecture and museums, the superb former head office of the RBC, a marvellous stately home in Dalgleish where we stayed and and sampled Malt Whiskies galore and which Bettie in panic stopped me from buying (it even had a walled croquet lawn with arbours at each corner). He drove my Rolls and Bentleys at terrifying speeds and was an adventurous delight on hols in the South of France and Spain where he took us to Dali’s house and the Dali museum; as well as at Marylands, Brum, London and the Bahamas. He was a happy, gifted, irreverend, trilingual, entertaining, social delight without a hint of malice in him and who never put a foot wrong either socially or in friendship. I will miss him enormously. Love John Meachem (89 and 3/4)