He would drive us around the country, too, for his work. There were grand hotels, rarely but sometimes, places of pianos and puddings with sugar-cages, of porters and bartenders who remembered my father from the life he’d had before the one with us. The sense of occasion — and the thrill it provided — has never left me. Other times we would drive, not in an ageing Volvo but our boat, through the upper reaches of the Thames. I remember a scoop of amaretto ice cream at the Maybush in Witney became the first dish I longed for. I was an adult before I found somewhere else serving it. At the Plough Inn in Kelmscott, the landlord gave us his shove ha’penny board because we used it so often. These early impressions of hospitality — that fundamentally it is based in generosity, in facilitating a good time — sharpened the lens through which I still look.
