A MEAL TO BE REMEMBERED

The year was 1937, Coronation year for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. I went with my parents on holiday to Southsea, just next to the Navy’s base at Portsmouth. The great event of that week was The Illumination of the Fleet, ships of the Royal Navy bearing thousands of lights, on display in the Solent. On the wireless, the occasion was described by the inebriated Commander Tommy Woodruffe who used that never to be forgotten phrase “The fleet’s lit up.”

I was six, and was allowed to stay up late on this exciting night. We stood on the promenade near South Parade pier to watch the ships. It was a cold night and from a stall my father bought me a pork pie and a mug of hot Oxo.

In the years since I have witnessed many exciting events in different parts of the world, some of which I have described on the radio. I have eaten in some of the best restaurants, and for my seventieth birthday was taken to by my son to lunch at the Ivy.

No matter how exotic the restaurant or expensive the meal, nothing has ever given me the same frisson of pleasure as that pie and mug of hot Oxo on the night that the Fleet was lit up.