Only in England…

Wonderful obituary of Fr. Sir Hugh Barrett-Lennard, Bt. Straight out of Evelyn Waugh. Sample:

Young Hugh’s father was a soldier and colonial judge who, on returning from his honeymoon, was said to have forgotten that he was married and tried to climb into bed in his old chambers, now inhabited by another judge.

Hugh went to Radley, and converted to Roman Catholicism with his mother in the 1930s before becoming a master at St Philip’s prep school, Kensington. He was on the brink of entering the Oratory when war was declared, and joined the London Scottish as a private; he was then commissioned and switched to the Intelligence Corps before transferring to the 2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment. Arriving at brigade headquarters on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in 1944, he recognised the soldier carrying his bags as a waiter who had once spilt soup down the dress of his dinner guest at the Dorchester and had been immediately fired.

They don’t make ’em like that any more. Thanks to James Cridland for the link.