I haven't felt such gloom since my father died 28 years ago. The question of Why did he have to die? is implicitly followed by that of How did he live his life? The answer to that is easy: recklessly. Learning how to die, according to Montaigne, is unlearning how to be a slave. Nick Scott, who died last week in India, was no slave.

Nick went to Eton and was an army man who was a very talented landscape artist and gardener, among the best-dressed men of his time, a club man par excellence, a very good father to two boys and two girls, and probably the best-unpublished writer of his generation. He was funny as only few people can be funny, with a straight face and via cartoonish exaggeration. I met him a very long time ago at Simpson's-in-the-Strand, at a lunch given by Charlie Glass. Nick was talking about his children and I evinced surprise. Nick asked me why. "I thought you were gay," said I.