ABSTRACT
I must have met Nina in Hall at Somerville College, Oxford, for one day there was a knock on my door, and there she was. She asked me in her cheerful voice whether I’d like to come and have coffee, so I did, with three or four others. After that, I often went and had coffee with her and other friends, usually Linnet Birley (now deceased), Anne Earle, and sometimes Annette Warburton (later Dame!). We had wonderful, hilarious chats; those were delightful times. We had Nescafe with condensed milk . . . very delicious in those austere post war days. Sometimes we had cake, or crystallized fruit, which, as far as I remember, Nina got from her uncle in Kenya, or Anne Earle had sent from America. Occasionally, it was coffee in my room, but Nina always tended to be the giver, then and later, in our lives, and I the most grateful receiver, though I did feel rather guilty about that.
