Tongue was offal and therefore not rationed. Mr Thacker let me help him cut up the meat in the back room and get a few scraps for the dogs. All the same, the book does not lose its charm or interest, as the sheer absurd hilarity of the author’s anecdotes about her family is replaced by well-described, often comic memories of life in the upper classes after the war – which, thanks to rationing, does not sound all that much more pleasant than life for any other section of society at the time: Once the author leaves home and we see less of her father, who I still cannot quite believe worked for a time at The Lady, the laughs, although never entirely absent, do grow thinner. This part of the book – an account of the author’s childhood surrounded by a Wodehousian collection of relatives, most notably her father, (who it transpires was not only unintentionally hilarious but also, during WWI, quite incredibly brave), and hangers on, (including a governess who spent school hours teaching her charges how to gamble at cards), is so funny you cannot read it in a room with other people, because you are liable either to drive those around you completely crazy with your shouts of uncontrollable laughter or irritate them dreadfully by being unable to resist reading bits of the thing out loud. Wait for Me!, the autobiography of Deborah Devonshire, is worth at least 1p for its first section alone. ZMKC recommends the often hilarious memoirs of Deborah, Duchess of Deveonshire and youngest of the notorious Mitford sisters…

Wait for me deborah devonshire