Dear Papa – cook, musician, Oldie editor

My father, Alexander Chancellor, former editor of The Oldie, would have turned 80 this year.

His birthday used to be spent very quietly at Stoke Park, his home in Northamptonshire. Straight after school, my mother and I would drive to Stoke Park to be greeted by my father, standing over the stove, cooking lunch. I told him he ought to be a chef as he was such a brilliant cook. This ridiculous idea was more sensible than my other belief: he should be a gardener because of the broad beans he grew in a vegetable patch.

At Stoke Park there were also hens, which lived in a small enclosure with a rather beautiful old wooden door. I called it the Secret Garden (not that it was remotely secret – I told everyone about it although I was sure to do so in a hushed tone). I named one hen Sweetie because of her amicable nature. Her feathers were a lovely golden colour and she was my favourite.