Dear Papa – cook, musician, Oldie editor

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

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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.