Earl Okin
What is your idea of complete sophistication?
I like my man to serve tiffin in the back seat of my Rover 95, two satin-clad beauties sitting either side of me, tempting me with petit-fours. The chauffeur has been trained to drive slowly at this time, lest the clotted cream curdles.
Who, in your opinion, is or was the quintessential English gentleman?
It's really a toss up between David Niven and myself, I suppose.
And the quintessential lady?
Dame Clara Butt. Over six-foot tall and when she sang 'Land Of Hope & Glory', the Royal Albert Hall shuddered! What a fine nanny she would have made...Where do you think the best-dressed people are?
Well, you know. I have this little club I go to. Nothing overdone, you understand, but everything is done in the greatest taste and the people who go along are, well, the right sort and know just what to wear for all occasions. The ladies wear the finest twin sets in pure lambs' wool, you know and, as for the men, I've never seen better tweed by day, nor white tie and tails by night. None of your man-made fabric nonsense...
Name three favourite items in your personal wardrobe.
My grey bowler hat; my silver-topped cane and my silver half-hunter and fob. Silver is far less garish than gold, don't you think? Makes a chap look foreign!
Which accessories would you never venture into polite society without?
One should never EVER venture forth without one's spats.
What single situation has been the greatest challenge to your wardrobe and your personal grooming skills?
Changing the tyre on my Rover in a force 9 gale, the very night when Sevenoaks became ThreeTwigs. Unfortunately, my man had the night off.
Which aspects of contemporary life do you think are most prohibitive of a gentlemanly lifestyle?
Any motor car without a starting handle and walnut interior.How do you think young people can be prevented from becoming bad mannered, sportswear-clad ruffians?
A three-year apprenticeship in Savile Row. Any establishment there ought to do.
What vices, if any, do you believe are conducive to beauty of mind and independence of spirit?
The playing of pre-war gramophone records on a well preserved Columbia Grafonola of 1928....using LOUD needles...at any time of day or night.
Which view from which window would you describe as "a portal to the sublime"?
The window of my Rover 95. Who cares where I am driving...it's that window that counts! Ah, they really used to know how to make a motor-car window!