I FIRST met Edith my friend many, many years ago when my son Andrew was running pop concerts at King George’s Hall.

At that time Edith was responsible for doing the refreshments at the interval, and we have been friends ever since.

We have shared the gladness and the sadness of each other’s lives.

It’s one of life’s strange oddities, that although I love good food, when it comes to cooking, I just haven’t got the gift.

Edith has the gift and my son Andrew has, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm.

So I have to say at meal times, thank heavens our Andrew — and if he is out, thank heavens for the toaster.

Do you know, I still have, hung up in my back kitchen, the old four pronged toasting fork that we held out to the fire with a slice of bread on the end when I was young.

That was for when we were having beans on toast for tea or, if mum was really pushing the boat out, it could even have been sardines.

Come to think of it, I have never had sardines since.

Meals, when I was a kid, were stuck into a definite pattern, starting off with Sunday lunch, which was the big proper meal of the week.

Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, two veg, and peas that were out of pods, not tins or frozen.

What am I saying — frozen? It was the time when frozen hadn’t even happened.

This was followed by rice pudding with a thick brown skin on top, brought to the table in a large enamelled dish.

At this point in our house there were cries of ‘I bag the skin’, which to us was always considered a delicacy.

For tea there would be jelly and custard, eaten after we had all taken a large piece of plate minced beef pie.

Then, the table would be cleared, the thick green baize everyday cloth put back and then we would all sit round and play cards.

Of course, in those far off days the radio was one my dad had made, so it was not entirely reliable.