Back in those early days, the children (Hugh Casson and his sister Rosemary) sometimes went to London and stayed with their Great Aunt Tory (Victoria Matthews), who was their Man grandmother's sister, and who lived in a tall terraced house in Montagu Street, Marylebone.  Here they spent most of their time in the kitchen with three elderly maids, sending a china pig up and down in the service lift and making occasional trips to nearby Madame Tussaud's. Hugh especially liked going to Selfridges, where he spent as many hours as were allowed, roaming through the various departments and riding the handsome bronze lifts.  There were visits to aunts at Chatham or Aldershot or Putney; and an annual summer fortnight with a widower uncle [James Henry Matthews] - one of their grandmother's brothers - who lived at Sunbury-on- Thames and, as chairman of Grindlay's Bank, was amongst the most prosperous members of the family.

These holidays in Sunbury, Hugh was to write later, 'were prized beyond measure because life here was sybaritic.  We went shopping in a plum-coloured Vauxhall driven by Guerney the chauffeur who wore a long dust-coat, and we had lemon squash with our lunch.  In the afternoon we played tennis or went for a picnic in the punt.  For hours Rosemary and I would paddle and punt up the backwaters, exploring creeks, and banging on the green canvas covers of boats which were moored along the banks to enquire in the friendliest possible fashion of couples locked in embrace within whether they were married. They never seemed to mind.  On Fridays we used to drive to Bentalls at Kingston on Thames and a shop assistant would come out with a notebook in hand to take the order. We were always at Sunbury for Regatta Week and one year the prizes were presented by Jeffrey Farnol - who was at the time my favourite author. At the fair afterwards we watched entranced as he whirled past overhead on a Chair-o-plane in his brown knickerbockers.'