Semprini

In March last year, I went to see the house which my son and fiancee had just bought in Wivenhoe, just outside Colchester. As I left for the airport, my husband put an entirely random Spectator into my hand, to back up my reading for the weekend. The next morning, awaiting breakfast in the tiny b and b just beside the cotttage, I opened the Spectator and read a review of the memoirs or autobigraphy of the comedian Ronnie Corbett: apparently on returning to his theatrical digs one evening he had seen his landlady lying on the kitchen table "under Semprini". Her only reaction to this intrusion was to turn her head and say "Oh Mr Corbett, what you must think of me"! Half an hour later and fifty yards away on the quay, we met a resident of Wivenhoe, who told us that among other celebrities who had lived in the village was - Semprini! I retired behind a boat to hide my mirth, but a fortnight later, when my son had a sight of the deeds of the cottage which he had just bought, he found that the last owner but one had been - Semprini!