Miss Myrtle Throgmorton OBE pending
Myrtle Euphemia Araminta Throgmorton was born in Darjeeling (in India, my deah) in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and mind-your-own-beeswax. Her pater, who hailed from Auld Reekie, was a tea planter and, indeed, something of a tea pot, being short and stout, with a handle (Sir Murgatroyd Throgmorton) although not much of a spout to speak of, according to mother. Her dear Mama was a doer of all things good but not a good mother. It was the heat.
Her colonial birth necessitated banishment, after an idyllic early childhood of ayahs, ponies and parrots, to boarding school back in Britain at the age of 7. Her first educational establishment was a prep school in Berkshire, St Michael of the Smalls. It was run by the Sisters Grimm, both of whom unfailingly failed to live up to their name by being eternally jolly and kind, if not actually any good at teaching. Or running a business. Or guiding the lives of their young charges. Or anything much except sherry and being eternally jolly and kind. From St Michael’s, she moved to Much Whimpering Academy for Girls, a minor boarding school, all dorms, crushes, sturdy gym knickers, midnight feasts and lacrosse. There she thrived, bucking the school trend by being moderately academic, whilst not actually a horse, and gaining a place at a half-decent university - which has since expunged her from their alumni after a minor incident involving a Don, his Dandie Dinmont and some hundreds and thousands. She has had a multi-faceted career, being variously teacher, Gaiety Girl, Civil Servant (very dull), a Chunky Knits model, chicken-sexer (very fiddly) and latterly, for many years, the unheard voice of Freda Fry on the Archers, so tragically ‘killed off’. She now lives in Esher, Surrey, where she is Chairwoman of SWINNEY (Scottish Women IN Need of Eternal Youth), a vibrant society celebrating with gusto anything and everything Scottish, including the Broons, Cockaleekie and Irn Bru... although it does tend to repeat. This was formerly ALEX (the Surrey Association for Lonely, Misplaced Or Non-Domiciled Scots) and NICOLA (the Nearly (or Never) Independent Caledonian Old Ladies Association) and YOUSAF (Youthful Older Uber Scottish Affiliated Females). She is also co—founder with her great friend, Midriff Bulge, of EFMA (Enough First Minister Acronyms ffs!). She is a passionate supporter of all Arts, with a capital A, most especially the Edinburgh Fringe - if only they could mount one in Esher - and has been an avid audience member for many, many years - silently heckling. Inexplicably, Myrtle has never married having never found her Mr. Right, despite constant searching. But now he seems to have found her... |