[dighton]

A benevolent and popular ruler, Rajah Vyner was on the whole scrupulous not to stamp on local customs, but he drew the line at head hunting, then still practised by Dyak tribesmen. "At that time," Elizabeth would recall, "when a young Dyak came of age, the girls thought little of him until he had at least two or three heads to his credit. My father had to spend long hours with these men to teach them that severing an old woman's head as she worked in a rice field, just to please a girl, was not really a sign of honour."

[Orual]

Elizabeth and her sisters (Leonora and Valerie) grew up in a cultured milieu; their grandmother Ranee Margaret used to play the piano to them in the company of Edward Elgar and Joseph Conrad; J M Barrie (Leonora's godfather), D H Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw, and Noel Coward (who called the Brooke sisters "The Chicks") were also regular visitors to their house in Portland Place.

To die for.