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felt obliged to lecture Biggles on his duty to what he called ‘the pater’. Biggles resented this, and if truth be told, would not have cared too much if he had never seen or heared from his father again. Needless to say, onesubject was always totally taboo between the brothers — their mother. Biggles suspected Charles of knowing more than he let on about the whole mysterious business of her departure from Garhwal and her reported death, but on the one occasion when he tried to tap his brother on the subject, Charles replied tersely, ‘that’s all over and done with’, and promptly changed the subject. They never talked of her again.
    This did not mean that Biggles had no contact with his mother’s family. Lord Lacey — unforgiving to the last — expired in Calcutta at the end of 1910. (According to one version of his death, he was overcome by a fit of apoplexy in the bath brought on by anger when a servant offered him carbolic soap.) In later life, Biggles regretted that he had never seen him. The title passed to Biggles’ uncle, Henry Lacey, a man as different from his father as anyone could possibly imagine. He was a gentle, absent-minded man, a botanist by training, who lived in. a big ramshackle house in Lewes. On hearing that he had inherited the title, his chief concern was that his duties at the House of Lords would interrupt his lifelong search for wild flowers. He need not have worried. Henry Viscount Lacey visited the House of Lords on two occasions — once to take his seat, and once when he had been to a wedding at St Margaret’s, Westminster, and could not find a lavatory. The remainder of his life was dedicated to his monumental
Wild Flowers of Heath and Hedgerow,
which was published privately a year or two before his death in 1953.
    Biggles always spoke of his botanising uncle as something of a joke. He used to be invited to the house at Lewes, but much preferred staying with the General. Motorcars and land torpedoes were more to his taste than wild flowers, and Lord Lacey was so distant and eccentric that he really had no time for Biggles. But on the other hand, Lady Lacey, Biggles’ formidable Aunt Priscilla, apparently felt sorry for him and used to try to organise his life. At times she could be something of a menace. ‘Bossy old harridan’ was how he described her to us. ‘Always trying to rope me in for good works and telling me to wash behind my ears.’
    The Laceys had a son called Algernon — ‘freckle-faced, spoiled little brat I always thought him in those days’. Algernon was almost two years younger than his cousin, and it would have been impossible for any boy to have escaped the domination of amother like Aunt Pris. Biggles tended to ignore him and it was not for several years to come that Biggles realised the truth — the insignificant Algy hero-worshipped him and would do so in his own strange way for the remainder of his life.
    There was another way in which the Laceys were important to Biggles at this time, for it was through them that he finally got news about his mother. His aunt had no inhibitions about telling him exactly what had happened, and it appeared his mother was now living in the South of France. Captain Thomas had deserted her long since, and she had married a French businessman, a Monsieur Duclos.
    For weeks after hearing this Biggles could think of nothing else, and was all for contacting her at once, but Aunt Priscilla prudently advised him otherwise. ‘You must be very understanding, James, dear boy,’ she said. ‘Your mother — whether she deserved it or not is neither here nor there — has been through hell, and now at last has found a new life for herself in France. Her husband, as I know only too well myself, is an extraordinarily jealous man. I’ve no idea how much she’s told him, so we must be extremely cautious. I will be seeing her this autumn when we are