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“... the only time I met him, in 1977. I had a play running in the West End, The Old Country, with Alec Guinness. Wordy I think it now and thin on plot, it was an account of a Foreign Office defector, now living in Soviet Russia, who is being tempted home, possibly to face the music. It had good reviews, though journalists, and even some ...”

“... the National I am ‘young man’, which reminds me that the doorman of Durrants Hotel once called Alec Guinness ‘young man’ thereby forfeiting his tip – though he might have expected to have it doubled. Our fair-haired bin man always bellows ‘ALAN’ above the noise of the rotor. ‘Still on your bike?’ I am grateful to be so generally greeted ...”

“... are written and sold in quantities that will never be rivalled by works on Gielgud, Richardson or Alec Guinness. The nearest Holden comes is to retail a story by Gawn Grainger, the actor who helped Olivier edit On Acting from taped recollections, of watching the old man strip for his daily nude swim. Grainger could not keep his eyes from the tangle of ...”

“... How high the highest rung. 23 January. To Sotheby’s where I’m reminded of a lunch given for Alec Guinness in 1989 when I sat next to Lord Charteris, the Provost of Eton and previously the Queen’s Private Secretary. Talking of A Question of Attribution, then playing at the National, he remarked: ‘Of course, the question everybody asks is whether ...”

“... most tangible honour I have ever been given.Lying in bed, though, I think of the time I invited Alec Guinness to go round with me. Having given him careful instructions which door to come to I waited in the lobby until well past the appointed time. Never late he eventually arrived cross and out of sorts, claiming I had sent him to the wrong door. I ...”

“... in that film your father likes, I call him Alfie.’ She sold arrangements to Jean Shrimpton, Alec Guinness, Tony Blackburn, and others whose names she got confused. Names of flowers, too, were a struggle, even though she knew exactly what she had in mind: myosotis, chrysanthemum and anemone would come out sounding like rare distempers in farm ...”

“... 1930 to 1933, but this was a crucial period in Channon’s ascent. In July 1933, he married Honor Guinness, daughter of the Second Earl of Iveagh, whose black stuff from the brewery at St James’s Gate in Dublin had made the family enormously rich. In best 18th-century fashion, Channon acquired a fortune, a house in Belgrave Square, a country house at ...”