Paul Mellon, Virginia, 1965

He returned that evening, triumphantly squiffy. The meeting had gone well. They had discussed the portrait, how Mellon would be sitting, what he would wear, the general atmosphere. Then the secretary asked Hailstone about his fee. Bernard nervously suggested $30,000.

"We rather thought $25,000 would be an appropriate figure."

The resulting portrait was a great success, not only with Mellon, but also in providing Hailstone with an entrée to other wealthy American patrons. He returned to England with enough money to restore the folly Hadlow Tower near Tonbridge, acquire a larger Chelsea studio, and continue an agreeable career painting royals, politicians and actors as well as many more humble folk.

In 1973, Bernard painted one last portrait of my father, by then deputy editor of The Times, struggling with the print unions and my mother's failing health. It is the most finished portrait of the three, but my father was clearly embarrassed by it, and hid it from general view behind his bedroom door. I do not understand his embarrassment, except perhaps that Hailstone caught a sensitive, even contemplative side of Louis, at odds with his tough East End boy-made-good, foreign-correspondent self-image.