“When he [Evelyn Waugh] returned to London in the holidays, he saw a lot of Olivia [Puncket Greene]. As usual, her company was synonymous with heavy drinking and committed party-going. One party in particular ended up with Evelyn under arrest (an incident that turns up in ‘Brideshead’). Evelyn and Olivia gave a party, to which her cousin Matthey Ponsonby was invited. He came in his car and was sent out to buy more drink with Evelyn, who was, by this time, already drunk. The men stopped off for drinks along the way and were arrested for driving the wrong way around a traffic island. Matthew and Evelyn, ‘Drunk and Incapable’, were put into police cells. The next day, Evelyn was bound over at the cost of 2 ponds. It was far more serious for Matthew, who was the driver of the car. Though his father (the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) bailed him out, Matthew came extremely close to a prison sentence. In the end he was banned from driving for a year and given a large fine, half of which Evelyn offered to pay: ‘After all I was rather more than half to blame and I got off so lightly myself’.”
- Mad World by Paula Byrne