Penny Black's insurance week

Running shoes would have been more appropriate after an occupant at an address on the fraud squad’s hit list saw Penny was taking no prisoners, and decided he would launch a frantic bid for freedom, hurdling barefoot over his neighbours’ fences and through a series of rose bushes.

To make matters worse, he wasn’t even the suspect ghost broker the police had come to arrest.

The passing of the Iron Lady reminded Penny of a recent luncheon at the East India Club in St James’s with some obliging members of the broking fraternity.

Arriving unpunctually at the public schoolboy haunt, Penny discovered her tardiness had cost her the ‘best seat in the house’, which was instead occupied by one’s host. The seat in question was that favoured by Baroness Thatcher in her years as a regular at the famous club and Penny could see the attraction to the former PM.

In the corner with its back to the wall and a full view of every other guest’s antics, it was perfectly positioned for a lady used to keeping in check a cabinet largely consisting of expensively educated men.

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This article was published in the 18 April 2013 edition of Post