'Death and Christmas, inevitable and ghastly,’ my father, the actor Robert Hardy (1925-2017), used to say.
Around it came, a traditional part of every Christmas Past, as we all jollied about him, pounding the brandy butter and winding tinsel round the ponies’ browbands.
And, just as perennially, when we came to warble at our own front door my father would give an Oscar-worthy dose of Christmas bonhomie.
There would be a bit of Siegfried Farnon, the gravitas of Churchill, and a touch of Harry Potter's Cornelius Fudge magic in there too, for shimmer.
As the day itself dawned, his ‘Bah humbug’ side returned in force – though
