He said he had to go and meet someone for lunch so why didn’t I come down? We went

He said he had to go and meet someone for lunch, so why didn’t I come down? We went down to a club called Scribes at the bottom of Fleet Street, and he was meeting Ingrid Seward. We started chatting, and they said why didn’t I join them for lunch? About two-thirds of the way through lunch, Ingie, for reasons best known to herself, said, “All men are wimps,” so I said, “Oh really – will you have dinner with me tomorrow?” and she said, “No, but how about the night after?” – playing hard to get. I went for lunch with an old friend, Chris-topher Wilson, the editor of the Will-iam Hickey column in the Express. We went down to El Vino’s for a morning tincture – a bottle of champagne, actually. Ingrid Seward, also 46, was educated at Frances Holland Girls’ School in Regent’s Park, London.

She attended Queen’s Secretarial College, a finishing school in Oxford, before becoming a PR for Victor Lowndes and Naim Atallah. Since 1983, she has edited the royal magazine, Majesty
ROSS BENSON: I first met Ingrid in 1985 when I was the chief foreign correspondent of the Daily Express. Aged 46, he lives in Belgravia, London, with his wife, Ingrid Seward, and their six-year-old daughter, Arabella. Since 1973, he has worked for the Daily Express; for the past eight years, he has edited his own gossip column. Ross Benson was educated at Gordonstoun He joined the Daily Mail in 1967. Jacques Amand, The Nurseries, Clamp Hill, Stanmore, Middlesex HA7 3JS (0108-954 8138); Avon Bulbs, Burnt House Farm, Mid Lambrook, South Petherton, Somerset TA13 5HE (01460 42177); Peter Nyssen, Railway Road, Urmston, Manchester M41 0WX (0161 7486666).Mary Keen.

This cultivar was first recorded in 1629 by King James I’s apothecary, John Parkinson.SUPPLIERS: Botanicus, The Old Barn, The Street, Weybread, Diss, Norfolk IP21 5TL (01379 588183) Send pounds 1.20 for catalogue, which includes postage. Scholarly notes accompany each entry and they offer the double form of crown imperial, “Crown on Crown”. If you grew a snake’s heads in a pot this winter, to flower next spring, you might acquire a taste for their offbeat attractions. They are the sort of flowers that do not usually appeal to everyone at first, perhaps because they lack the cheerfulness of other spring flowering bulbs. But fritillaries do have a fascination for collectors, and given time and study they reveal themselves as strangely distinguished plants.A new nursery, Botanicus, which specialises in historic bulbs lists some fritillaries among other bulbs that were all introduced to Britain before 1850. For those who can offer cool rich soil, Fritillaria camschatcensis is another dusky curiousity.All of the smaller fritillaries are plants which need to be closely looked at to be fully appreciated.

In a sunny place it will seed and I have not found it at all difficult to grow. Fritillaria persica likes sun too and the same sort of conditions as imperialis, but its tiny black flowers on very tall stems are more curious than attractive (“Adiyaman” is the best form). There is a white form for those who find the dark one too funereal.Fritillaria pallidiflora is more cheerful than most of its kindred It has pale sulphur-yellow bells and greeny-grey leaves. Pheasants love the bulb, but deep planting, which is what the snake’s head likes, will deter them. It is a British native wildflower, still found in damp water meadows, but it seems to grow perfectly happily in grassy places that are not particularly moist.