Marriage

After a lovely 25th birthday trip to Vienna, I returned home to face the reality of my quarter-life circumstances. I had been happy with my milestones to date – a degree, a stint of modeling on the European and New York runways, a couple of relationships and some encouraging writing contracts – but was then told by my mother what my grandfather Alexander Chancellor had pulled off by the time he was my age. Having moved to Italy to work for Reuters news agency, he spoke Italian fluently and had married my grandmother, Susanna Debenham; he had two children, he had bought a house and even had someone iron his shirts from time to time, which Susie was definitely not going to do. By the time he reached 35, he was editing this magazine.