R.I.P. Elizabeth Ratiu

Mrs. Ratiu 2 years ago after voting for Klaus Iohannis at the Romanian Embassy in London.

I am very sad indeed to hear that Elizabeth Ratiu has died. I lunched with her once many years ago. She was a lovely and very intelligent lady and a great Romanian patriot. She became a Romanian citizen when she married Ion Ratiu in 1945. What a great First Lady of Romania she would have made.


When I lunched with her for some unknown reason the subject of the Holy Trinity came up - I cannot imagine why - or was it sermons? - and I said that someone once said that no -one ever preached a sermon on the subject of the Holy Trinity for more than four minutes without lapsing into heresy. She smiled sweetly and said 'I knew you were going to say that'.

She told me that she only met Olivia Manning once, at her publisher's, and they exchanged recipes but didn't talk about Romania. She also said she chose Ion Ratiu from among her many suitors (she was the Pilkington heiress) because he was the only one who believed in an ideal - freeing Romania.