SABRINA,
LADY VIOLET
and CAR S41

Daily Express, 29 April 1958

by Donald Seaman

Unmoved

"I told him I was on my way to the theatre. I said: 'It's a free country, and if I can't park outside my own place I'll jolly well put it outside hers.' And off I went"
"Sabrina," I said, "I've got news for you." Lady Violet sent for the police and had it moved.".
"Moved?" she cried. "You mean they've towed my lovely car away?"

The liberally-built leading lady then delivered a few words on the subject of the Liberals' leading lady.
"The cheek! Do find out what's happened to it and let me know."
To find out I spoke to Fred Johnson, porter on duty in Hyde Park-square.
He grinned at the memory. "After Sabrina had gone," he said, "two uniformed police arrived and tried to move her car. They failed,
"So they went off and phoned their station. Minutes later a van arrived with another police­man, who carried a huge bunch of keys.
"When they went to try the keys they found the door was unlocked after all. So they moved it — to here."
Sabrina's car had been driven precisely 16ft. across the road to an empty spot outside her own front door.

Unrepentant

Watching from the balcony of her first-floor flat was Lady Violet, said porter Johnson.
"Lady Violet has complained that the people in public life who visit her have had to walk through the rain, sometimes in evening dress, round the parked cars outside her door to get a taxi. She has no car of her own here," he said.
I phoned the news back to Sabrina. Unrepentant, she said: "I shall put the car straight back again if other people block the parking space outside my own front door.
"As far as I'm concerned. Lady Violet can hop in any time and move it if it inconveniences her."
Later, at Lady Violet's home a man told a Press Association reporter that Lady Violet did not want to say anything about the incident. He said: -
"There is a 'no parking' sign outside the door of this block of flats. It has been there about three years."

FOOTNOTE: Lady. Violet arrived home at 10.40 last night. Sabrina's car was still about. What had Lady Violet to say? "Goodnight." And in she went

Background information (courtesy of Wikipedia )

Helen Violet Bonham Carter , Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury, DBE (15 April 1887 – 19 February 1969), known until her marriage as Violet Asquith, was a British politician and diarist. She was the daughter of Herbert Asquith , Prime Minister from 1908–1916, and later became active in Liberal politics herself, being a leading opponent of appeasement, standing for Parliament and being made a life peer. She was also involved in arts and literature. Her illuminating diaries cover her father's premiership before and during World War I and continue until the 1960s.
She was Sir Winston Churchill's closest female friend, apart from his wife, and her grandchildren include the actress Helena Bonham Carter .