As the grandson of Romania’s last reigning monarch, Oxfordshire’s Nicholas Medforth-Mills is related to royal families across Europe, including that of the United Kingdom, since – as he told us – the late King Michael I was a cousin of Elizabeth II.

The darkly good-looking Nicholas, 34 – considered with his dazzling wife, the former Alina-Maria Binder, to be Romania’s equivalent of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – was third in line to the country’s throne, behind his aunt Princess Margareta and mother Princess Elena (a matter of no great moment, since Romania is a republic and its monarch has no constitutional role).

But then came a certain . . . er, unpleasantness, involving Nicholas’s alleged fathering of an illegitimate child, after which ‘King’ Michael stripped him of his princely status and his rights of succession, before his death at 96.

This indelicate matter seemed off-limits during conversation with him over dinner last week. So we talked instead of his Oxfordshire background, which includes schooldays at Shiplake College and residence in Henley, where he and Alina married and still have an apartment.

The chef Paul Bloomfield, sitting to my left, detected a certain flatness to Nicholas’s vowels reminiscent of speech in his native Durham. Could there perhaps be any connection . . . ?

Indeed there could, since Nicholas spent his earlier years there, he told us, while his late father Robin Medforth-Mills, a Brit, was working as a geography professor at Durham University.

“So we’re blood brothers,” said Paul, leading me to point out that this was perhaps, in the circumstances, not the most felicitous way of expressing consanguinity. “We are, after all, in Transylvania,” I observed, “indeed in Dracula’s Castle.” (This wasn’t strictly true, but the ornate wooden construction of stairs, walkways and curtained compartments in which we were seated had been bought from a hotel of that name.)

“That will be something to tell your readers in The Oxford Times,” piped up my pal Donald Sloan of the foodie-promoting Oxford Cultural Collective, who was also at the table. Indeed it would.

Don will be known to many as the former head of Oxford Brookes University’s School of Hospitality Management, students of which were involved (see above) in catering for the event that had taken us all to Romania.

This was The Ratiu Dialogues on Democracy, conducted in honour of the country’s great opponent of communism, Ion Ratiu. He was exiled to London on the Communist takeover of Romania in 1946 and thereafter – as a major figure in the business world – waged a powerful media campaign against the regime.

In 1990, following the bloody fall of Nicolae Ceausescu, he returned to his homeland to contest the presidency. He failed but won a seat in parliament and served Romania for the last ten years of his life.

The Ratiu Family Charitable Foundation had been set up in London in 1979 by Ion and his wife, the former Elisabeth Pilkington, of the glass manufacturing company. The institution, which promotes education and culture in Romania, continues under their sons Nicolae Ratiu and Indrei Ratiu, with the latter’s wife Pamela Roussos Ratiu – she was formerly married to the legendary musician Demis Roussos – as its executive director.

Since 2006, the foundation has been organising an annual get-together for like-minded folk, styled until this year the ‘Ratiu Friends and Family Weekend’.

Though perhaps lacking the intellectual gravitas of the new name, this neatly suggests a convivial spirit which certainly survives.

Rosemarie and I, staying in a comfortable suite in a newly opened former mill attached to the family home, enjoyed a round of meals and entertainment reminiscent of the country house party as it used to be. I judge, by the way, from their depiction in plays and films, having rarely been wafted to one.

Guests gathered for a leisurely, help-yourself breakfast, after which it was off to a round of cultural events, award presentations, and musical performances (a highlight being that of violinist Vlad Maistorovici and pianist Diana Ionescu), with much sampling of local cuisine and wines in between.

Many of the events were in the nearby university city of Cluj-Napoca, the road to which – reckoned one of the most dangerous in the country – became very familiar after four days. I looked out each trip for the sign advertising a restaurant selling ‘crap’ – that’s carp to you and me.

Strangely, this was our second trip within a couple of months to Romania, a country we had never previously visited. The first, to Bucharest, we bought at a charity auction at the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival. Having found Romanians a delight to meet, it was gratifying to be back among them.

And money goes a very long way.

'Young David' dishes up a Brexit shock

“I’m 80 now,” piped up Lord Owen during breakfast at The Ratiu House in the Romanian Town of Turda. What ‘young David’! Could it have been so long ago that, at 38, he became the country’s youngest Foreign Secretary in more than four decades, before leaving the Labour party to become a founding member of the Gang of Four? Indeed it could.

A second surprise came – for me at least – when he announced during a talk in the Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca that he was a committed Brexiteer – if that is not an unfortunate expression, given his medical background in mental health.

It is on this very background that he draws for his new book, Hubris. The Road to Trump. Power, Populism and Narcissism. His talk in Cluj was to promote this.

So is the current US president barking? No surprise over this, perhaps.

While Lord Owen supplied much food for thought concerning the way we live now, so too did the philosopher John Ryder, Professor of the American University of Malta. He talked in Cluj on Illiberalism Left, Right and Centre.

His comments on the ‘moral absolutism’ of the left struck a chord with me.

He told us: “There are many people who are quite sure that they are in possession of the truth, especially with respect to anything having to do with race, gender, sexuality and ethnicity, and they are determined to ensure that no falsehood have a chance to be uttered or even heard.

“These are the people who disrupt speakers with whom they disagree, or who make demands of certain kinds with respect to university curricula.” Demands for the removal of statues were also mentioned.

I sat next to Prof Ryder at the Gala Dinner served by chef Paul Bloomfield and his team in the huge Turda Brewery (now a community centre). We found much to discuss.