We are standing among dozens of sofas but there doesn’t appear to be anywhere to sit. Each of them is covered by ranks of cushions, marching across their seats as if to war. There is nowhere to park a bottom, but Lady Astor sweeps some aside and flumps down cosily, saying: “Personally, I am not a puffer-upper of cushions.”  She’s wearing a long grey silk shirt over black leggings. In the past couple of years, she says, she has put on two stone despite regular walking and riding, so a cover-up is needed. On her feet are natty little brown riding boots which she tries to avoid saying come from Dior, then makes out that such extravagances are inevitable if you pass through Selfridges regularly. Her two bags look smart and thick-leathery.  What, no Smythson? She worked for the company herself until 18 years ago, when Samantha took over her role as a designer. “Of course,” she says, pulling out a damson-coloured fake snakeskin diary. “My mother and grandmother always had a diary from there. I obviously do, too, since they are designed by my daughter. And a purse.”  Any mention of her eldest daughter is delicate. She squirms, apologises for not being more forthcoming, reminds me that it’s a bit “difficult” talking about her son-in-law and tries to move on. Not, of course, that David Cameron’s job is any big deal for a woman who has grown up among powerful, well-known people. Even to imagine being excited about Downing Street would, she suggests, be extremely unsophisticated.  “His job is just like being chief executive of a vast business. Why is being prime minister different, say, from being head of Barclays? His job hasn’t changed our lives at all. The company [Oka] was already successful long before he even became leader of the opposition [in 2005]. My staff would be incredibly insulted at the idea that their sales were based on my son-in-law being Prime Minister. As for my daughter, she is just herself and doesn’t find any issue around it.”  Beneath Annabel’s soft-spoken cosiness lies a steely core. Not for her a summons back from holiday during the summer. “Most things can be dealt with by conference call.” As for the recession, she saw that off: turnover for the first five months of this year is up 31.5 per cent. “We got through with careful management, descaling and shrinking stock lines – just as one does at home if your income goes down. We don’t borrow.”  The Prime Minister could do worse than copy the cool practicality of a mother-in-law who learnt survival skills during a difficult early life and failed first marriage. Her parents, Timothy Jones and It-girl Pandora Clifford, married very young – her mother was only 17 when Annabel was born – and split soon after. Although her mother went on to marry Michael Astor, her future husband’s uncle, she was brought up largely by her paternal grandmother, the novelist Enid Bagnold of National Velvet fame, whose husband, Sir Roderick Jones, was chairman of Reuters.  A first marriage, to landowner Sir Reginald Sheffield, ended when she was in her mid-twenties, leaving her with two children, Samantha and Emily; she and William Astor have remained together since 1976. He’s busy with the House of Lords and Eastern European food companies; she is frequently travelling around China and India seeing suppliers. What’s their secret? “We are nice to each other. We are polite.” Do they go on Obama-style date nights? She looks amazed. “No, we are English.”  Her other remarkable achievement is to have five children who all appear to have successful careers despite coming from the kind of monied background that can lead to drugs and psychotherapy. Yet, as well as Sam Cam, she has Emily Sheffield, deputy editor of Vogue, and her three equally successful Astor children: Flora Rycroft deals in diamonds and lives in Geneva; Will is in property; Jake lives in Hong Kong, speaks Mandarin and works for a Chinese marketing company.  “I was a tough mother. Of course I told them they should do their homework but I was far keener that they read; to me that is real education. In their teens they all did holiday work; they had to earn their pocket money. And because I always worked, and so did my husband, they thought it would be odd if they sat at home doing nothing.”  She has run her own businesses since the age of 19: first Annabel Jones jewellery, then Oka, which she set up in 1999 with two friends. Her taste is safe enough for any decorator to bulk-buy from Oka and know it will work, but she loves bad taste: “Every house should have something you like which a decorator would say doesn’t fit in. I tend to have natural walls and a lot of bright colours which I move around all the time, driving my husband mad.”  She avoids madness herself by switching off each evening. “At home I never think about the next day. It’s to do with having children. Plenty of things can go wrong – half the staff can be off, or one of the dogs can have an accident – but the joy of being older is that you can enjoy every minute.” Are you listening, Dave?  The Oka concession is now open on the fourth floor at Selfridges, Oxford Street; okadirect.com.
The feisty Annabel Astor could teach her son-in-law, David Cameron, a thing or   two about running a successful organisation.