16 3

THE

Julia Llewellyn Smith meets an octogenarian who might once have become Prime Minister

Rebl Wtut a pause

omerset de Chair is stinking

rich. ‘this 83-yeareld author.

former MP and war hero.

lives in the kind of houses
that most of us pay ES to gape at on
Bank Holiday Mondays. When you
visit him at one of them. Bourne
Park. near Canterbury. the chauffeur
picks you up in a Jaguar and drives
you through rippling countryside.
through colossal gates. across a
humpback bridge and up to a
perfectly-proportioned. Queen-Anne
mansion.

In the hall, Van Dycks are dripping
from the walls. a 15th-century trip-
tych of the Adoration of the Magi
stands in pride of place. It is mid-
morning and de Chair is sitting in an
anteroom. taking alternate sips of
coffee and gin and tonic. Outside. the
swimming pool is hibernating under
tarpaulin. Inside. the temperature is
positively subtropical. Heating bills
are not an issue for the de Chairs.

“How big is the house?" I ask. as I
help him to hobble through the
cavernous rooms. past the Stubbses‘
and the De Hoochs and his world-
far“ -s jade collection. “Oh. not
a\ big." he replies perkily.
‘‘'I link? are only lS bedrooms."

If this man had not existed. Evelyn
Waugh would have invented him. in
the racy. pacy l930s. he \vas the
brightest of the bright young things:
buo_ved by inherited wealth. gliding
between Oxford and London in his
open-top Rolls and accumulating
stately homes and beautiful wives in
equal measure.

here was substance. how-
ever. to de Chair's blonde-
haired. blue~eyed style. He
wrote his first book The
Impending Storm at the age of 20.
and by 24. at the height of the
abdication crisis. he was MP for
South West Norfolk. During the war.
he was one of the two officers to
accept the surrender of Baghdad and
was wounded at the Battle of Palmy-
ra. “Would you like to see what the
Vichy French did to me?" he inquires.
rolling up his trouser leg to reveal
swollen flesh and a hole as big as a
marble. ‘

Before the war. he visited Mussoli-
ni: afier it. he lunched with Churchill.
He produced three novels and three
collections of poetry. His account of
the Iraqi campaign. The Golden
Ca was regularly’ compared
wit. _ .- work of TE. Lawrence. He
wrote a biography of Getty and
edited Napoleon's memoirs.

No wonder. then, that de Chair‘s
publishers decided to subtitle Morn-
ing Glory. the first part of this
eminent nian‘s autobiography. Mem-
oirsfrom tlte Edge of_I:izstc)iy.~_.' . _ .,..g,

The author. however. is horrified
by their choice. “Rather pompous.
don't you think,“ he says. “I wanted
them to call it The Indiscretions ofrz
Self-Confessed Heterosevtial. But the
publishers said ‘Oh no! We couldn't
possibly.“

Well actually. they could. For these
rambling memoirs. packed as they
are with fascinating historical detail.
still linger in the memory as the
remarkably frank confessions of a
man who has been married four
times and admits: “l love women —
all women.“

Thus, de Chair's memories of his
childhood in Australia. where his
father was the Governor General of
New South Wales: of his time at

 

Oxford: of his trip to America where
he visited Mary Pickford and Doug-
las Fairbanks at “Pickfair"; of his
days in the Commons under Bal-
dwin. are all permeated with glowing
evocations of women in their infinite
variety.

On the very first page. the three-
yeareld Somerset is playing "tents"
in the bed of his headmistress's
daughter. He was nearly l9 when he‘?

Oxford to a middle-aged Norwegian’ ‘ff
maid in New York. From then there ;

was no stopping him. De Ch'air's"" V . t  _ _ »_ _ _ H g
second year at Oxfnrdinvolved twieé-’«"3FOf “Aftpliéton-*7~=1’s1St‘rteWliat‘fi)i‘tfl15‘ifl'g‘!‘:".‘“!*."Bu.f'“d&¥€hair':had to  d‘.

weekly visits to the “extraordinarily
good-looking“ tarts of Bond Street.
who charged only £3 a go.

De Chair was not interested only in
professionals. however. Long pas-
sages are devoted to dalliances with
older women. almost literally under
the nose of his first wife. the straight-
Iaced Thelma. who. unfortunately for
de Chair. lacked the tolerance of her
Successors.

After I8 years of marriage. Thelma
had her revenge. “She was on the
London County Council and l was a

lost his virginity in the_vac‘fI"d‘rti“"l‘wa$ asstTUhI’ifel’_'y‘iit'“‘>:"‘ :

W ' pre'ghantsi_r_iceA ril."

parliamentary can-

 

 

‘. 5:1.

Somerset de Chain long passages of his book are devoted to dalliances with olr women. almost ltteally under the n

voice boomed out:

   

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S335 tgtehfacjtsé Woman  what's1he problem?‘

in Belgravia for me
a,ncl__(Iannen, the girl A .

 

lovfwith,“ who‘ had *

 

r-iTh'é hou,sl'e'wasj'tal<'_é‘ ‘in thE“‘riame
the landlady. who was confronted
everywhere by election posters of de
Chair. "She went to my wife and said:
‘I want you to be the first to know.‘
These women who want you to be the
first to know are dangerous.“
Thelma employed a firm of private
detectives and collected the evidence
to hit de Chair with a divorce suit. He
was forced to stand dowrt. Plus ca
change. ‘‘I don't think it was neces-
sary at all. lt didn't interfere with my
public duties. I saw Winston [Chur-
chill] in the smoking room and his

. ....bo1 d

I said my wife was a
member of the exec-
. utive (.‘0mn1l£©€__a.t]d
 ‘his aquarnar'irie%}fes."“"‘
bulgedirl He said: 

  
 
  

cofnfmttee?'.'” ’ "' 

make matters worse. Carmen shortly
bolted with the naval officer who was
navigating Harebell. her husbands
So-ton yacht. “lt was rather disillu-
sioning. since this was the woman I
had given up my entire political
career for." he snorts indignantly.

So then there was Tessa. the model.
followed in I974 by his current wife.
the beautiful Lady Juliet. 59. the
former wife of the Marquess of
Bristol and the only daughter of Earl
Fitzwilliam.

They lived at St Osyth's Priory. a

u_r_e1y you*don‘t1-vthegégqcal - Isfigte.

TONY WHITE

 
 
 

3- x

ose ofhis first wife

fairytale medieval pile in Essex. but
then Juliet inherited a [20 million art
collection. “lt‘s astonishing really.
There are seven Stubbses. six Van
Dycks."

So far. so good. but when the 48
Hepplewhite chairs arrived. space
ran out. “lt was all too much. a lot of
her ancestors seemed to be 7ft tall; we
needed great. high rooms to put them
in." Sothey boughtV,l?g4oti_rne Park and

iiiiltitiisilde tlieir~ti3tt€'bet\ieet§'there.

Essex and their farm in New York
lt‘!!daugltter.‘ Helena. (de
17 and is

1:"a'i‘_fli~

 

at ‘has ve_ more)‘ is
1’-rs-< v‘»z'=.~

Today. de Chair is balding and
lame. a jowly shadow. in his elegant

still. of his Mor/ting Glory self. But .

the roguish irreverence still sparkles.
the laughter is as irrepressible as
ever. '‘I fully expected to become
Prime Minister." he says. “But I've
always been in trouble. I've been a
rebel without a pause. I'm not a team
player. All the same. I do feel pretty
relaxed and happy. Everything
seems to have turned out pretty well."
0 Morning Glory ispulilislieri hr Czzrsell.
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