Outrageous Fortune: Growing Up at Leeds Castle (3 page)

One of Morg’s many gifts was making people feel special, no matter who they were or what their age, something I was happy to learn over a simple musical matter. It began with the first song I fell in love with on the radio, “The Happy Wanderer,” by the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir. Derek McCulloch, a famous BBC radio presenter better known as Uncle Mac, would play it often on his Saturday-morning
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programme. Though the original 1953 hit was sung in German, by 1956 I’d heard it often enough in English, by other singers, to start learning it. Soon nobody in Egerton Terrace was safe from my persistent warbling, and I began to wonder if perhaps I might not brave the lion’s den and attempt a “court” performance. The awkward question was, For whom? Although I was only five and had little experience of the grown-ups down at Leeds, my instincts told me that Morg was the one I would be most comfortable singing to. I asked my mother, who by that time was used to enduring my warbles in London—“How lovely, darling”—to arrange a show.

My performance was set for one morning, before lunch, outside the castle front doors. I presented myself at (high) noon, without Nanny, and waited for Morg. Soon he and my mother arrived, and after making themselves comfortable on the cushioned wicker chairs, with accompanying mutterings and mumbled asides, Morg looked up at me, as I remained standing, and smiled broadly. “My dear fella,” he said, “what an honour you do me! A singer, I do declare. How about that!”

“Fire away, darling, if you’re ready,” my mother prompted, keenly aware that delay might bring on an unwanted dose of the collywobbles. I’d had the collywobbles since before leaving the nursery, but I knew this was a chance to shine—a rare opportunity, and one I had instigated myself. And besides, it was too late to call the whole thing off, so I started to sing: “I love to go a-wandering / Along the mountain track…” I completed four verses and two choruses, encouraged all the way by my audience’s rapt attention—Morg even conducted with his right hand, index finger forward—and then stopped me before I forgot the words. “Oh my dear fella, marvellous, absolutely first-rate!” he thundered as he stood up and magically produced a half crown from behind my ear as a token of his appreciation. I was ecstatic and glowed with satisfaction. What a revelation to be paid to sing! But more than that, the fact that Morg had taken the time to listen, putting me at ease and entering into the spirit of the occasion, made me think that here was the man I wanted to be like when I grew up.

Next in the hierarchy, the number-two baron in feudal terms, came Geoffrey Lloyd. He was also tall and quite handsome, and though no one was able, or perhaps willing, to explain it, his nickname was Woody. Woody was less gregarious than Morg and had a slightly diffident manner but he, too, was a portrait of affability (with his peers) and possessed deep, wide-ranging knowledge. Throughout his life he remained a bachelor, and by the time I was twelve or thirteen I thought he probably was a “confirmed bachelor”—the always-affectionate euphemism for homosexuality my mother would use from time to time.

In the 1930s, when Leeds Castle became England’s epicentre for spectacular weekend parties featuring royalty, aristocrats, leading politicians, newspaper barons, socialites, ambassadors, and Hollywood movie stars all eager to accept invitations, Woody and Morg were regarded as being foremost amongst Granny B’s “admirers”—as lovers were delightfully called in those heady prewar days. Naturally that left her husband, the genial Adrian Baillie, with rather more on his plate to contend with than he might have liked, so it was perhaps fortunate that he had his political constituents in Scotland to occupy his time while “the Leeds set” got on with their high jinks, bedroom manouvres, drinking, gambling, and Cole Porter—the height of daring—on the gramophone. Mr. Porter came to the castle as well.

Both Morg and Woody were first introduced to Leeds Castle by Adrian Baillie, who was a fellow member of Parliament. Never could he have anticipated the inadvertent consequences of his action. He and Granny B were divorced in 1944, and he died of pneumonia in 1947.

Woody was elected Conservative MP for a Birmingham district in 1931. He was Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s parliamentary private secretary. He had secret and specialized jobs during World War II, overseeing plans for setting the Channel on fire should the Nazis attempt an invasion. After the war he became governor of the BBC, minister of fuel and power, and minister of education. In 1974, the year Granny B died, he was created Baron Geoffrey-Lloyd of Broomfield, a village just up the road from Leeds Castle. As with Morg, Woody had his own quarters in the castle, and he, too, was a guest almost every weekend.

Woody had no time for children and made a point of ignoring them as much as decency permitted. On the rare occasions that David, James, and I joined him and Uncle Gawaine (Granny B and Adrian Baillie’s son) for the morning nine holes of golf, we boys and the two older men hardly spoke to one another. I used to find that annoying, but my brothers assured me it was quite normal, so I gently fumed and got on with the game. Fortunately the course professional, Johnson, a Scot with an impenetrable accent and a golf swing from Mars, coached us and kept us focused while Woody and Gawaine sorted out the problems of the world during their round.

Granny B had given the go-ahead to build the golf course in 1931 not because she enjoyed playing—she would hardly have recognized one end of a golf club from the other—but because she felt that a vast expanse of beautifully laid-out trees and mowed grass, leading to an expansive sheet of water, with the castle as the focal point in the middle, would create as idyllic a country scene as could humanly be devised. She stipulated that no bunkers should be visible from the castle and that the skyline should not be interrupted by a flagpole on a green. The end result was a nine-hole course considered by many to be one of Britain’s finest. Famous golfers such as Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen came to play, and in the 1930s the American Ryder Cup team would make it their first port of call.

Woody’s golf game was a catastrophe, and his swing was a mélange of uncoordinated movements more related to a jitterbug than to any known sporting endeavour. When standing over the ball preparing to strike, he made strange vocal noises, in two-note combinations, without regard for the musical sensibilities of his listeners. He wiggled his hips and banged the club on the ground several times. Often he’d look up at those standing about and guffaw before once more returning to the wiggle-and-bang routine. Finally he’d raise the club towards the sky and bring it down in a chopping motion, as though he were trying to slice off the back third of the tiny white ball instead of propelling it way into the distance in as straight a line as possible. Usually the ball skidded along the grass forty or fifty yards, and Woody would exclaim an emphatic “Bugger!” before handing his club to Johnson and resuming his singular hum.

Gawaine, on the other hand, a natural sportsman, swung his golf club like a man possessed. His driver had a head the size of a bulldozer, and his stance was so wide and aggressive it looked as though he were preparing to lay an egg rather than strike a golf ball. His preparation was short—a brief wiggle, and then he unleashed an immaculate, almighty, 180-degree swing that displayed the furies of hell and the power of a drag racer. The ball would soar on a trajectory to the heavens and, after its seemingly endless gravity-defying flight, plop back down to earth within easy chipping distance of the green. After a particularly good effort Gawaine liked to permit himself a self-congratulatory smile, which he would generously share with his audience.

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My parents and other close family members, junior barons in feudal terms, came just below Woody in the castle hierarchy, followed by personal secretaries, Borrett (the butler), Cooper (the head carpenter and master builder), Mr. Money (the estate manager), lawyers, and an assortment of business advisers, all senior knights. The grandchildren might best be described as junior knights with promotion potential, while certain estate workers—Howard, the head gardener, Peter Taylor, the birdman—enjoyed permanent junior knight status.

Occupiers of the lowest ranks in the hierarchy, once downtrodden serfs and villeins, were now respected and admired workers, such as Dan and Charlie his cart horse, and Mr. Elves, the gruff, red-bearded electrician. Dan bore a striking resemblance to Popeye the Sailor Man, without the pipe. He could be spotted all over the estate loading his cart with unwanted rubbish and hauling it off to the furnace, which was tucked away in a far corner of the park, out of sight of the kitchen gardens and Mr. Elves’s cottage. Charlie was gigantic, always moved in slow motion, and neither he nor Dan spoke more than strictly necessary.

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A more formidable or magnificent butler than Borrett would be hard to imagine. From the top of his balding round head to the tip of his highly polished black lace-up shoes he personified all that a butler should be: intelligent, efficient, unflappable, and discreet. He had the complete trust of his employer and the absolute confidence of his staff. He was well liked, greatly respected, and he unhesitatingly returned the compliment to one and all. His manner was the same with me as it was with royalty; he called me “Master Anthony” until I was thirteen and “Mister Anthony” after that, a promotion that came as a blessed relief as it finally placed me on equal ground with my elder brothers.

When I went, without Nanny and the boys, to stay with Granny B in Nassau for the first time in April 1960, I had breakfast alone on the terrace every morning, served by Borrett, in his tailcoat, with the same grace and formality as if I had been the Duke of Edinburgh. He spoke to me kindly, though always with a sense of deference for my position as Lady Baillie’s grandson. His politeness towards me taught me all I needed to know about how to treat others in differing circumstances from my own.

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Cooper was very small and a man of few words (none of which came in my direction), but his set of skills was astonishingly broad. He could find and fix a worrisome leak, cure the ills of massive smoking chimneys, or mend a priceless Louis XIV desk. His knowledge of furniture was such that he would often advise Granny B on purchases she was considering, and when she was doing up her property in Nassau, he assembled, on-site, the delicate, prefabricated decorative work that Maison Jansen, then the most illustrious antique shop and decorating firm in France, headed by the equally illustrious interior designer Stéphane Boudin, had custom-built in Paris.

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John Money had an air of grandeur about him that used to strike me as affected, but in the opinion of those who counted, his running of the estate office was both expertly and tactfully carried out. Despite his considerable bulk he walked in a delicate quickstep and held a cup of tea with his little finger crooked—which I took to be clear indications that, like quite a few of Granny B’s friends, he was homosexual. His wardrobe consisted mainly of natty three-piece country suits, which he wore with considerable dash. When time permitted he was also an accomplished raconteur, and the story he once told me about the last great passion of Granny B’s life, her collection of exotic birds, perfectly illustrated the grandmother I never had the opportunity to know at all well.

“It was the 1950s, the early days of rare-bird collecting and aviary building at the castle. Your grandmother and I took an early flight, one morning, to Düsseldorf, where we were met by three men who were rumoured to possess a large and important selection of parakeets. How they had come by these delightful creatures was not entirely clear, with Australian law being so strict on the export of their natural fauna. The men spoke no English, and your grandmother and I spoke no German, so our communications were severely limited. She, however, had no difficulty whatsoever, right from the word go, in making it quite clear that she wished to be driven in the slow lane, slowly. This request went down poorly.

“Upon our arrival at the converted mill in the small town of Haan, where the aviaries were located, we discovered that a treasure trove awaited us. Your grandmother wandered happily around telling me, ‘I think, perhaps, we should have two of those, John, maybe four of those—oh look! Aren’t those exquisite? We must have six of them.’ And so it went on. All the while I was wondering if the Bank of England draft I had in my inside pocket—in those days, you know, buying things abroad was a highly complex undertaking—was not going to be hopelessly inadequate.”

By this stage Mr. Money’s voice, expressions, and gesticulations had become quite animated as he recalled the spirit of it all.

“When the time came for a price to be decided upon, Lady Baillie and I sat down at a table opposite the three Germans, who proceeded to discuss amongst themselves for a few moments before writing down a figure on a sheet of paper and passing it across the table to your grandmother. I nearly fainted when I saw what they’d written, but she calmly took a pen out of her Hermès crocodile handbag, drew a line through the sum indicated, divided it in half and, with a delicious little smile, told them, ‘I shall pay you this.’

“Not used to dealing with people like Lady Baillie, the men slowly, reluctantly, agreed. So then it was off to the bank, where massive confusion ensued due to the fact that insufficient cash was on hand, resulting in the bank having to be temporarily closed while employees rushed out to remedy the situation.

“On the drive back to the airport your grandmother started feeling sick and announced she needed milk and a boiled egg. Instructing the driver to stop, she and I strode into a truckers’ bar, where I did my best to mime what was required while she, never having been in such a place before, found herself entranced by the atmosphere and relishing the varied expressions of bemusement.

“Then at the airport there was a terrific ruckus because no customs papers had been procured, and the occupants of the many boxes were starting to make their presence keenly felt. The officials finally consented to let us on to the plane, but the birds, they said, had to fly freight.