Lunch with the Marquess of Bath - talking about sex ... and a little more besides

I was lucky enough to know the Marquess of Bath who has just died, aged 87, suffering from Covid-19. He was a fun man to know.

I first met him more than forty-five years ago.  I saw him sometimes in London, occasionally at Longleat.  Once my wife and I stayed in the celebrated bedroom there that he had decorated with his erotic artwork.

He liked talking about sex.  A few years ago we had lunch together and he told me about his erotic memoirs.  We talked about his family, too - his parents, his children, his wife, his wifelets . . .

I remember the occasion well:

‘My first erotic fantasy was inspired by Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies which my mother read to me.  I must have been four or five at the time.  Won’t you have some more pheasant?’  

Yes, this is me taking lunch with Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath, descendant of Tacitus and Charlemagne, in the palatial penthouse at Longleat in Wiltshire, England’s oldest unfortified stately home. Let me try to describe him:

He speaks a little hesitantly, in a light, husky, fluting voice.  ‘There was a girl in the fantasy with me.  A real girl.  Her name was Susan.  She was about six, I think.  She had long blonde hair.  We met having swimming lessons in Bath.  Are you sure you won’t have some wine?  It’s rather good.’   The Marquess, who was born in May 1932, is fabulously rich.  As well as the 10,000 rolling acres of Longleat), Lord Bath has a handsome flat in Notting Hill Gate and a fine estate in the South of France, which is where he grows the wine he is drinking now.

 ‘Naked, Susan and I swam the high seas together, along with a string of other little girls, all of us trying to evade the nets of the adults who were fishing for us from above in boats.  The adults, of course, wanted to eat us, but first they packed us into tins like sardines.  I was always packed next to Susan.    Cheese?   Fruit?  We haven’t got anything sweet because I’m a diabetic.’   Lord Bath, tall, broad and grizzled, looks well, if a touch ridiculous.  He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford (he read PPE and got a Third); he served in the Life Guards; but his distinctive sartorial style was established when he was an art student in Paris in the 1950s.  Today he is wearing a floral waistcoat, mauve velvet trews and tan-coloured shoes of which the toe-caps have been chewed off overnight by his labrador, Boadicea.

‘Thanks to my ingenuity, we would always escape from the sardine tin and plunge back into the sea.  Being the leader of the band, I swam at the head of the chain and the one immediately behind me was inevitably Susan, who grasped me between the legs by the most convenient handle.  And so linked, we swam together, idyllically, for days and nights on end.’

Lord Bath blinks back a tear and softly smacks his lips.  He has pink cheeks and the look of Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas.  He is nostalgic, sentimental, romantic and he likes talking about sex.  This is fortunate since, in many ways, it is his sex-life that defines him.  He is celebrated (or notorious, depending on your viewpoint) as the eccentric muralist whose bedroom walls are covered with scenes from the Kama Sutra (‘I painted them in ‘69,’ he says, cheerily, ‘a fortuitous year given the subject matter’) and the campaigning peer who preaches and practises polygyny.  ‘It’s catching on, slowly,’ he tells me, adding by way of explanation: ‘A polygamist has more than one wife; a polygynist has more than one mate.’   Lord Bath acknowledges a current total of 73.

He used to call them ‘wifelets’.  To me he calls them girlfriends.  Over the years they have come in all shapes and shades: a black model, a Chinese artist, a seventeen-year-old from Sri Lanka, a Wessex housewife.   He has executed three-dimensional portraits (in sawdust and oils) of every one of them.  They are fixed to the walls on a spiral staircase (affectionately known as Bluebeard’s Gallery), just off the kitchen, with the date he met each girl inscribed to the left of her face, and the date of painting to the right.  ‘You can tell which were my active years.’

Lord Bath is proud of his sexual prowess and of his painting.  He has been busy in both areas, but he hopes his ultimate claim to fame will be as a writer.  We are meeting to mark the launch of what he calls his ‘magnum opus’: the publication of his memoirs.  ‘I have written six million words so far.  That takes the story to 1990.’  Volume One, however, takes us no further than his prep school.

 I have read it: it is fascinating, elegantly written and extraordinarily intimate.  Pre-pubescent Alexander’s close encounters with his nanny, his nurse, his sister Cal, his sister’s governess, his cousin Sal, to name but a few, are recounted in gripping detail.   The bedside game he played with a young nurse he nicknamed Fuschia (after a flower fairy in a favourite book) when, aged six, he was a patient awaiting a mastoid operation at Bath general hospital has to be read to be believed. 

The book isn’t just about sex.  It is also (and this is its strength) a beautifully observed evocation of the life of the English aristocracy in the 1930s and a telling portrait of an unusual upbringing in a now vanished world.  His relationship with his parents was not easy.  What were they like?

‘My father, Henry, the 6th Marquess, was the man who introduced the lions to Longleat and held the teddy bears’ picnics here.  He was a pioneer of the stately home as a visitor attraction.  That is his legacy.  He was considered a charmer by the women of his generation, but to me he was a disciplinarian, unbending and ungiving.  He never once said anything encouraging about my murals.  He humiliated me by appointing my younger brother, Christopher, to run the house.  The loss of face was intolerable.   When my father died, ten years ago, aged 87, the first thing I did was tell Christopher to leave.  It was an acrimonious parting, but essential.  My father condemned us to a life of emnity.  Six volumes of my memoirs are devoted to sibling rivalry.

 ‘My mother, Daphne, daughter of Lord Vivian, had great warmth when I first knew her.  She had vitality.  She always made the party go with a swing.  It was she who encouraged me towards the arts, though I believe she told her friends later that she regretted it.   She died in 1997.’

Were his parents happy together?

‘Until the war, yes, but during the war, when my father was away, my mother was unfaithful, repeatedly.    I did this terrible thing when he came home on leave.  I don’t think I meant to be malicious.  I was just mischievous.  I said to him, “Papa, there’s an awful lot of new men you’ve got to meet.”   He wasn’t amused.  And after that he started having girlfriends.   My parents were monogamists and serial adulterers.   They cheated on their ideal.   Seeing their example, I preferred to have a different ideal, one I wouldn’t cheat on.  And my childhood fantasy -swimming along with a string of girls - suggests to me that, regardless of my parents, I inclined towards polygyny from a very early age.’

‘But you are married?’ I say.

‘Yes,’ he nods. ‘I got married when I was –‘   He hesitates.  ‘The year was . . .’   He’s lost.  ‘1959,’ he says, at last, then he pauses and ponders, ‘Wait a minute . . . it was ten years later, wasn’t it?’

It was.  He married Hungarian-born Anna Gael, then an actress, now a writer, in 1969.  They have two children: Lenka, and his heir, Ceawlin, Viscount Weymouth.   Does his own marriage work?

‘Yes,’ he says, emphatically.  ‘Anna and I quarrel, but I appreciate the stability she has given the children.  She watches over them.  She lives in France mostly, but she comes to England one week in four.’

There is clearly some tension in the relationship.  Lady Bath has vetoed the publication of the volumes of her husband’s memoirs that detail their relationship.  ‘At least, during her lifetime,’ he says, with regret.  He accepts, reluctantly, that he may not be easy to live with.  ‘Anna doesn’t like it when we are having Sunday lunch and I let the visitors troop through the dining room.  She thinks we should eat in private.  I think, if the paying public want to see my murals, they should be allowed to do so.’

Lord Bath tells me his wife has always tolerated his polygyny.  He is anxious that I should know he approaches his romantic life as a gentleman.  ‘It’s very rare that I’ve seduced anybody’s wife,’ he tells me.  ‘And, if infidelity does occur, it should always be done tactfully, so that it doesn’t offend anybody’s pride.  I don’t want anyone to be hurt or lose face.’

What about jealousy between girlfriends?  I assume he doesn’t ever have two of them simultaneously under the same roof.

He flushes.  He is not embarrassed.  He is excited.  ‘Well,’ he says, softly, ‘I might.’

‘Doesn’t that cause problems?’ I ask.

‘Oh, no,’ he purrs, warming to the theme.  ‘Hopefully they might even fancy each other.’ 

Realising (not without a twinge of envy) that I am way out of my depth here, I bring the conversation back to his children.  What do they make of his domestic arrangements? 

‘I regard myself as a pioneer, as an experimenter, but I am afraid my children felt it was an intrusion on their lives having me bring my girlfriends home.  Ceawlin has always been better at coping with it than Lenka, but, over the years, they have both shown their disapproval by not being as polite to my girlfriends as I would have liked.  Lenka has always been more critical.  She’s fiercer.  She’d say she’s never been overtly rude, but sometimes . . .’  He sighs. 

Ceawlin and Lenka  are the only children Lord Bath lists in the latest edition of Debrett’s People of Today, but I understand he has a third offspring.  ‘Yes,’ he says, hesitating, ‘another daughter.’  ‘And what is she called?’ I ask.  ‘I can’t really say,’ he says, unhappily, ‘Her mother wouldn’t like it.’   ‘Can I ask how old she is?’ I persist.  ‘My daughter?  She’s three.’  He grins, proudly.   ‘Congratulations,’ I say, ‘Are you enjoying being a father all over again?’

‘No,’ he says, firmly.  ‘I don’t see my daughter and her mother as much as I would wish.  Lots more needs to be done so they bring me into their lives.  I hope it will happen.  This is part of the experiment on which more work is required.’

It suddenly occurs to me that Lord Bath is rather lonely.   He has a kindly couple who look after him, beautiful labradors yapping at his heels, at least two girlfriends in the village, he assures me, but his family is missing.  Cal, his favourite sister, is dead; Val, his favourite brother, committed suicide; and he is estranged from his remaining brother, Christopher.  ‘He avoids me at parties,’ he says.   And it’s evident that his wife and children are not as close to him as he would like.

Alexander Thynn is a gifted and original individual.  He acknowledges that his wealth and position have made it possible for him to live his life the way he does.  He has had a lot of fun along the way (as well as the occasional visit to the clap clinic); and the girlfriends of his that I have met have all regarded him with affection (he is both a vain old goat and a sweet old darling); but, I wonder, has he had much love?

‘What happens,’ I ask him, ‘when one of your girlfriends begins to fall in love with you?’  His answer quite shocks me: ‘I don’t let it get that far,’ he says.  ‘I recognise the symptoms and nudge her carefully in a different direction.’

Does he think he might have missed out on something in his life?

He stares into his goblet of wine, then he looks me straight in the eye.  ‘Have I missed out on the pairing with a soul mate?’  He hesitates, then, with a wan smile and poppy, shining eyes, he says: ‘Yes.  Yes I have.  And, yes, since you ask, which I don’t think anyone has before, I do think it would have been nice to have had that experience.  But I haven’t.  And it’s too late now.’

So, there you are: Lord Bath was richer than us, and poorer too. 

It was a privilege to know this interesting, intelligent, kindly and creative man – a genuine eccentric who lived his life his way and, almost, to the full.  May he rest in peace.