Obits

[liadnan]

From the Telegraph

Father Harry Williams, who has died aged 86, was a member of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection at Mirfield, in West Yorkshire, and before he entered the monastic life in 1969 he spent 18 years as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, serving as Dean of Chapel from 1958.

[...]On another occasion he declared that he had received the Word of God from a Judy Garland film, and he complained that the Church of England's revised services were: "Clumsy constructions in flat, tired English made from assorted pieces of doctrinal Meccano."

His ethical views were no less startling and in his autobiography Some Day I'll Find You, written after he had become a monk, he discussed his own homosexuality and said of his Cambridge years, "I slept with several men, in each case fairly regularly. They were all of them friends.

"Cynics, of course, will smile, but I have seldom felt more like thanking God than when having sex. I used in bed to praise Him there and then for the joy I was receiving and giving."

And thenthis one. I am particularly fond of "ended her days as an alcoholic stroking a Pekinese":

Lady Sibell Rowley, who has died aged 98, was the last surviving daughter of the 7th Earl Beauchamp, KG, and thus a member of the family that inspired Evelyn Waugh to write his celebrated Roman Catholic novel Brideshead Revisited.

Sibell Lygon, the second of the four Lygon daughters, was born on October 10 1907. The eldest girl, Lettice, married Sir Richard Cottrell. The third daughter, Mary (or Maimie) Lygon, a beautiful blonde, married Prince Vselvolde of Russia, and ended her days as an alcoholic stroking a Pekinese; while the youngest daughter, Dorothy (Coote), endured an unfortunate late-life marriage to Robert Heber Percy, known as "Mad Boy", the eccentric squire of Faringdon and former boyfriend of Lord Berners. Of Sibell in childhood, Dorothy recalled: "She was rather a stormy petrel - and a great wielder of the wooden spoon; if mischief was going to be made, she made it."

[...]The daughters, aware of their father's nocturnal prowlings, would sometimes advise their boyfriends to lock their bedroom doors. Lord Beauchamp once complained at breakfast: "He's very nice that friend of yours, but he's damned uncivil!" Unfortunately, the problems proved more serious, concerning incidents with footmen, and as a result of a campaign instigated by his brother-in-law, Bendor, Duke of Westminster, Lord Beauchamp was forced into exile in Europe. The Duke tried to explain the circumstances to his sister, Lady Beauchamp, who failed to grasp the essentials. "Bendor says that Beauchamp is a bugler," she announced.

Lady Sibell's own career was not without notoriety. She acted as receptionist at the hairdressing and beauty establishment in Bond Street run by Violet Cripps, one of the former wives of the Duke of Westminster, her maternal uncle. When not behind the counter, she tended to eschew society parties, though she relished hunting. She was heard to moan: "The time is coming when there will be no idleness in Mayfair. We shall all work."

[...]In February 1939 she married Michael Rowley, an aircraft designer eight years her junior, at the Brompton Oratory. Curiously, he was the son of George Rowley and his former wife, Violet Cripps, who had subsequently married Sibell's uncle, the Duke of Westminster. The business of marrying was far from uncomplicated, and was later the cause of another court case. The first attempt was to marry on January 7 1939 at Caxton Hall, but this was postponed, with the groom's father professing never to have heard of Lady Sibell. The next plan was for the Oratory on January 31, again cancelled. Another idea was St Peter's Catholic Church at Marlow, also put off. Finally, they married in the Brompton Oratory on February 11 in the presence of a few friends and relatives.

Their problems were, however, far from over. A few weeks after the wedding, Rowley revealed that the previous year he had married a German girl called Eleonore. Rowley had then been in love with the girl, and they were secretly engaged, but had no intention of marrying. Then, while in Mexico together they had enjoyed a substantial liquid lunch before spotting a sign outside an office proclaiming "Get Married Here". They had entered to find a young American couple in the process of marrying. This couple offered to be witnesses for them, and so they got married too. On his return to England, Rowley met and fell in love with Lady Sibell.

On hearing this story, Lady Sibell was far from amused, and in June 1939 the pair went over to Germany to see the first Mrs Rowley. The rejected wife appeared to accept her lot, although her marriage was still valid (as technically the second marriage was not).

[...]A month after his death, Lady Sibell took over as Master of the Ledbury Hunt. She lived at Droitwich, and later at Stow-on-the-Wold. She was cited in the divorce case brought by Mrs Anne Warman, of Salwarpe Court, Droitwich, against her husband, Francis Byrne Warman. Other romantic involvements concerned Lord Rosebery.

Lady Sibell was buried at Madresfield. She had no children.

This is what the aristocracy are for.

Comments

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

This is what the aristocracy are for.

How true. :)

Quite an interesting family.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

It seems rather ironic that it was the brother who was called Bendor

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Cynics, of course, will smile.

No, cynics will burst into mirthful laughter.

These were both very entertaining. I often read the obits in the Independent, and end up wondering why I only heard of interesting peopleafter they had died.

Perhaps I should start reading the obits in the Telegraph for sheer entertainment value!

Thank you.