A letter from Jonathan Guinness, Lord Moyne. It’s about Mark Birley.
‘He was an artist, but a more unusual one than his father. Rather than turning out portraits and still-lives, he decided to turn everything around him into a work of art. So it all had to be perfect. He was as close as any real person could be to Huysman’s Des Esseintes, central figure of A Rebours. Mark, as inventor of muslin round the half-lemon, will with luck be remembered when Polly Toynbee has been forgotten.’
What a good and civilised man Jonathan is. And how correct he is that Mark will be remembered long after the name Polly Toynbee will only signify a pain in the bum. Alas, I did not make the memorial service. I lunched with Robin Birley following it and he told me all about it. When a man as well known and as popular as Birley dies, the great and the good show up, but the poor little Greek boy does not. And it’s a pity I didn’t. Robin described it as a perfectly old-fashioned English memorial and very beautiful. But standing around waiting for Princess Michael of Kent is not my bag. Speaking of the princess, there’s a new book out about Etti Plesch, the only woman to have won the Derby twice. It’s called Horses and Husbands, and she had plenty of both. Six of the latter, in fact. (Incidentally, Richard Kay beat me on this last week in the Mail.) When Etti won the 1980 Derby with Henbit, she was invited to meet the Queen. She was greeted by Marie-Christine, the Austrian, who cried out, ‘My cousin has won the Derby!’ The cousin bit was news to Plesch.
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