Date 05 December 2009 Page 25,26,27,28 Shameless Britain’s most amoral aristocrat? ‘Outrageous’ is hardly a strong enough adjective to describe the 7th Marquess of Bristol, a man who lived right on the edge and wasn’t ashamed to do so. Steven Russell hears the most detailed account yet of a magnesium-bright life that burned out prematurely OHN Hervey was the Suffolk aristocrat who “He was a brilliant driver, but took risks had it all and lost it. His is a story of fast and got away with things that would living, dysfunctional behaviour, tenderness have sent you and me to an early and arrogance. He was a man who sacrificed death,” says Marcus Scriven, whose fascinating biographical studies of centuries of history and duty for the pursuit ofJ personal pleasure and effectively allowed a the 7th Marquess of Bristol and his dynasty to crumble. His is a tale of madcap father Victor form the heart of his new book Splendour & Squalor: The helicopter rides under the influence of drink and Disgrace and Disintegration of drugs, 140mph blasts up the hard shoulder of the M11 in his Ferrari because he was irritated by Three Aristocratic Dynasties. heavy traffic, and treating the long, snaking While the awful behaviour obvi- approach to Ickworth House, near Bury St ously looms large, the journalist strives for a rounded view. He Edmunds, as a drag strip. The estate, during the late 20th Century an uneasy hybrid of National Trust doesn’t excuse the aristocrats’ property-cum-ancestral seat, had a 20mph speed appalling conduct and decadence, limit. A friend of the late marquess remembers him but has sympathy for the way powering the Ferrari up the drive at 100mph-plus - nature and nurture dealt them some difficult hands. during the day, with National Trust visitors, dogs and children wandering about. Rules, it seemed, Continued on page 26 were for the little people. Another friend, the actor Rupert Everett, once wrote about Hervey doing 130mph through the Mont Blanc Tunnel connecting France with Italy. Copyright material. This may only be copied under the terms of a Newspaper Licensing Agency agreement (www.nla.co.uk) or with written publisher permission. For external republishing rights see www.nla-republishing.com Date 05 December 2009 Page 25,26,27,28 From page 25 John would later describe his father as an The reprehensible actions are hard to ignore, emotionally cold man, “a demi-god”, who terri- though – even a decade on from John Hervey’s fied him and never did anything with his son. death early in 1999, at the age of 44, having When he was four, his mother, Pauline, left for finally succumbed to the consequences of alcohol Newmarket horse trainer Teddy Lambton, and chemical abuse and hard living. He’s reck- oned to have squandered about £7million on though John would visit her as a schoolboy and had a good relationship with her. drugs, all told. There’s an episode when Lord Nicholas Hervey Marcus quotes a prep school contemporary – who sadly would commit suicide by hanging of John’s who remembers Victor promising to himself in 1998 – arrives at Ickworth for dinner visit his son. Yet he would often fail to show – sending instead a car full of toys. with his half-brother. Much of the estate had long been signed over to The National Trust, with the John left Harrow in 1972 and then, on his Hervey family leasing just a wing of the house. 21st birthday in 1975, received a life tenancy in In the early hours, writes Marcus, John 8,000 acres in East Anglia. He splashed out on a announced he was going up in his helicopter, 125ft yacht. Over the next few years he added further grown-up toys, including a BMW despite having put away two or three bottles of claret and a pint of port. The aircraft rose and its motorbike and a speedboat. blinding spotlight sought out a section of the And then there were the pleasures of the rotunda, the central dome-like building that’s the flesh – with a preference, it seems, for youngish males – and the London party circuit, where he iconic image of Ickworth, This lit-up area was home to a National Trust rubbed shoulders with luminaries such as employee, it emerged. Using a loudhailer, the Mick Jagger. marquess spat out a stream of vitriol. Drink, too. John took his first steps towards It all seems so sad and unnecessary – and a alcoholism as a teenager, concealing bottles of creme de menthe in waste of ability that perhaps could have been channelled into positive ends, rather than the loo cisterns destructive directions, had things been different. at Ickworth “Potentially, John had great talent,” reckons and graduat- ing to vodka Marcus Scriven, “and if he’d ever harnessed it, and existed in a corporate structure or been and orange, retained on some kind of arrangement, some Cointreau kind of contract, he would have been a superb on the character, because he could be phenomenally rocks, and vodka and charming and was a brilliant flier. To fly a heli- copter is really difficult, and to fly a helicopter grapefruit well is very rare. At the end, though, he was juice – plus snorting cocaine off the route map and swigging Bloody Marys. Vodka Collins.” The book also recounts how John once threw a According carving knife through a first-floor window dur- to a friend ing an undergraduate party in Cambridge. It’s quoted said to have lodged itself in a pram in a neigh- by Marcus, the then Earl Jermyn had his first bouring garden – a pram in which a baby lay. taste of cocaine in about 1973 or 1974. Heroin Luckily, the tot was uninjured. came later. The substances going into his sys- The scandalous tales are just so numerous. tem appeared to embolden a shy man: Ickworth Fuelled by drugs, he’d load a shotgun and shoot became the stage for shooting parties for his into the sky while hurling insults at members of well-heeled friends and somewhat racier occa- the public who’d paid to visit Ickworth. He’d sions for those preferring . er . more recre- shoot the door off the fridge, and demolish valu- ational activities. able furniture. Life was never dull. John became a tax exile John Hervey was born in the autumn of 1954. in Monaco, and lived in New York. In the early Father Victor, explains Marcus, was the ex- 1980s he was arrested there for alleged drug Eaton-and-Sandhurst marquess known for taking trafficking, though the accusations were potshots at guests from the upstairs windows at dropped. Ickworth. He’d sold arms during the Spanish There was a twist when his engagement was Civil War, was known as Mayfair’s Number One announced in the spring of 1984 to a young – Playboy as a young man, and was also spoken of teetotal! – woman called Francesca Fisher. At as the Pink Panther of his era: he’d been jailed 20, she was about a decade younger than her for three years after a couple of jewellery rob- beries in Mayfair. Not your usual dad, then. Copyright material. This may only be copied under the terms of a Newspaper Licensing Agency agreement (www.nla.co.uk) or with written publisher permission. For external republishing rights see www.nla-republishing.com Date 05 December 2009 Page 25,26,27,28 drugs and remain clean. Friends reckoned par- John had quietened enthood could have been the making of him. But, one wonders, what kind of father would down considerably he have been? “As a biographer, naturally one cannot theo- ‘‘ by the time he lost rise,” chuckles Marcus, “though you can! It’s indeed a fascinating speculative question.” everything... In any case, the union came to an end within Marcus Scriven a couple of years, with friends of John paying tribute to Francesca for almost managing to transform his life. Marcus reports that one of her searches of the ancestral seat resulted in fiancé. It seemed crazy, but friends, says 3kg of cocaine being flushed into the sewerage Marcus, insisted he really did love her. system. Ickworth hosted 400 guests for the great soci- Unregulated, and away from Suffolk, he’d ety occasion, including dancer fall back into bad habits. Wayne Sleep and singer In the autumn of 1988 he went to prison for Bryan Ferry. But it didn’t possessing and importing drugs, being end happily for the new released the following spring. bride. Marcus, who There was more trouble in 1993, when spoke to Francesca for Bristol was sentenced to 10 months for pos- his book, says she sessing heroin and cocaine. It was virtually remembers searching the last straw for The National Trust, which for her husband of a served notice to end the lease on his remain- few hours and finding ing part of Ickworth House. As well as the him taking cocaine in issues about drugs and the reckless driving an upstairs room in the grounds, the organisation was con- with a bunch of his cerned about visitors being injured by his cronies. Other peo- wolfhounds. The trust said the marquess ple told the author had persistently breached the terms of the different versions lease. The uneasy relationship rumbled on. John sold 2,200 acres of the estate for but it’s clear that, whatever happened, it was- £3million. n’t a wedding night to cherish. As well as continuing to abuse his body It makes one wonder what she expected, with drink and drugs, John was also seri- though, what with his all-round reputation.