LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Euston Hall, the Norfolk home of the Dukes of Grafton.

2. Dick and Vita Seymour pose, looking a little subdued, at the Legation in Bangkok. Leo and Alex are sitting on the small carpet at their parents’ feet.

3. An aerial view of Thrumpton Hall and its park, 1968, looking very much as it does today.

4. Home life with the Byrons at Thrumpton in 1928. The county boundary was in constant flux; here, they have been shifted into Derbyshire.

5. My father lines up for drill at Middleton Park, Lord Jersey’s Oxfordshire home, during his brief convalescence from a head injury. George FitzRoy Seymour, the author guesses from his stance and leg-shape, stands second from right in the line facing the brand-new (it was completed in 1938) Lutyens façade.

6. Chirk Castle, my mother’s romantic family home in North Wales until her marriage. By kind permission of Gillian, Lady Howard de Walden.

7. Sir John Lavery’s painting of Lord Howard de Walden and his family. My mother stands at the centre. By kind permission of Gillian, Lady Howard de Walden.

8. My parents at their marriage, June 1946. Just behind them is my mother’s bridesmaid and best friend, Judy Montagu.

9. The Seymour family at Thrumpton, painted by Julian Barrow in 1967. My mother, seated right, and I, left, at the piano, both wear wigs.

10. Palmy days: My parents with new friends, Mr and Mrs William Douglas Home, on a QE2 voyage in 1970.

11. My father’s daughter. George Seymour quite liked this photograph of me, wearing my false tresses and accompanied by a suitable escort, Lord Charles Hay.

12. My father lounges on the right, with Nick on the far left. Between them sits Griselda, a contemporary of mine who shared their enthusiasm for bikes.

13. Robbie shows off one of his best catches from the Thrumpton lake, a massive carp. My father was the photographer.

14. George FitzRoy Seymour takes his six-year-old grandson for a first – and last – tearaway ride on the Duke.

15. My father’s headstone, in the garden at Thrumpton.