The mother of the Academy Award winning film director Anthony Minghella CBE (1954 – 2008) was a matriarch who lived by the philosophy: “You put in what you can, no matter how little that is, you don’t know how far the ripples will go”. Dedicated to community service and charity, Minghella herself was famous for introducing exotic flavours of ice cream to the Isle of Wight and even named one “Ripley’s Downfall” in honour of her son’s masterpiece The Talented Mr Ripley.
This outspoken bon vivant was Rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1998 to 2004. One half of the “Two Fat Ladies”, Dickson Wright was known as “Krakatoa” because of her fiery temper and became the country’s youngest barrister at 21. She once had sex with an MP behind the Speaker’s chair in the house of Commons, offended the animal rights lobby by suggesting that Britons should eat badgers and was bankrupted thrice. Her full name was Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright.
This Lincolnshire lout will only ever be known for filming himself having sex with his ex-girlfriend Amber Hicking’s Staffordshire bull terrier. He was handed a four month jail sentence suspended for two years, placed on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and banned from owning animals for two years in March 2014. The dog has since been rehomed.
Considered the “largest living mammal on the planet” at the time and owned by Sparks Circus, Mary was a 5-tonne elephant who could play 25 tunes on the horns without missing a note. When an inexperienced drifter named Red Eldridge was hired to handle her in September 1916 in Kingsport, Tennessee, the elephant grabbed him with her trunk and stomped on his head. Eldridge died and in revenge the townsfolk demanded that the poor elephant be killed. Shooting failed so thus, in front of 2,500 people, Mary was hanged from a railroad derrick. A true indication of how depraved humanity can truly be.
This stunning actress has been known to have both lunch and dinner at La Brasserie in South Kensington on the same day and is best known for playing Barbara Good in The Good Life. Warwickshire born, twice divorced and a convert from Catholicism to Judaism, Kendal’s dream dinner party would include Byron, Gandhi, Eddie Izzard and George Bernard Shaw. She was voted one of the “100 sexiest women in the world” by FHM Magazine in 1995 and once stated: “I hope to start enjoying flirting again when I’m 70, like my mother did”. She loves a martini.
This personable art dealer is president of Galerie Dumonteil and a jetsetter who travels between galleries in Paris, New York and Shanghai. In London annually for Masterpiece, Laverdin is a host par excellence and one of the most connected gentlemen to be found on the international arts scene.
This award winning Guyanese-British hair stylist has had his own salon in Motcomb Street since 1998 and began his career in an East End salon at the age of eleven. Douglas’s clients are said to have variously included Emilia Fox, Annie Lennox, Brad Pitt and Forest Whittaker and he is a regular on the BBC and Channel 4. He has over 10,000 followers on Twitter and is one of the most personable characters of Belgravia.
This Lancastrian steeplejack and television personality was gentle, outspoken and self-taught. A father of five and thrice married, Dibnah described himself as “just a bum who climbs chimneys” and once stated: “If you make a mistake, it’s half a day with the undertaker”. He had no time for “fancy London types” and took the view that: “We’ve become a nation of conmen, living by selling double-glazing to each other”. His type sadly won’t be seen again.
Late at night, the Kings Road and Sloane Square are the haunts of this eccentric singer of sorts. She favours the outside seating at Colbert but doesn’t venture indoors and rather likes Chelsea Fire Station too. Speak to her and expect a barrage of commentary. She never asks for money.
This “straight talking” cardiologist told Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs that “it was much more fun to be mafioso and naughty” than being “prudent” but it’s for her pioneering work on congenital heart disease that she’s best known. A mother of four and the “mother of GUCH”, Somerville’s ex-fellows set up a fan club called “the Unicorns” in her honour and more recently the GUCH charity was renamed The Somerville Foundation. Her desert island luxury would be a hot bath every day with Rose Geranium bath essence by Floris.