‘I feel much more at home in New Zealand’
The Dowager Duchess of Bedford, the grande dame of one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families, has found happiness – in Matamata.
The Dowager Duchess of Bedford, the grande dame of one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families, has found happiness – in Matamata.
It’s 1957. Russia starts the space race with the launch of Sputnik 1, the Common Market is born, Elvis Presley stars in Jailhouse Rock and a brunette beauty with a sharp brain and an independent streak becomes the toast of London society. The adored only child of wealthy banker Henry Tiarks and actress Joan Barry, Henrietta Tiarks is named debutante of the year. Her picture appears in the social pages of newspapers and magazines, and she’s compared with America’s glamorous Jackie Kennedy.
Henrietta moves to America to further her education but is quickly snapped up by a model agency. Photographed by the likes of Richard Avedon, she is, albeit for a short time, a professional woman, earning a fortune – when love and marriage change the course of her life.
In 1961, Henrietta marries childhood friend Robin Russell, who is the Marquess of Tavistock and in line to become the 14th Duke of Bedford (they were teenagers when he first told her he wanted to marry her).
His bloodline is impeccable and his life appears charmed. Russell, who was born at the Ritz in London, was educated in South Africa, Switzerland and at Harvard in the United States, and is enjoying a successful career as a stockbroker.
The merger of wealth, beauty, tradition and status is sealed with the birth of a son, Andrew, the first of three boys, ensuring the Woburn estate will remain with their direct descendants.
In 1974, Robin’s father, the Duke, unexpectedly decides to leave Woburn and live in France. As Marquess and Marchioness of Tavistock, Robin and Henrietta take over running the vast estate, which comprises the stately home, two golf courses, a deer park, landscape gardens and a safari park.
They are early pioneers of reality television, starring in two
I have always had quite a strong instinct of self-preservation. I was never very wild. I never wanted to regret anything I had done.
series of Country House. They host outdoor rock concerts featuring names including Tina Turner, Dire Straits, Elton John and Neil Diamond. The latter becomes a lifelong friend. In the 1980s, the family tours Canada and the United States with Diamond.
Robin nearly dies after a severe stroke in 1988, but with Henrietta’s care, learns to speak and walk again. She writes A Chance to Live, with Angela Levin, in which she talks about how his near death changes both of them. They spend more time in New Zealand, thanks to their involvement in horse breeding, and increasingly think of it as home. In 2003, after barely six months as the Duke of Bedford, Robin dies after another stroke and Henrietta becomes the Dowager Duchess. Her oldest son, Andrew, is now the 15th Duke.
Sixty years on from her debutante days, the Dowager Duchess lives most of the year in New Zealand. She is well known in horse breeding circles, where she’s described as a “good sort”, but otherwise keeps a low profile. She has homes in Matamata, Central Otago and Auckland. She has been lucky in love again, but prefers her private life to remain so.
She went to two of Adele’s three concerts in Auckland, and is a huge fan of the woman as much as her music. Henrietta describes Adele as “real”, a word she uses often as she explains her life and loves.
So, how was Adele?
By a factor of two, they were the best concerts I have ever been to. They made me think about all sorts of things. As concerts, they were seamless. You know how you sometimes walk into a room and notice a colour – well, you shouldn’t, it should be a harmonious thing. With Adele, everything was done so subtly. There were 50,000 people, but you really felt like she was just talking to you; there might as well have been only 20 people there. She is 100% real; there is no game being played. That is so compelling. While I am sure she has complicated reactions and insecurities, she also has a “give it a go” approach and a confidence that is amazing. There were children there, and people up to 80: everybody feels uplifted by her.
Even the concert with her singing in the rain?
She was soaked. When she said, “I might as well be singing to you from the f---ing shower,” she was just so funny. England still suffers hugely from class [consciousness]. Even more so now, because the older aristocracy have got this fear of adapting to modern life. They feel that if they let their fronts down, no one will respect them. They’ve confused respect and formality for a very long time. It would do them all so much good to come out to New Zealand to learn how to live, and realise people can like you and respect you without having to go, “Yes, Your Grace” and, “No, Your Grace”. I hated that. I was always looking around to see if there was a bishop behind me. Right from the beginning, I found even
New wealth assumes you are in a different position and you have to pretend to be better than other people.
“Your Ladyship” difficult, so I said, “Please just call me Lady T,” and that stuck. But there is a part of England that is still very different from all of that: Adele is a cockney sparrow, and you find it in Northumberland or Yorkshire or the West Country as well – it’s real, much more like New Zealand. That is what I loved when I came here.
Was your own upbringing mired in class and class distinctions?
Not really. I used to spend my holidays with my grandfather in Somerset. He’d get outside, he would be vaccinating his own cattle and be one of the people. But he could be grand when he needed to be. That still exists in England, but less and less. I am not class conscious and I am not a racist, but in a way, new wealth in England has disturbed everything. New wealth assumes you are in a different position and you have to pretend to be better than other people. If you look back in history, the peasant and the aristocrat always got on very well. It was always the middle class that caused the problems. It hasn’t changed.
You spent decades at the top of the class structure, just a short peg below royalty – so what is it about New Zealand that attracts you?
This is a magical place. If I had no children living in England, I wouldn’t go back very often. As a child, I travelled extensively with my parents, because Mummy wouldn’t go without me and Daddy had to travel a lot. I never ever went anywhere and felt, “I would like to live here.” Within 36 or 48 hours of first coming to New Zealand, 26 years ago, Robin and I were walking down Queen St and he said, “This is quite strange, but if I was told I could never go home, I really wouldn’t mind.” It hit us at once, it is a very, very special country.
Did Robin’s love of New Zealand continue? When we first went to Matamata, the house we lived in started as a kitset house and we added bits on to it. The children called it our trailer home. The railway was very close to the house. After his stroke, Robin really loved the simple things he had enjoyed as a child. He wanted the house by the railway line so he could watch the trains. When they went by, the house would shake and by the time they stopped one night, he was giggling. I asked him what for and he said, “I’m laughing at how incredibly lucky we are,” and I said, “I know, but what aspect of lucky?” He said, “Just think of the abbey now – where are we happier? It’s here with the railway line just outside our window. You think how complicated the lives of the privileged become as they get older, but ours hasn’t.” He was absolutely right. You use the word ‘real’ a lot – in what way is New Zealand more real than England? There are always exceptions, of course, but on the whole, people here talk: they talk about children and what they do. You don’t have dinner-party conversation – well, maybe a bit in Auckland – you talk to each other about things that are really happening in your lives.
What do you mean, dinner-party conversation?
Most of the conversation in England is, “Have you seen any good exhibitions lately?”, “Have you seen any good plays lately?” – although you can’t say that now, because they are all musicals. Every time I go back to England, it takes me, depending on how antisocial I am being, two to three weeks to be “safe” to take out, as my children say. On the other hand, when I get back here, I am fine from the moment I get off the plane. I don’t have to adapt. I feel much more at home in New Zealand than I do in England.
This is a magical place … it is a very, very special country.
So, have you figured out New Zealand’s own class structure?
I have to be careful because I am a foreigner, but I am amused that most people who live in Auckland feel vastly superior to the rural community. Well, Auckland wouldn’t exist without the rural community. I love it when somebody quite grand says to me, “Where in New Zealand