Explosive send-off for Conran as ashes to be his firework farewell
HE TRANSFORMED Britain’s sense of style, and Sir Terence Conran will leave this world in similarly spectacular fashion.
I hear the business genius, who died last weekend aged 88, left instructions that his ashes should be sent into the sky and exploded in a fireworks display at his Berkshire home.
‘I have asked a fireworks company to put my ashes in a collection of rockets, so I think the right tune is Handel’s firework music,’ Conran had said. ‘I love fireworks. I have left a lump of money in my will to be used for a goodbye party. I’d like it to happen at my house in the country. Over a river is always one of the best ways of watching the fireworks.’
A member of his family tells me: ‘If that’s what he wanted, that’s what he will get, come hell or high water.’
They will have to decide whether to hold a gathering of no more than six people or wait until they can celebrate with more of his friends and family.
Habitat founder Conran, who once claimed he’d ‘undoubtedly changed the sex life of Europe’ by his promotion of the duvet, had two sons, Sebastian and Jasper, with his second wife, the Superwoman author Shirley Conran. He had another three — Tom, Sophie and Edmund — with his third wife Caroline. His widow is interior designer Victoria Davis.
A fireworks spectacular would be an appropriate way to remember colourful Conran, whose impact on British life ranged from being a trendsetter and tastemaker to millions, to a property developer and restaurateur.
People often remarked that he had more good meals and good wine, more money and more wives than most men would manage in several lifetimes.