Memorial Service

The Very Rev Nicholas Frayling, former Dean of Chichester, gave the address for the Duke of Richmond and Gordon in Chichester Cathedral, not far from the Duke’s home at Goodwood. Then, eleven days later, he was in the pulpit in Southwark Cathedral, performing the same role for the Duke’s nephew Anthony Gordon Lennox, who died after a short illness a month after his uncle.

The Dean Emeritus praised the Duke, who trained as an accountant and studied at a theological college in Rugby, and Sue, his wife for 66 years, for a lifetime of good work at Goodwood. He commended the Duke’s support for the cathedral and the theatre, for horse racing, motor racing and cricket.

‘He was very human, with frailties of temperament and indeed of health,’ said the Dean. ‘But that is why we should be especially thankful. Despite those frailties, or because of them, Charles developed a deep understanding of human nature.’

Charles Richmond, the new Duke, read from Philippians 4, 4-9: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice.’

In Southwark Cathedral, Dean Frayling told how Anthony Gordon Lennox, an inspirational voice coach and image consultant to the Duchess of Cambridge, William Hague and David Cameron, was similar in temperament to his uncle. ‘He was not all pompous,’ he told the congregation, including Princess Alexandra, Lord Heseltine, Lord Mandelson, George Osborne and a thousand others. ‘He loved gossip but he knew the difference between delicious and malicious.’

The Dean told how he was recovering from a cancer operation a few years ago when Gordon Lennox turned up by surprise at his bedside: ‘He told me he had come to see me because he wanted to say how much I meant to him. He wanted this while I was alive, not at my funeral.’

His friends were given a booklet of brave, humorous and defiant thoughts from his dying days. The Bishop of Southwark, the Right Rev Christopher Chessun, led the prayers. JAMES HUGHES-ONSLOW