AVERYMOD ERN WEDDING
Once, his daughter was tipped to marry Prince Edward. But now, as gay marriages become legal, yachting tycoon David ‘ Daisy’ May is making waves with his own wedding ... to a man 20 years his junior
EVEN the broad- minded yachting community were staggered. David May and his young boyfriend, Nick Amor, had returned from a glamorous party during the prestigious Cowes Week attended by the Royal Family. Suddenly, a jealous row broke out between them which resulted in furniture being broken into pieces and blood smeared on the walls of the room they were sharing at the home of the party host.
To make matters worse, the next morning the warring couple packed their bags, got into their motorboat which was moored alongside the
Dhouse, and said goodbye to their hostess without mentioning that they had ruined her guest suite.
This is the couple who, despite an obviously tempestuous relationship, posted their wedding banns in Dorchester, Dorset, this week, ready to have their long- standing union legalised in one of Britain’s first gay weddings.
That apart, there is another reason this marriage
ceremony will trigger considerable
interest. For millionaire boat-builder
May, 70, is the father of the girl once
hotly tipped to marry Prince Edward.
Georgia May had met the young prince
at the same Cowes Week attended
every year by her father.
But instead of the much hoped for
wedding between his daughter and the
Queen’s third son, it will be a very
different ceremony later this month,
albeit the long-awaited fulfilment of
a dream.
May met his ‘ fiance’ — the much
younger former Southampton University student — nearly 20 years ago when
he was still married to Georgia’s mother.
One of his best friends, Lord Montagu
of Beaulieu, ever an adventurous
soul, has been asked to be a witness at
the wedding.
But for the rest of the close- knit
community of friends and family
centred around May’s famous boatyard in Lymington, Hampshire,
this unorthodox social departure
represents quite a challenge.
Unsurprisingly, May’s Belgian
baroness ex-wife, Catherine Van Den
Branden de Reeth, and their two sons,
Brian and Dominic, have strong
reservations about his relationship
with Nick.
The event is also likely to make a stir
in royal circles, where there is likely to
be considerable relief that the Queen
has been saved from a potentially
embarrassing situation.
For May’s dark- haired daughter
Georgia dated Prince Edward after
they met at the glittering Royal Yacht
Squadron Ball during Cowes Week in
August 1986. They were mad about
each other and shared discreet
candlelit dinners at Buckingham
Palace for a couple of years
Although very young, just 22 and 23,
Edward soon took Georgia to Windsor
Castle to meet his family and she
invited him to stay at the splendid May
family home in Lymington.
Eighteen months later, they were still
so close that Georgia spent New Year
with the Royal Family and planned to
join the younger royals on their annual
skiing holiday in Klosters — a privilege
not afforded to Diana Spencer before
her engagement to Charles.
Everything looked set for a royal
wedding and Georgia’s mother was
invited to tea with the Queen. Even
though Georgia’s parents were
divorced, the Mays appeared a
conventional and enviably rich family.
AVID MAY, a naval architect,
educated at Southampton
University, was not only goodlooking and occasionally
charming, he had demonstrated considerable entrepreneurial skills by building up his boatyard.
In 1960 he had made a good marriage to Catherine and the couple lived a glamorous life between London and Hampshire, giving fabulous parties in the beautiful Shipyard House where they settled down to the business of bringing up their three children.
As a keen sailor, David had long been a friend of Prince Philip and Princess Anne, whom he saw every year at Cowes. As the royal yacht Britannia was anchored off the Isle of Wight, one of the first guests aboard was always the enthusiastic David May, who for many years was Royal Commodore of London’s swanky Royal Thames Yacht Club. Prince Philip, in particular, was impressed by such an athletic companion with a wonderful zest for life.
In turn, May, a self- confessed social climber, often boasted of his acquaintance with Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher.
By now, his daughter was working as a City trader and she invited Prince Edward to the London Boat Show. At the time, her father was chairman of the exhibition and his happiness seemed complete.
‘ They make such a lovely couple. They are potty about each other,’ his wife told her friends.
But then tongues started to wag when people took a closer look at the lifestyle of Georgia’s father. Although everyone had tried hard to be discreet, as early as 1977 a fatal blow had struck at the Mays’ marriage.
No sooner had David May met young Nick than he bought a cosy love nest in a tiny West Country hamlet just for the two of them.
ALWAYS a man with an eye for a good time, David’s bisexuality had long been acknowledged in local circles. For some years, no one turned a hair about his new paramour. May managed to juggle his family responsibilities with his unorthodox gay love affair and even fitted in some extra- marital girlfriends, including department store heiress Virginia Bourne, whose family lived on the Beaulieu river near Lord Montagu’s impressive pile, and who worked for the boat-builder at one point.
Then, one day in the Eighties, the flamboyant May arrived at a female friend’s house in London in a state of great distress, downed a bottle of vodka and explained that he was being forced into a divorce because Nick refused to tolerate their eternal triangle any more.
‘ He is threatening to leave me if I don’t divorce — and I can’t live without him,’ sobbed an emotional David, who is fondly known as ‘Daisy May’ because of the flower symbol he used to have on his spinnaker sails.
As it happens, his wife Catherine had also had enough and was also preparing to leave home, and would later divorce David.
But the decision was obviously not without its emotional toll. First there were rumours of hell-raising evenings at David’s local pub, The Chequers, just outside Lymington. Often, highspirited David was accompanied in these ‘ entertainments’ by his twentysomething son, Dominic, who would travel down in the summer from London with a group of friends.
‘ The youngsters go wild, throwing food at each other and wrecking furniture. David also joined in the fun,’ observed an astounded local. ‘ Daisy loves his booze and he can get a bit rowdy after a few. He’s not averse to chucking a few bread rolls. The next day they’d come back with a cheque book ready to sort it out.’
Soon after Catherine left home, David was arrested for driving his Jaguar sports car while three times over the limit. Always a fast driver, who owned as many sports cars as he did boats, he was given a two-year ban which was suspended on appeal. The unfortunate incident was kept out of the headlines — which proved handy when his daughter was dating a royal.
Throughout this period, Nick and David’s relationship persisted. With his daughter Georgia’s possible royal engagement, her father’s society lady friends tried to encourage him to be discreet about his gay affair.
David, however, seemed impervious to what people thought. On one occasion he got drunk in the hallowed precincts of the Royal Yacht Squadron and ended up holding Nick’s hand. Their affair was now an open secret within the local community.
Then, in November 1988, disaster struck when the couple’s affair was
exposed in the Press after a motoring incident in the tiny Dorset village where David and Nick lived.
Unfortunately, this happened just as the announcement was expected of an engagement between May’s daughter and Prince Edward. Although Edward almost certainly knew about David May’s private life, now everyone else knew, too.
The whole saga was apparently enough to scupper any royal wedding. Keen as they must have been to marry off their enigmatic youngest son, perhaps the Royals, who already were struggling with Princess Diana’s marital problems, did not want another scandal threatening to damage their reputation.
One way or another, Georgia and Edward drifted apart. True to form, her father made the best of his dashed ambitions.
‘She wouldn’t have liked to marry a Royal,’ was his withering verdict. ‘Somebody who marries that family lives in a permanent goldfish bowl.’
Happily, Georgia went on to marry a solicitor in London and they went to live in Hong Kong. But her father carried on partying, even naming his new yacht Wayward — presumably after his lifestyle.
Observers noted that the royals, who had previously turned a blind eye to his self-indulgence, were now not so keen to join him on board.
During Cowes Week in 1990, Princess Anne, who used to stay at the Mays’ Lymington house and sail with the family, chose instead to sail with Tory MP Michael Grylls.
Despite these social hurts, the ‘Daisy’ and Nick affair managed to endure despite the temptations of the high-living local lifestyle.
‘Nick has another elderly admirer on the Isle of Wight,’ says one who knows them well. ‘The man is rich as sin, with lots of property.’
Apparently this is a society where fidelity counts for very little.
As for David May, he could still be seduced by a pretty girl. Indeed, the occasion on which the couple trashed their hostess’s house stemmed from a row that started at a dinner party when David made an outrageous series of passes at spy-writer Rupert Allason’s pretty girlfriend of the time. ‘He couldn’t take his eyes off her,’ says one astounded witness. ‘ I wouldn’t blame Nick for beating up David after his behaviour that night.
‘ The two were so ashamed that they did not even bother to stay for the fireworks.’
THEIR fight was so fierce that when the party hostess finally checked their room, she said it looked as if someone had been murdered. But such episodes are all in the past and today there are more pressing matters to be addressed.
Despite the reservations of his two married sons, who continue to run the boatyard, David May is said to have made ample provision for his fiance out of family funds.
For although the couple’s friendship has long been a mystery to others, there has been ample proof of affection between the exhibitionist David and the more passive Nick.
‘There was a very funny time when David took Nick on the Round The Island Race in his then yacht called Mayhem,’ says one friend.
‘It was blowing like hell that day. We’d got down from Cowes to the Needles Channel, which is rough, and Nick suddenly fell into the water. Somebody grabbed him by the collar just in time and heaved him back on board. He looked like a drowned rat.
‘David was fussing around, saying: ‘ Are you all right, darling? You’d better go and change before you catch cold.’ Now it is Nick’s chance to take care of David. For, according to close friends, the older man, who survived stomach cancer 16 years ago, has been having fresh intimations of mortality.
‘ He has organised his will and made his peace with his whole family, who will be together at Christmas,’ says one of their set.
And it seems that in a further sign of modern social trends, not only does he want to legalise his relationship in the form of a marriage, the couple have also signed a pact to go to Holland (where euthanasia is legal) should either feel it necessary.
As for the ceremony itself, it is likely to be a very low key affair in a modern annexe of Dorchester town hall near their home in Dorset. It will almost certainly be boycotted by ex-wife, Catherine, who thinks the whole saga is ridiculous.
But others are looking forward to the ceremony. Lord Montagu says: ‘I’ve known David for years and I am happy to give him my support. I haven’t been asked to wear anything special — it’s not going to be like Elton John’s wedding.’
As for David, the ceremony will be a special occasion. When he was divorced from his wife, he vowed that he would never marry again, saying: ‘ Once is enough.’ But, of course, this new adventure in matrimony will be a very different, and very modern affair.