A royal salute to Snowdon the rebel romeo
(and, of course, the mistress and love children came too!)
As THE mould-breaking, bohemian half of the first royal divorce since Henry Viii, the Earl of snowdon had often had an imprecise relationship with the Monarchy.
Yet, privately, the Royal Family would always retain a deep affection and admiration for the ex-husband of Princess Margaret.
And yesterday his former sister-in-law, the Queen, joined a huge gathering of family, friends, colleagues, admirers and beneficiaries to honour the memory of a man who positively rejoiced in being different.
‘My father was a rebel – but never the sort of rebel to do what rebels are expected to do,’ said his son David, formerly Viscount Linley and now the 2nd Earl, in the first of several tributes at st Margaret’s Church in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. ‘Of course, he would never ever describe himself as a rebel. But then he was not fond of describing himself as anything much.’
Following his death in January at the age of 86, the photographer and lifelong disability campaigner, who was born Antony Armstrong-Jones, had been buried in a simple hilltop ceremony in his native Wales, borne up the mountain in the back of a Land Rover.
Yesterday’s memorial service, a semistate occasion in the shadow of Parliament packed with royalty and the political, artistic and social establishments, was the polar opposite.
in her preamble the Canon of Westminster, the Rev Jane sinclair, observed that his royal marriage had ‘ brought Lord snowdon to early public notice’ but that his life had been characterised by so many different achievements. The same, in a sense, applied to his domestic life.
Lord snowdon’s entire extended family was here – five children and 11 grandchildren in all.
The new Earl was accompanied by his wife and two children along with his sister, Lady sarah Chatto, her husband and their two teenage sons.
They were joined by Lord snowdon’s second wife, the former Lucy LindsayHogg, and their daughter, Lady Frances von Hofmannsthal, plus husband, son and daughter.
Also present, with his mother, was Jasper, Lord snowdon’s 18year-old son by journalist Melanie Cable-Alexander. And here too was Polly Fry, family friend and Lord snowdon’s goddaughter, whom in later life, he revealed was his own child. she had brought her five children to st Margaret’s.
The new Earl delivered a moving, wide-ranging tribute to the father he called ‘my hero’ – even if the man himself had always been endearingly underwhelmed by his own talents.
‘He felt he had failed at being an architect. He loathed being called an artist. He made fun of being a photographer, not out of false modesty but because he genuinely thought of himself as a failure,’ his son explained, adding: ‘in my eyes, too, he was a failure – as a failure, that is.’ This, he recalled, was the man who had coxed the Cambridge eight to victory in the Boat Race; who had left an indelible mark on the ‘ national aesthetic’ with his designs for the aviary at London Zoo and for the first made-for-television royal event in history, the 1969 investiture of the Prince of Wales at Carnarvon Castle.
HIS father, he recalled, had crossed the Channel on water skis – ‘not bad for a man with one leg’. Having contracted polio as a child, Lord snowdon had spent so much of his life devising umpteen ways to improve the lot of the disabled, from media campaigns to DiY. His children would routinely find their toys had been dismantled to create makeshift components for some new wheelchair design.
‘My father was a supremely talented amateur in a sense that we no longer understand,’ he said. ‘it is said that one should never meet one’s hero. i had the privilege to live with my hero.’
it had, he added, been like living with a combination of James Bond, inigo Jones, Leonardo da Vinci and Alec issigonis ( the designer of the Mini). From the world of the arts came a eulogy from his friend, Patrick Kinmonth, the opera director and designer, who said there could not have been a ‘more delightful friend and conspirator’.
‘Tony was not a man of words but of pictures,’ he said, adding that he could be ‘lethally enchanting’. This could lead to ‘sometimes maddening personal twists and turns’ after which the pair would ‘have a glass of white wine and contemplate his latest scrape’. AT
the same time, Lord snowdon had made great strides on behalf of the disabled. Baroness Grey-Thompson, the Paralympic gold medallist and trustee of the snowdon Trust, spoke powerfully about the way that he had helped change the way the public looked at the disabled and had made a difference to ‘ thousands and thousands of people’. ‘Many people thought that people like me didn’t need an education but here was someone with immense wit, wisdom and charm who talked about education,’ she said, ‘someone with a voice and a platform.’
This was an exuberantly Welsh affair – sir Bryn Terfel singing All Through the Night in both Welsh and English, accompanied by a harp, and a thumping Guide Me, O thou great Redeemer at the end.
Afterwards the Queen, Prince Philip, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex spoke to the new Earl, to his sister and to their families. After the royal departures, the other branches of the snowdon clan appeared to greet guests ranging from theatrical luminaries like sir Tom stoppard, Alan Bennett and stephen Fry to Lord snowdon’s old colleagues on the sunday Times for which he was still taking photographs until the end.
As they all emerged into the sunlight there was one last tribute, a favourite from his childhood, as the organ sent them on their way with the Eton Boating song.