MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH BEAUTIFUL ARISTOCRAT
WHILE Colin Tennant played a role in Princess Margaret’s illicit love life, he also had a hand in a romance which changed my life.
It began in the summer of 1975, when Colin invited Virginia Royston — Viscountess Royston — to a house he owned on Mustique called The Gingerbread. A former debutante of the year, Virginia had married Viscount ‘Pips’ Royston at a lavish ceremony in London. But five years later, he died from a rare heart condition at just 34, leaving his wife with two young children, Jemima, four, and Joe, two.
During her visit, Colin invited Virginia (right) for dinner at the Cotton House Hotel. I was seated across from her. She was absolutely stunning, with blonde hair and blue eyes. We were immediately attracted and began playing footsie under the table even before the main course arrived. After dinner, we sat with each other — and that was it. We fell deeply in love.
She was 35, six years older than me, and she wrote me a letter every day when she returned to Britain. Soon she came to live with me in Mustique. It caused a scandal in the papers, but we just got on with it. We travelled a lot and at one time my two kids lived with us as well. They were close in age and went to the local school together with Virginia’s children.
One year we went to Disney World in Orlando. We arrived in Miami and I handed over the six passports. The man couldn’t work it out. He said: ‘We have here a Basil Charles and two other Charleses [my children], a Viscountess Royston, a Viscount Royston [Viriginia’s son Joe] and a Lady Jemima Yorke [her daughter], what’s going on?’ I said: ‘It’s a British thing!’
I was with Virginia until 1982. She was a wonderful person, but started to drink too much. There was one occasion when we were invited to dinner with Princess Margaret. I went home to pick up Virginia, but found her so drunk she couldn’t walk. I couldn’t get her to sober up, so I went on my own. I apologised to the Princess for being late, although of course I did not tell her why.
I tried everything to help Virginia, but in the end it was too much and she went to rehab. It didn’t work. Tragically, she died in 1988 aged just 46 from liver failure.