A writer’s widow, Martin Amis’s love child ... and a complicated family rift fit for fiction
IN ONE corner sits the widow of the renowned historian Patrick Seale with their son, Alexander. Opposite are Seale’s other children, including Delilah Jeary, the daughter by birth of the author Martin Amis.
At stake is the ownership of their £3.5million family home and a collection of prized Middle Eastern art, with the family bitterly divided over who should benefit from Seale’s wealth.
The dispute has led to a protracted High Court battle between Rana Seale and her late husband’s daughter, Yasmine, along with Yasmine’s two siblings: Delilah, 45, an ITN producer and the daughter of Amis with Seale’s first wife, Lamorna; and Orlando, 48, a musician and actor who understudied Sir Kenneth Branagh in the Oscar-nominated screen version of Hamlet.
The dispute broke out after the death of Seale in 2014 from brain cancer, aged 83, after 29 years of what his widow admitted was a “stormy” relationship.
In the months before his death, Seale, a respected journalist, historian and art dealer, had severed the couple’s joint ownership of their home in Holland Park, west London, resulting in his half being transferred to his wider estate for the eventual benefit of all his children, rather than passing to Rana. That left Rana, 62, and Alexander facing the threat of being thrown out of the house.
In court last week, ahead of a full trial in January, she called Yasmine, Orlando and Delilah “cruel, litigious and greedy” and accused them of “ruining our health”. Rana, herself a writer and historian, told the court: “Nothing can give back these five and a half years of burlesque proceedings brought against Alexander and myself by his siblings.”
The court heard that Seale, an expert on the Middle East, bought the six-bedroom home, now worth £3.5million, with Rana for £1.75 million in 2009.
Rana and Alexander, who is disabled, claim that Seale was “unduly influenced” by the three children during a spell of ill health in his final years.
Orlando, Delilah and Jasmine deny influencing their father and say it was his intention to divorce Rana. Richard Fowler, their barrister, said Seale was advised by his solicitor to consider severing the joint ownership to “protect his interests” if considering divorce.
Rana denies that Seale ever really intended to divorce her, telling the court during an earlier hearing their marriage “was stormy, it was crazy, but it was never subject to divorce”.