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As Jerry Roberts sits next to the Lorenz at the enigmatic Bletchley Park, 50 miles north–west of London for a photograph to be taken, I can’t believe what he has just muttered. “Fascinating. I’ve never actually seen one of these!” The reason why his words were so amazing is because Jerry is one of Bletchley Park’s unsung heroes — responsible for helping Britain to effectively win the Second World War.

Here is his story …

During the First or ‘Great’ War of 1914—18, Winston Churchill, who was to go on to be Britain’s Prime Minister during the Second World War, had learnt first-hand just how pivotal good intelligence could be in warfare, having set up his signal intercepting and code-breaking unit in what was known as ‘Room 40’, a special cryptography section in the British Admiralty. Trained specialists listened in to most of the Germans transmissions between 1914 and 1918 from Room 40.

Following Germany’s humiliation following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, it was not surprising that Adolf Hitler, and the threat of a new conflict, emerged from the debris, so Churchill pushed to expand Room 40 but into its own location, away from the threat of the inevitable bombing that London would suffer with the onset of the Second World War.

In a typically British way, crucial though this facility was, no government department or service would pay for a new facility, so in the spring of 1938, Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair who was head of the secret intelligence service dipped into his own pocket to pay £7,500 to buy Bletchley Park for the nation and set up the amazing code-cracking unit famous for breaking the Enigma Code.

What followed was the most extraordinary story in British, and indeed world, history. It is a story that has never been fully told because the Official Secrets Act remained in force until 1974 and, even after that, it made no difference because people of that generation won’t talk on principle even if you nailed their feet to the floor and pulled out all their finger nails one-by-one. It just wasn’t cricket.

But as all of the remaining genii are now 89 years of age or older, the passage of time has softened their resolve, driven perhaps by the realisation that as they face their exit from the stage on which they played such an extraordinary part, with their departure goes the last chance of telling first-hand how a small band of poets, mathematicians and linguists not only invented and built the world’s first programmable computer but also, quite literally, won the war for Britain and the allies. Or, to put it another way, without these people we would unquestionably have lost the war.

So what exactly did happen at Bletchley Park? The Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger financed the film ‘Enigma’ which, although a fictional story, made public the breaking of the Enigma Code. It was an entertaining story but in no way conveyed the enormous feat of breaking enemy codes using the Enigma machine that the Germans were convinced was unbreakable.

The first stark example was the Battle of the Atlantic where the U-boat wolf packs tore apart the allied convoys which were absolutely essential to keeping us fed and supplying the war effort. The losses of shipping, material and lives were so great that many in the British government felt that there was no choice but to surrender.

When the British army limped home across the channel after the evacuation at Dunkirk, leaving all their equipment to the Germans, the troops had to re-equip but those vital supplies had largely been lost due to the U-boat attacks.

If there was anything to starkly demonstrate the sheer impact of Bletchley’s code breaking it was in February 1942 when the Germans created superior codes causing the allies to lose the ability to decipher them. Prior to this we were losing only 51,000 tons of shipping but this now rocketed to 640,000 tons. It was not until 13 December 1942, ten months later, that we were again able to decode messages thus enabling the shipping to navigate around the U-boats. This graphically demonstrated that Bletchley was reducing the UK’s losses by 92 per cent and by May 1943 the U-boat losses were so great that the British threatened to wipe them out, causing Admiral Karl Dönitz the German U-boat commander to withdraw them from the Atlantic.

The story of the secretive geniuses that decoded these messages could not be more extraordinary and it raises the obvious question, ‘why were the Germans not as effective at breaking codes as the British?’ The answer is rather strange, in that the Germans tended to use military men for the work, all in uniform and subject to tight military discipline. The British mostly employed German language students, poets and mathematicians who were just leaving university and the entire enterprise was run on a very informal basis. Quite simply, Churchill was not interested in square-bashing or discipline. All he wanted was results and these they delivered in spades and Bletchley’s team became the undisputed world experts in this strange art, which is now enshrined in Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

There were many other successes that were pivotal to the allies’ victory as a result of the various versions of the Enigma Codes being broken, but today I write about one particular aspect of Bletchley Park. So secret was this part of the story that the Official Secrets Act was only lifted in 2002 and even today shooting the photo of former Captain Jerry Roberts next to the Lorenz machine needed clearance from GCHQ. What then was this part, and what made it so different? There is now only one person living in the world who can tell us, and that is Jerry Roberts himself.

The Enigma machine was commercially available between the two wars but Germany modified it to encode messages from the Luftwaffe, navy, army and Abwehr (secret service). Each service used different settings and wheels, making them therefore entirely different codes. Whilst geniuses such as Dilly Knox and Mavis Lever were busily dealing with the Enigma Codes, in late 1940, London’s Metropolitan Police picked up a strange Morse signal. I wasn’t until some six months or so later, when an RAF station picked up the same signal, that Bletchley took notice of it.

Within a month Colonel John Tiltman had deciphered one of these strange messages but only due to an operator error at the other end. It was the brilliant 24-year-old Bill Tutte who not only worked out that this machine had not four wheels, like the Enigma, but 12, but was also able to develop the complete architecture of the encoding machine used, the Lorenz SZ40. He built a machine that did exactly what the Lorenz machine did. It transpired that this was a unique encoding system just for the German High Command between Hitler and his top generals.

It quickly became evident that this was such a special machine that the Germans were utterly sure the coded messages were unbreakable. So vital were these messages that a special section was set up under the leadership of Captain Ralph Tester, which was soon dubbed ‘the ‘Testery’. At its height it had nine ‘brains’ working on it, such as 19-year-old Donald Michie, and one of the initial members was 20-year-old Jerry Roberts.

These extraordinary individuals worked around the clock to access the inner secrets of the German High Command with what has been described as ‘the outstanding mental feat of the twentieth century’ because all this work was carried out using only pencils, paper and their brains.

After a while it became clear that mechanical help would be needed to speed things up. This resulted in Alan Turing producing specifications for a programmable computer to be built. The man who did this was Tommy Flowers, an engineer who was working for what is now British Telecom, and by February 1944 the world’s first programmable computer was born. It was called ‘Colossus’.

Turing was one of the greatest geniuses of the last 200 years. It was he who devised the principle of programmable mechanical thought and, had the government developed this invention after the war, Silicon Valley would be around Milton Keynes, UK, instead of California, USA! Sadly, he was forced to elect for chemical castration after his homosexuality became public and all his security clearances were withdrawn, meaning that we deliberately turned away his talent. The result was that probably the most brilliant brain in the world took his life shortly after.

Jerry’s memory of events during these extraordinary years is unbelievably detailed and his mind is as sharp as ever. I will leave it to Jerry to describe just a few examples to demonstrate why we would have lost the war without these decrypts, called ‘Tunny’, from the Lorenz machine. No one else on this planet can tell this first hand …

“The BBC has just shown how, with ‘Operation Mincemeat’ — a 1943 successful British deception plan — Hitler was fooled into thinking the British were going to invade Sardinia and Greece (instead they entered Sicily) but that was nothing compared to D-Day. Having broken the German secret service code, due to the spies which had parachuted into Britain being ‘turned’, false information was sent to Berlin. All well and good but if you’re going to land 326,000 troops, the majority of them Americans, and 54,000 vehicles on a beach you need to be 100 per cent sure that they were not going to be cut to ribbons. This was especially important as this would be our last attempt to defeat Hitler.

“We monitored the transmissions between Hitler and his Generals and knew that the German Panzer divisions had been moved north to the Calais region, knew of all the enemy preparations and their order of battle via the famed tank warfare expert, General Heinz Guderian. I personally decrypted a message from Hitler to his Generals, signed ‘Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer’.

“The Japanese Ambassador to Berlin toured the entire Atlantic Wall defences and, with typical efficiency, produced a 32-part report for Tokyo. We decrypted the entire report. Only with confirmation from Hitler himself that the deception had been swallowed could D-Day proceed — and succeed — on 6 June 1944. We provided this confirmation and so began the beginning of the end.

“To attack Hitler’s soft underbelly it was crucial that we regain control of the Mediterranean region. Mavis Lever a brilliant Bletchley decoder managed to break the Italian naval Enigma Code so we knew when the Italian fleet were leaving port. For the British Admiral Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham to deliberately deceive potential spies, he had lunch at his local golf club conspicuously parking his clubs and suitcase at reception — allegedly for a weekend away. The bait was taken as we confirmed the Japanese Ambassador’s message to Berlin saying that Cunningham, and presumably the fleet, was ‘resting’. Later they slipped anchor, ambushed and sank over 60 per cent of the Italian fleet without losing one British sailor. That altered the course of the war in the Mediterranean.

“We were intercepting the Japanese naval code but their fleet was causing havoc. They had the Yamato, the largest battleship in the world, and eight aircraft carriers and so we sent a spoof message saying that one of our battleships was out of water. When the Japanese intercepted it and reported this to their Admiral we were able to pinpoint the location of their fleet and, in June 1942, the resulting engagement sank almost 50 per cent of their fleet, including four aircraft carriers This effectively put them out of the war and was one of the greatest naval battles of all time,” said Jerry, confiding: “The Americans don’t actually know this.”

“In July 1941 our decrypts were wreaking havoc with Germany’s Field Marshall Rommel’s supply convoys but the Germans still managed to retain a strong presence with better equipment than us and if they managed to reach Cairo then the chances were that the entire land battle of the Mediterranean would have swung their way.

“Then we intercepted messages between Rommel and General Keitel, head of the German army, in Berlin whose permission was required to push through to Cairo. These gave us complete troop numbers, equipment to be used and — crucially — the entire battle plan. General Montgomery laid an ambush at the Alam Halfa Ridge outside El Alamein in Egypt and Rommel retreated in tatters.

“Churchill was furious that General Bernard Montgomerie (Monty) Commander of the British 8th Army didn’t press home his advantage, so another final battle was inevitable. Again, on 6 March 1943, we gave Monty full details of Rommel’s plans, which were to throw the entire Africa Corps of 160 tanks and 200 guns at him. Duly warned, Monty responded with a steel wall of 400 tanks, 350 field guns and 470 anti-tank guns. That was the end of Hitler’s little enterprise in North Africa.

“It was well known that Churchill distrusted Stalin and felt that, if we ever made it through this war, the next conflict would be with Russia. Hitler’s armies had retreated in tatters after their defeat at Stalingrad and were in no mood to make a mess of things again. This time they were going to defeat Russia.

“In July 1943 my colleagues and I intercepted a series of remarkable messages between Hitler and his Generals Guderian and Zeitzler, the final one of which was the decision by Hitler to attack Russia at Kursk. Detailed battle plans showed the composition of the 50 armoured divisions that included the elite of Germany’s tank regiments. This was immediately dispatched to Churchill. Imagine being in Churchill’s shoes. Keep quiet and hope that Germany gets rid of the menace that we will have to face in the future, or assist the Russians as we may not be able to defeat Hitler without them. Churchill passed on the information.

“The Russians moved rapidly to engineer a brilliant defensive position, enlisting over 300,000 civilians. When battle commenced Russia committed a staggering 1.3 million troops, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 guns and 2,400 aircraft that represented 20 per cent of their whole army and 25 per cent of their air force. After over a week the Germans were beaten but Hitler’s effort of concentrating so many divisions at Kursk had left the remainder of the frontier with Russia so sparsely defended that the Russians were effectively pushing at an open door towards Berlin. From this day on Hitler’s days were numbered. The Russians called this ‘the turning of the tide’. That is the power of code-breaking.”

I asked Jerry if he is proud of the part that he played. He looked wistful for a moment and then said, “Of course, but there were three real heroes, people who were quite exceptional: Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers and Bill Tutte.

“Recently, Constance Brown, a woman who had run her fish shop for 50 years, received an MBE. I am sure it requires great commitment to run a fish and chip shop for 50 years but her achievement received the same recognition as Tommy Flowers. Turing got almost the same — an OBE — but Bill Tutte got nothing and moved to Canada.

“Without them we would all be speaking German, operating under German law and principles and the allies would have suffered the same fate, except probably not America. Churchill described these people as ‘His geese that laid the golden eggs’, and Eisenhower said that these decrypts ‘had shortened the war by at least two to three years’ and, with some 10 million people killed each year, untold loss of life. I would like to see these people take their rightful place in history. Is even a posthumous knighthood too much to ask when people today buy peerages with so-called ‘donations’?” asks Jerry.

For the past three years Jerry has struggled to get proper recognition for the achievements of the Testery and also Turing, Flowers and Tutte. Turing — who was one of the most brilliant minds and whose invention, the computer, changed the world forever; Flowers — who had the extraordinary skill to build the first computer in record time as if it were some simple domestic appliance; and Tutte — for his extraordinary feat of breaking the Tunny system. The fact that Jerry’s contribution falls not far short of that of his heroes, seems to have passed him by. Perhaps that is the modesty that comes with great age and life experience.

Jerry’s task has been frustrated by the fact that British schools have failed to teach history well, or at all, condemning some three generations to ignorance of our past. Slowly, it seems, the public are waking up. He finds it extraordinary, and so do I, that today society gives public recognition to such trivial things. After all, what could be more important that saving one’s country, let alone the allies?

My Peerage is hereditary although our family title, created in 1933, is quite a new one. This was the year when my great grandfather, Charles Nall-Cain, after whom I was named, was raised from a Baronetage to the Peerage. He was a most amazing and universally loved man who was Chairman of the Merseyside brewing firm of Robert Cain & Sons (later Walker Cain Ltd and Allied Breweries), which had been founded by his father Robert Cain.

My great grandfather was raised to the Peerage for his business success and mainly because of his enormous charitable works that continued apace during World War I. He provided huge amounts of finance for local hospitals, purchased airplanes for the burgeoning RAF and organised both the crews and ambulances to mend the broken bodies in the trenches.

A few years ago, Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister, stated in the Commons that my great grandfather had bought his title — probably to cover up what was happening with his own ‘cash for honours’ scandal. Despite Parliamentary privilege giving him immunity for libel, the facts speak for themselves.

I am thus proud to carry the recognition given to my great grandfather and, in 1973, when I was 21 and the legal age at which one can take one’s seat, I entered the House of Lords. In common with my colleagues, I did not do so with any feelings of superiority, more nervousness that I would in some way not contribute in a meaningful way and justify the honour bestowed on our family. I accepted the Conservative whip which, unlike the Commons, did not mean that you had to vote along party lines. If you felt you couldn’t you were expected to explain your issues to the whips or vent your issues on the floor of the House. All very civilised.

Tradition had it that eldest sons of Peers and Peers not having attained the age of 21 were allowed to attend debates as spectators and sit on the steps of the throne. At the age of 20, my regiment, The King’s Hussars, was just about to be posted to Ulster but I took time off to attend the most memorable debate in my time in the Lords. That debate, in July 1972, was on sanctions against Ian Smith of Rhodesia and was the only time that even standing room had run out, causing some to listen from the Peer’s lobby. Every past Prime Minister living at that time attended the debate and I particularly remember the speeches delivered by Lords Callaghan, Douglas-Home and, most memorably, Macmillan. Feelings were running high but, in the end, as history proved, our handling of the situation was catastrophic leading to appalling bloodshed and butchery at the hands of Robert Mugabe.

I FOUND IN THE HOUSE AN EXTRAORDINARY RESERVOIR OF KNOWLEDGE WITH ALMOST EVERY TRADE KNOWN TO MAN

In the early 80s, suitably humbled, I gave my maiden speech in the debate on the law and order bill, specifically relating to the appalling damage done to small-holders in Hertfordshire by traveller encampments. While today the government sees fit to allow one group of people to avoid local rates and taxes whilst imprisoning the rest for the same offence, the police at this time were powerless to remove these groups without a change in the law.

Following various meetings with Lord Ferrers (Minister of State at the Home Office under Thatcher) and representations from our local Chief Constable, it was agreed to limit in law the size of travellers’ gatherings, both as regards people and vehicles, that were then enshrined in the Public Order Act of 1986. This is still the law that applies today and was for me a graphic example of an individual’s ability to affect legislation by reasoned debate.

In 1982, I converted my family home, Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire, into what was to become the leading high-level conference venue in the UK. I have a keen interest in tourism and that industry selected me to be their spokesman in the Lords. To illustrate the absence of party boundaries in debates and the fact that members simply ‘spoke their minds’, I had just spoken on an aspect of the economy. Lord Rippon (former Chancellor and a fellow Conservative) in his reply completely disagreed with me but he was followed by Lord Jenkins (former Labour Prime Minister) who expressed complete agreement. That’s the way it was in those days as party lines often meant nothing. It is the essence of true debate.

The Lords was at that time the best club in London, not just because it had genuine influence on legislation but also because there were genuine warmth and friendship within its walls. It also had its lighter moments. In 1976, the British Transport Docks (Felixtowe) Bill was being hotly debated when Lord Brown, ex-foreign minister under Harold Wilson’s Labour government, who had a well-deserved reputation as a serious drinker, staggered to his feet to speak, following a long interview with a whiskey bottle, and swayed, steadying himself against the high back of the bench in front of him where some unfortunate bald elderly peer was reclining the other side.

“Zzzhe management don’e want zzheees measures,” he yelled passionately as he banged his fist down onto the bench-back in front. Of course the entire chamber could see what was about to happen but anticipation froze us.

He raised his clenched fist again, “Zzhe workers don’e want zzheees measures,” and brought it smartly down onto the bald head in front, knocking the poor chap six inches further into his seat like some wooden peg in a child’s game, “And I don’e zwant zzhees measures,” he slurred as the final coup de gras was delivered with the old boy now collapsed in his seat like a sack of potatoes wondering what the hell he had done to deserve this.

However there were also the surreal moments. In 1980 one of the great politicians, Lord Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Shinwell, was sitting on one of the leather benches when a three–foot long carved section of the ceiling broke away and, like some gothic torpedo, passed so close to ‘Manny’ — who was then 95 — that it touched his clothes as it penetrated deep into the bowels of the upholstery. But he arose, calm as a cucumber, as if called to take a phone call and moved to the side.

In May 1988 the Lords were debating Section 28 of the Local Government Act that proposed preventing local authorities from promoting homosexuality. A group of lesbians, who had sneaked past the legendary British security onto the high-level spectators’ gallery, staged a demonstration and abseiled onto the floor of the chamber. Surprised peers found themselves looking at an alarming array of flesh and knickers descending on them at great speed. To great amazement, none of their lordships suffered a heart attack.

There were always the pranks. There used to be a tradition in the Lords, which is now largely ignored by the present incumbents, that you never read a speech on the basis that you should know your subject, but that you could have bullet points to keep you on track. In 1984 I was sitting next to Lord Young (Minister without Portfolio and Secretary of State for Employment under Thatcher) just after he had taken up his seat and as he rose to speak I removed his notes and sat on them. Undeterred he continued, impressing those around him, so I capitulated and handed them back.

The House also had its endearing moments. When we vote we ‘divide’ into either the ‘Nay’ or ‘Aye’ lobbies where ‘tellers’ count us as we pass. On one occasion the queue into the ‘Aye’ lobby was static and stretched back into the chamber. I volunteered to see what the problem was and found three of their lordships with large envelopes arranging swaps from their stamp collections. They were gently reminded that the due process of government had temporarily ground to a halt and perhaps they could continue their swaps in the bar.

The problem with the House of Lords is its name. It would be less emotive if it were called ‘the Capitol’ or ‘the Senate’; but it’s ‘the Lords’ element which stirs up the good old British class warriors and creates attitudes of indifference or outright hostility. That it is also called the ‘Upper House’ doesn’t help either.

I AM ETERNALLY GRATEFUL, AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, EXTREMELY HONOURED, TO HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO HAVE PLAYED A PART

In the old days it all seemed so simple. Parliament was one great barn called Westminster Hall where every so often the King sat at the top of the steps flanked either side by his Barons who were essential to law and order and the running of his realm. The local Baron owned all of the land, had jurisdiction over the local courts and raised armies for his Monarch in times of war. Without the cooperation of his Barons, the Monarch was toothless. So, in those days, if you had a grievance you could appear before the Monarch and his Peers and they would decide on the issue. That was all — quite simple really!

Change was inevitable. In 1706, the Treaty of Union created a new parliament but it was a slightly bogus affair as many constituencies were very small with the local squire sending his representative to do as he was told, while huge constituencies such as Manchester had no representation and some others, called ‘rotten boroughs’, had an electorate of six people yet voted in two MPs!

Prime Minister Lord Grey put a stop to this in 1831 with the Great Reform Act. The result was that their lordships tended not to go against the will of the Commons if there was a clear majority and also accepted the fact that this majority would on its own be sufficient to keep a government in power.

The Lords could still throw out legislation which they objected to; however, in 1911, the then Liberal government restricted the power of the Lords to only delay legislation sent from the Commons and to do so by only voting against it a maximum of three times. In practice this hardly happened so the Lords could still effectively block legislation. In 1949 the Lords’ ability to block legislation was reduced from two years to one year.

Then in 1958 the Life Peerages Act was passed which gave the green light for governments to flood their benches in the Lords by repaying favours in the form of Peerages. This altered the dynamics of the Lords and vastly increased the numbers from the original 50 in the fourteenth century to 1,297 in 1999, with the last Labour government creating more peerages than any other government. To the Labour party, the concept of anyone — by virtue of inheritance, and therefore class — being able to debate and pronounce on legislation was abhorrent, but the aggravating and inconvenient factor was that this ancient system actually worked and you don’t have to be a genius to work out why.

Fifty-nine per cent of the Lords was hereditary and the average age was 64, therefore most of them were not trying to prove anything — they had already made their mark on their chosen profession and so had considerable knowledge. Add to this that the last time I did a check on the sheer diversity of professional qualifications I found in the House an extraordinary reservoir of knowledge with almost every trade known to man.

These included bricklayers, farmers, doctors, artists, scientists, professors and chief executives of companies in most industries.

Hardly surprising then that these Peers could speak with such personal and in-depth knowledge. The final, and crucial, point was that — as Americans know so well with their Senate — vested interests always affect voting but Hereditary Peers couldn’t be fired. They were there until death and so the views they expressed tended to be their genuine views with informed debates often changing a Peer’s mind on an issue. If the government of the day didn’t like it, then tough!

Whilst the chief whip’s task was to guarantee as much support for each ‘division’, or vote, reality was that these Peers would almost all vote with their conscience. This posed a true dilemma for any government that wanted to push through legislation that was unsound, further exacerbated by the irritating fact that Labour’s supporters raised to the Peerage to vote for their party’s bills sometimes became less Labour. The annoying reality is that with a Peerage that could never be removed and having tasted the opulence and lifestyle of the House of Lords their former hard-line stance softened.

I myself only voted against a bill twice, rather than abstain, both under Margaret Thatcher. It was proposed to allow increases to top peoples’ pay at a time of recession and also abolish the Greater London Council, a democratically elected body. I made my protest despite my admiration for the way Mrs Thatcher was pulling the country out of the chaos of the ‘Winter of Discontent’. Such protests were normally made in the privacy of the whip’s office prior to the debate, so that issues could be ironed out — but this was not one of those occasions.

In 1997, Prime Minister Blair promised in his manifesto to “Replace the House of Lords with a democratically elected House” on the basis that, he said, “patronage was unacceptable today”. Fourteen years later, the reality is that 667 hereditary Peers left the House for the last time and were replaced with 596 newly created Peers, most of them by patronage of having given either favours or ‘donations’ to the Labour party.

The House is now smaller with 736 members rather than a previous maximum of 1,297 but the House is, in my opinion, a less effective institution than it was. I believe all Hereditary Peers agree that one cannot justify a place in the legislature by birth, but the fact is that it worked and if it is to be replaced by elected representatives then the mechanism should have been resolved before throwing a giant spanner in the works.

Labour always cites the Conservative in-built majority but ignore the fairness of the debates, the sense of responsibility of its members and the fact that the simple reason for the higher number of Labour defeats in the Lords is the radical nature of their bills, many of which never should have been allowed on the statute books by fair- minded and sensible people. For that, the old House of Lords did a fairly good job.

The question is how to elect a second chamber without it being an extension of the Commons? The name is less important but almost certainly will be ‘Senate’. Whatever, I am eternally grateful, and, most importantly, extremely honoured, to have been allowed to have played a part in the long and distinguished history of this House and hope, despite the ups and downs of my personal life, that I have in some way not disappointed my great grandfather.

Words: Lord Brocket
Pictures: THE HOUSE OF LORDS

THE CAR: BIRKIN BLOWER BENTLEY 1929 THE ENTHUSIAST: Lord Charlie Brocket, aristocrat, celebrity, former jailbird, writer, car fanatic and all-round loveable rogue

Think back to your childhood and something that you had because its history left you awestruck. Mine was my prized Dinkey Toy, a British racing green 1929 Blower Bentley driven by a chap called Sir Henry ʻTimʼ Birkin in the 1930 Le Mans 24 hour race. The Blower Bentley was the most famous of cars. One man, an engineer with an eye for perfection, gave birth to this legend, W. O. (Walter Owen) Bentley.

In the six years that Bentley competed at Le Mans they crushed the opposition. In 1929 so great did the lead become that one of the drivers, Jack Dunfee, stopped to have a drink and told the pits he would have to push the car if he was ordered to go any slower! When the flag fell Bentleys came first, second, third and fourth.

Most of the world had given up trying to beat them, but some people got cross. The Germans. A truly great driver, Rudolph Caracciola, was sent with a Bismark. A massive seven litre supercharged Mercedes SSK. This was not a car. It was Battersea power station mounted on a first class chassis. Its slipstream alone would remove another driverʼs teeth.

Birkin was ordered to snap at the heels of the mighty Mercedes at such a pace as to ensure that Caracciolaʼs blower was always running at full pressure. Unless the engine was bombproof, something would give. At record breaking pace the lead alternated between Birkin and Caracciola. At one point Birkin passed Caracciola at almost 120mph with wheels on the grass just before the Mulsanne straight.

The crowds swelled. The screaming of the Mercedesʼ blower had alerted the entire countryside. Then, on the 82nd lap the mighty Bismark blew up. Birkin had driven for ten hours on the limit. Bentley took first and second.

The fact that this was Bentleyʼs last race because the company folded and was sold to a certain Mr Royce, making up-market hearses, makes this more unique. Today the ʻBlowerʼ is valued at up to £10 million. W. O. had stamped his authority on racing in a way that will never be repeated. If he achieved this in just six years what on earth would he have done with more funding?

Ironically, 72 years later after the mighty SSK was driven into the ground, cash did arrive…from the Germans. They promptly won the 2003 Le Mans with a Bentley. Having been my favourite toy, it is with pride I watch Bentley returning to its roots. I just hope someone up there has nudged old W. O. so he can see it.

THE CAR: ARIEL ATOM 2004 THE OWNER: Bruce Fielding, chairman of the Ariel Atom Owner’s Club (atomclub.com) and owner of Buchan the wonder dog

Bored with stuff like seats and carpets in your car? Well, if you are a true British eccentric you go to Somerset where a nice chap bolts on essential stuff like engines and wheels to scaffolding and sells them to nut cases like Mr Bruce Fielding.

Ariel is one of the most famous names in British automotive history and has now been resurrected. The original Ariel Atom built in 1889 seemed at that time akin to a spaceship and their motorbikes are now prized classics.

Bruce is clear why he is passionate about this “thing”, which worth £30-35,000. “This machine reflects the original ideals of Arielʼs cars,” he says. “It strives to achieve excellence in every field, build, quality, handling and power. It is a Caterham (alias Lotus 7) for the 21st century.”

It weighs so little its 220bhp engine gives the Atom ballistic qualities. Buckling up the full race harnesses, he lights the touch-paper instantly, freezing two traffic wardens to the pavement as we launch towards them. “Funny thing is the faster I go the calmer I get,” mutters Bruce.

With no footplate I have a flashback that Iʼm suspended in a baby-bouncer harness. So in demand are the Atoms there is a yearʼs wait. “Children love it.” Bruce chuckles. “They point and scream, and I canʼt refuse them a ride!” Looking more thoughtful Bruce reflects: “I hope I look sane because I am really sixteen in my head.” What do I really like about this car? Itʼs crazy, mad, bonkers but it does its job better than almost anything else out there.

THE CAR: MORRIS MINOR 1961 THE OWNER: Charlotte Whigham, landlady of The Old Coach and Horses public house and restaurant in Harbledown, Kent

Thought we were going to see a car not a mangy old cat,” my wife muttered as she packed her camera equipment. Were my ears playing tricks? Could anyone be so ignorant? Even in Kathmandu they know that a Morris Minor is called a Moggy! Or maybe Iʼm showing my age.

Anyway, for the uneducated out there, a Moggy is to the Empire what Herby was to Walt Disney. A Moggy is not just cared for, it is loved. Born in 1948, just after the war when petrol was rationed and money short (the last one rolled off the production line in 1971), their breadth of appeal made them the workhorse of tradesmen to Her Majesty the Queen.

My family had a car and a pick-up. Our deliveries arrived in vans and pick-ups, and many of my friends had the convertible version. So just what made this funny little creation appeal right across the social spectrum? Well, it had the same qualities as the Mini. It was simple, easy to maintain and repair, reliable and cheap to run (in post-war Britain crucially important) and projected an image that was devoid of snobbery without looking cheap.

This must be the holy grail of design. If you could bottle it you would hit the jackpot because even the VW Beetle did not have the same cross- society appeal. This £7,000 Moggy is the workhorse for The Old Coach and Horses in Harbledown, Kent. Charlotte Whigham, at 22, is one of the youngest landladies in the country and is bitten by the Moggy bug.

It might be a workhorse but Charlotte doesnʼt look at ʻherʼ this way. “In my modern MG I dash everywhere and come back knackered,” she says. “The Moggy canʼt dash anywhere so I just relax and let the old girl get there in her own time…which is usually only a minute or two behind the MG. Silly really. Makes you think.” Then she adds, with a twinkle:

“Itʼs a great pick-up car too.” And she wasnʼt referring to the open back. “The boys love the fact that I turn up in her because itʼs different. Sort of whacky, but not in the least bit showy.”

I know what Charlotte means. It shows that she has the confidence in herself not to have to drive anything flashy. That is something men would latch on to quickly, and added to her looks…sorry, back to the car. And is there anything that worries her about the Moggy? “Only the heater,” she says. “Iʼm not sure it could cope with a serious winter!” No need to worry. Basic it is, but it does the job and, more importantly, its owner loves her dearly.

THE CAR: BROUGH SUPERIOR 1936 THE OWNER: Tony Abbott, property developer and owner of many classic cars, has even bought his wife one to ‘run around in’

This classic car is one that present generations know absolutely nothing about. It was built in the 1930ʼs when little workshops had sprung up all over Britain driven by people with vision. Visions of engineering excellence, of climbing to the pinnacle of the automotive world and creating a name that would add to Britainʼs reputation at home and abroad as well as making them a legend in their own lunchtime. Like so many marques that seem to have disappeared in the mists of time, it was a dream.

As manufacturer of the rightly famous Brough Superior motorcycle, George Brough reckoned he could repeat his success with cars. Brough owner Tony Abbott (pictured) is senior enough to understand all this because his success stems largely from construction and he, of all people, understands when something is well built. “At my time in life I want something reliable but, especially,” says Tony, “something that is archetypal and unmistakably British.” And, he adds with a mischievous look: “the fact that ninety nine per cent of the population have no clue what the car is amuses me.” He has a point. Brough Superior? It begs the question ʻwhatʼs the ʻBrough Inferiorʼ? One that you have to pedal?

His Brough is in beautiful condition, totally original and worth £50,000. Past owners have wisely retained the patina of age and resisted the temptation to replace leather work because they like spending money. Brough originally wanted to rival the Bentley but thereʼs many a slip between dreams and a bank manager. In 1936 he ended up settling for a more modest design using a Hudson six-cylinder engine that we see here. Only 50 were built making Tonyʼs car pretty rare. “The fact that it has the smaller engine means that itʼs easier to maintain and cheaper to run, except,” Tony grimaces, “the old girl does need a gallon of oil when driving to Wales!”

This is clearly a gentlemanʼs form of transport. It is not to be screeched around the back lanes or taken to track days. Something to be enjoyed, perhaps to use just for a picnic in summer. Fat chance with Tony. Heʼs the sort of chap who owns something to use it. He is regularly seen cruising the local lanes sporting a Panama hat, and a grin that says “this is one little piece of the past that I can look after”. George Brough can rest easy that his ʻSuperiorʼ remains just that.

To hire a classic car for your De Vere stay, try the Historic & Classic-car Hirers Guild. Visit http://www.hchg.co.uk or call 0845 070 5174.

WORDS LORD CHARLIE BROCKET

PHOTOGRAPHY LADY HARRIET BROCKET

STYLING LYNNETTE PECK BATEMAN

Amid the opulence of superyacht cruising, it is easy to overlook the evident reality that your private floating palace doesn’t just have a pool, it has an ocean. Lord Brocket took his family aboard Ocean Seven, to test how much fun kids of all ages can have messing about in boats.

“After 6pm the Med always goes dead calm. This is the perfect time to play with the things that enjoy a smooth sea state, like donuts and bananas.

“ Ocean Seven has a transom integrated swim platform, which makes it easy to access the water, even for smaller children.

First, a word about the yacht. Ocean Seven is a futuristic Dr No kind of yacht. You expect all the gadgets and it has them, as well as lots of shiny bits, electric doors and plasma screens. In fact, there seemed to be about half a dozen plasma screens on the top deck, all showing different TV channels. The yacht is superbly kitted out after a brand new refit, and the inventory of water toys is fantastic.

We left Cannes and the water was a little choppy, so we headed out to the islands. You know, the Lérins Islands, with the monastery on St Honorat? You are not allowed to use the waverunners in the stretch of water between the islands, so we stayed just outside and spent several hours putting the toys – and ourselves – to the test.

The day started well with a gentle breeze and sunshine glinting off immaculately polished chrome. But then they brought out the Fly Fish.

I have a feeling that they might be going to ban the Fly Fish. They probably should. It’s one of a range of tow toys, and definitely the hardest. You need three people to make it work, but you can’t stay on it. It’s not like a horse where you can get your legs around the belly a bit! The idea is that it becomes airborne, but inevitably you fall off. If the wake shifts or a wave catches you, it flips and you end up impersonating a submarine.

The other tow toys were more fun. Donuts and bananas are just great for thrashing around and getting wet.

Then there’s the more skilled end of the spectrum, like waterskiing and wakeboarding. My eldest son, who’s a snowboarder, turned out to be very good at wakeboarding. Very impressive. For me, it’s not so much the adrenaline, as the sport. Things like waterskiing take some mastering and effort, and you can see yourself improving a lot even in a week.

Ocean Seven has a very powerful tender, which can pull pretty much anything. You can have several people waterskiing at once (as long as you all know how to do it!). That’s where you need a good crew. Whoever is driving the boat has to be very careful and get the speed just right for maximum fun (without excess risk)!

The Ocean Seven crew were great, making sure we were all fitted out with buoyancy jackets and providing wetsuits for those who wanted them. They were good humoured, patient and relaxed in their shorts and Ts, but highly professional. Everyone got a good safety run down on how to use every piece of equipment, even if you’d used it before.

Toys are great when you’ve got kids on board. They have energy to burn and don’t really get the whole ‘doing nothing’ thing. Plus, yacht food is always really good and it merits working up an appetite for. With this choice of activities there is no excuse for not doing some exercise.

Be aware that some toys are a bit high powered for the littler ones. Our nine year old guest was perfectly happy on the back of my waverunner, but I wouldn’t take someone much younger than that. You can expect the captain to lay down the law about that.

As long as you are somewhere you’re allowed to use them, waverunners and jetskis give you such freedom. You can shoot off where you want, moor the waverunner up to the dock or pop over to a friend’s yacht without having to get the main tender out every time. Of course the canoes give you independence too, but I have to admit that they are a bit tame for me. Not my cup of tea.

So at the end of a long day of fun, knowing you have not even tried the waterskiing yet, you finally relax. There you are, in the jacuzzi with a glass of champagne, the sun going down, and the last screech of a teenager jumping into the sea from a great height. Bliss.

OCEAN SEVEN

LOA: 53.5m (175.6ft)

Builder: Oceanfast, Australia

Year: 1994 (refitted 2007/2008)

Cruising speed: 15 knots

Guests: 12 guests in 6 cabins

Crew: 11

Summer 2009: Mediterranean

Charter rates: from €175, 000 per week

See pages xx for further information on Ocean Seven

Ocean Seven is under Charter Management with Burgess.

Please contact any Burgess office to obtain our brokers’ recommendations on the most family-friendly charter yachts and those with the widest selection of water toys.

OCEAN SEVEN – watersports inventory

6.5m Novurania tender with 2 x 130hp Yahama outboards

4.20m Zodiac Ribon tender with 40hp outboard (rescue boat)

2 x 3-man Seadoo Bombardier 4TEC supercharged waverunners

3-man Yamaha FX cruiser waverunner

3-man Seadoo GTX rotax waverunner

Seadoo Bombardier 3D jetski

Flying Fish 2 x 2-man canoes

Mono & duo waterskis

2 x wakeboards

2 x donuts

Banana Snorkelling equipment

If Nero fiddled while Rome burned then, with the dire state that the Cuban economy is in (let alone its people), it seemed to me that most of the island was dancing the salsa while the rest of the world was quietly, and very expensively, setting fire to the contents of their fields.

I have to say, and with some degree of smugness, that I have never smoked. However I have always loved the smell of cigars. My father died when he was thirty-two. He smoked mainly Churchill cigars and I suppose that it was the warm, fuzzy, cosy secure feeling created by the aroma that wrapped itself around me like a blanket on entering his study that is still with me today. So as I today bitch about my clothes stinking the morning after a good night out, it is because I resent the fact that my entire wardrobe reeks like a very tired railway carriage.

Touching down at Hose Marti airport, my wife was already in party mode, confident that Cuba was the epicenter of sun, rum and salsa. I, having spent time behind the Iron Curtain before its collapse, was prepared for a slightly different picture but one thing that we had in common was curiosity about our invitation to attend the $500 a head gala dinner of the Cuban cigar festival and an in depth tour of the cigar industry all the way from the fields to the display cases.

TOUCHING DOWN AT HOSE MARTI AIRPORT, MY WIFE WAS ALREADY IN PARTY MODE, CONFIDENT THAT CUBA WAS THE EPICENTER OF SUN, RUM AND SALSA

To recount our story I’ll start, as I often do, at the wrong end. Just before we left Cuba we called in at the shop attached to the oldest cigar factory in Havana founded in 1845, Partagas.

I had promised to buy a friend some cigars and in signing the bill for three boxes of Cohiba Siglo VI’s and a box of Monte Cristo Edmundos I was horrified to see that they cost a total of £820! I was paying for cigars not a ransom for my wife’s release. I realized that the chap who had served me was watching me walk out of the shop with the equivalent of ten year’s salary which I was about to set fire to solely because it was pleasurable! I couldn’t get my head around this one and so went back into the shop to give the chap a tip which amounted to three month’s salary. ‘But you don’t smoke!’ Harriet exclaimed. ‘You know that, but he doesn’t’, I said, still not making me feel any better.

So why is it that the Cubans make the world’s best cigars, in a country where people are rationed to five eggs a month, one bar of soap every six months, there is no national transport system so stopping to give lifts is mandatory, you can have the milk from a cow but eating the meat gets you twenty years in prison and industry is shot to bits? A dichotomy made worse by the fact that the price back in the UK for these cigars was almost £2000, equivalent to twenty seven years of salary for a Cuban worker!

What in God’s name makes just one of the Cohiba cigars that I brought home to my friend worth over three month’s salary? The answer lies in the sheer quality of the tobacco leaves, over one hundred and fifty processes over three years that each cigar goes through, and in excess of twenty- four man-hours needed to make each cigar. This entitles them to sport the heat-branded famous ‘Habana’ stamped on each box. If we applied UK wages to these hours each cigar would cost £144 in labour alone!

There are four main tobacco growing regions on the island but the best known is on the western end know as Vuelta Abajo, the finest cigar tobacco-growing land in the entire world. Here only a select number of farms, known as the Vegas Finas de Primera, possess the necessary rich red soil, micro-climate and extraordinary skill to produce, harvest and sort their crops prior to being delivered to the cigar factories. These are not simply farmers. They are regarded as professionals who have honed their skills with great pride over the decades.

I could have sworn that my father told me that cigars were a bunch of leaves tightly rolled between the thighs of a dusky Cuban lady. Wrong! A cigar is constructed like a house. Get it wrong and it falls apart and tastes like something you might find lying on the pavement.

First comes the ‘Filler’ section. It is comprised of three types of leaves which are blended and are the source of the rich flavours and aromas. The Ligero, picked from the top of the plant, provides richness; Seco, picked from the middle of the plant, provides the aroma, and Volado, picked from the bottom of the plant, provides the combustion. Get this wrong and you might as well put your lips round an exhaust pipe.

I COULD HAVE SWORN THAT MY FATHER TOLD ME THAT CIGARS WERE A BUNCH OF LEAVES TIGHTLY ROLLED BETWEEN THE THIGHS OF A DUSKY CUBAN LADY. WRONG!

Then comes the ‘Binder’ which is the special leaf that wraps around the filler, defining a the shape of the cigar. This is usually a large Volado leaf.

Lastly comes the ‘Wrapper’ which is the exquisitely thin and supple leaf that forms the outer surface of the cigar and has nothing to do with Afro-Caribbean dancing.

That is not all, as things are not just left to nature. Propagated as seedlings and then replanted having reached a height of 15cm, vast fields of wrapper leaves have to be grown under cover that filters the sunlight and traps the heat so the leaves grow larger. These are the most expensive to produce.

Once the leaves are harvested they are hung in barns, resembling rather sick bats, to be air cured which removes the moisture and turns the leaf golden brown. The leaves towards the top of the plant are picked a few days later and produce a darker, oilier wrapper. These wrapper leaves are then laid flat on top of each other to ferment for about a month, then sorted by size, colour and flavour categories (Ligero, Seco & Volado), packed in bales and then shipped to warehouses to age for some six months. If you are still counting the man-hours, we’ve hardly started.

Out of hibernation, the leaves are unpacked, sprayed with water and then painstakingly stripped of all their veins prior to final classification into the three categories which are then stacked into separate piles to mature for up to three months. If the inspector feels it necessary, final fermentation is completed in barrels but when complete they are compressed in a press, sewn up in bales, transported to the factories and left to age for up to two further years.

DESPITE THE OBVIOUS ECONOMIC PROBLEMS AND POVERTY, CUBAN CIGARS STAND OUT LIKE A SHINING BEACON OF PURE EXCELLENCE

Right! It’s now time for that silky-smooth inner thigh bit. I thought this might be the bright spot of my education but I regret to say that it is all much more organized than this, and has been for a long time. The leaves are unpacked from their bales and then re-energised by being steamed and moistened ready for rolling into cigars. There are four grades of rollers (Torcedores) and it takes many years of practice for a person to reach the top grade and be allowed to roll the largest and most complicated Habanos, but most of them are women. Thereby hangs the tale, or not depending on your perspective.

The graded leaves are then delivered to each work bench in the ‘Galera’, or workshop and while the torcedores go about their work a communist party official sits at a sort of teacher’s desk and reads out the official reportage of world and national events as written in the sole censored communist party newspaper. As this has been happening since 1956 it’s little wonder that Cubans want to talk to tourists as long as they are not being watched or recorded. The three filler leaves are blended according to length and girth and arranged so that smoke can pass effortlessly down the cigar. This is then rolled into the binder leaf and pressed into a mould for thirty minutes. Samples, some ten percent, are plugged into special ‘draw tester’ machines to ensure that air passes through as freely as it should.

At the end of the line there are some sixty different shade categories and cigars are checked for weight, length, girth, appearance, construction and consistency. I told you. A cigar is a house! Then a taster checks samples for draw, burn, aroma, flavour, strength and quality. If you can think of anything else to check you are on the funny stuff! The boxes are then covered with the appropriate labels for the contents, sealed with authenticity labels and stamped ‘Habanos, Hecho en Cuba totalmente a mano’ (Havanas, made in Cuba totally by hand).

And now was the evening for the gala dinner to celebrate Cuba’s most famous, and world-leading export. The culmination of the cigar festival. Football crowds looked small compared to the vast crowd dressed in dinner jackets in the receiving line. The food wasn’t important. Cigars, liberally handed out with each course, I pocketed for smoking friends because I now appreciated what they were. We were introduced to the godfather of the cigar business, eighty- seven year old Don Alejandro Robaina whose family have run the Robaina plantations since 1845, and were introduced to Fidel’s son Antonio whose film-star looks had all the ladies gaping. The company that distributes these extraordinary products in the UK is Hunters & Frankau and it was their ‘Don Alejandro’, Simon Chase, who took to the podium before the good and the great to take centre stage for the culmination of the festival, the auction of the one-off beautifully made humidors that would shortly justifiably grace various grand drawing rooms as works of art. Traditionally signed by Fidel himself, this year his signature was absent which naturally started tongues wagging. However it did not stop the prices exceeding 250,000 euros for a humidor!

Despite the obvious economic problems and poverty, Cuban cigars stand out like a shining beacon of pure excellence. And when communism fails, then what? Well other countries pay their workers the local going rate and their price is still within reach of Cuban prices. I suppose that initially the Cuban authorities will cease to take the lion’s share of profit and more will go to the ‘professionals’ of the tobacco fields but, however proud the Cubans are I feel that in time they will succumb to the commercial draw of their close neighbours, the Americans. At that time smoking generally will either come with a mandatory prison sentence or, something that is entirely possible, Cuban cigars will surpass the price of a Chateau Petrus.

Words: Lord Brocket

Images: Lady Harriet Brocket

Let’s pretend that you are a relative of ET, our friendly rubber-faced alien, and that you have just spent a few earthly minutes on-line or thumbing through directories researching hotels. You then wake up in the Prince of Wales suite at Cliveden. Clearly there has been a mistake, and earthlings are idiots. Those other establishments you’ve been looking at are places for stray cats to rest in, and obviously not hotels.

Reception announced that the 57s was waiting outside. It was not very pretty. In fact it looked fairly run-of-the-mill. Something that would not really turn heads, not the way that a Lamborghini will. If it’s so special, I wondered, why does it look so ordinary? It was also black, and by black I mean very black. Black paintwork, black leather and an interior of black piano lacquer finish with black carbon fibre reminiscent of the Ferrari F40 or the Audi RS6. I later discovered that black and silver are the only colours that this distinctive 57s comes in. Trevor, technically a chauffeur but fully trained in all sorts of other security disciplines, tootled onto the M4.

As with the Phaetons of the 1920’s and 30’s, the rear passengers have a row of three instruments mounted on the ceiling that tell you the speed, outside air temperature and time. This enables the passengers to chose between thrashing the chauffeur with a riding crop for going too fast or simply pulling their hat over their eyes. Leaving the motorway, Trevor hardly altered his speed. As a chap who has owned and driven Nikki Lauda’s Formula One Ferrari, I was seriously impressed by the way this large vehicle gobbled up the tight bends and rough surfaces in such a dismissive manner, leaving us in the back totally unperturbed.

The following morning Trevor held the door open for me to take us to The Auberge du Lac at my family home, Brocket Hall. I eased him into the back seat and, ignoring grumbles about ‘chauffeurs being expected to chauff’, belted myself in behind the wheel and lit the fuse. Time for Trevor to be on the receiving end. At this stage I would expect to preface any remarks by, ‘for a car of this size and weight..’ but the engineers have done such a thorough job of sorting out the suspension and the whole handling package that you can forget that you are driving an apartment block.

To explain the rationale behind this machine you have to examine the origins of Maybach. Wilhelm Maybach (1846–1929) was the longstanding companion of Gottlieb Daimler (1834–1900) who is accredited as producing the world’s first motorcar. In 1907 Wilhelm Maybach produced powerful engines for the airships developed by Ferdinand von Zeppelin. From 1919 Karl Maybach (1879–1960) made a name for himself by designing and producing exclusive and technically outstanding luxury cars in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance.

Around 1800 only of these high-quality vehicles were produced up to 1941, with coachwork designed and equipped precisely to customer request by specialist companies. The flagship of the Maybach model range was the model DS 8 “Zeppelin” dating from 1931. With a length of around 5.50 meters, this luxury saloon was acknowledged as the most prestigious German passenger car of its day.

So, think ‘Zeppelin’ and you will be in the right ballpark. The thrust in Trevor’s back came from a six-litre twin turbo Mercedes engine that is technically extremely advanced. Maybach are so sure of its build quality and performance that only one engineer builds each engine which then bears his signature. So if Hans has had a bad day you know whom to telephone!

The 57s reaches 62mph in 5 seconds, 124mph in 15.8 seconds and has a quoted top speed of 171mph, which is something that I don’t really believe. I think you could exceed this quite easily. More impressive though is 50 to 75mph in just 3.7 seconds which, coupled with its prodigious torque, means that overtaking is completed before you have indicated!

And the explanation for the handling? The 57s’ suspension set-up means it has fifteen percent less roll than its longer brother, has a lower ride and using the switch by the gear stick you can instantly alter the overall settings. I tried it, and it is impressive. Approaching Brocket Hall I hit a narrower and tortuous stretch of road at some speed. I quickly dialled in a different setting, felt the suspension immediately stiffen and the vehicle hunker down on the road. Trevor made some unusual noises, the car didn’t and we might as well have been on rails. Damn, those boffins are good!

The wheels are very large eleven spoke twenty-inch wheels that Maybach must have developed just to prove how speed bumps got their name. They are actually supposed to be taken at speed! In this car you cannot even feel them. Michelin, incidentally, specially developed the tyres, just for the 57s.

If safety is your worry, then don’t. Apart from the fact that anything you hit will be vaporized, the car has ten airbags. Stemming from lessons learnt in aircraft crashes where serious injuries occur not so much as a result of dramatic deceleration on impact but due to the subsequent recoil back into the seat, the 57s’s rear seats come forward with the passenger thus preventing the ‘recoil’ injury. Now that’s smart!

Don’t even discuss comfort! Whereas the new Rolls Royce seats resemble an elevated sofa with insufficient headroom, this car cannot be faulted. The seats are cooled and heated, shaped from any direction and can massage you all day. One thing you’ll never do is overheat because this is the only car that I know of that has two air- conditioning units. One for the front and one for the rear and when the car is unattended a solar panel in the roof keeps the interior cool. And if you can’t be bothered to go clubbing, don’t worry because the club will come to you. This thing has a 600-watt Bose surround sound system for every seat!

Hell, this car doesn’t even have a spare tyre. Why? Because wherever you are in the world Maybach technicians will turn out and change it for you, at the same time producing alternative transport (another Maybach, top-end Mercedes S Class or a helicopter) to get you to your destination without undue delay. Their aim is simple; the passenger comes before the car. Similarly the car comes with a four-year maintenance and service package free of charge.

If you feel an external threat, the button in the central rear console, which operates like the launch button for a nuclear missile, can be programmed to any source of rapid assistance. This could be routed through to the nearest police station, although that might be unwise as the call is unlikely to coincide with the eight minutes a day when the station is manned. However, in combination with the car’s tracker, assistance could be fairly immediate.

OK, so bottom line. What does it cost? Well if the bean counters fret about the Prince Regent’s suite at Cliveden by comparing it with one at the Intercontinental, then the conversation stops here. They would say that an item that is only twenty percent better than something that is excellent anyway should only cost twenty percent more. Wrong. When something is very good, to make it just a little bit better requires a hugely disproportionate investment in time, energy and research. Any Formula One team will tell you this. Result? A top of the range S Class Mercedes costs £101,000 but the 57s, using all that Mercedes has to offer, costs £289,000. A mere 186 percent more! Only now did I understand why the body design was so low-key. Buyers of this car have sufficient wealth not to have to drive around in a Batmobile that screams ‘Hey you, look at me!’ They buy these cars because they know they do what they do better than any other car in the world.

While my driver on day two was waiting outside Bentley & Skinner an Irish pedestrian stopped, squinted at the double ‘M’ mascot on the bonnet and said, ‘Would you tell me what sort of a car that this is now?’ ‘Ah,’ replied Frankie, our driver for the day, ‘that stands for “Mean Machine”’. After screwing his face up to digest this, he muttered, ‘Sure, I know it well, so I do,’ and then sauntered off rather unsteadily repeating, ‘To be sure, it’s a Mean Machine, a Mean Machine.’

Audi have their RS6, BMW have their M5 and Maybach have the 57s. For those who want the best, price is irrelevant.

Words: Lord Brocket

Images: Harriet Brocket

How many people own a Monet and really know about his life and what inspired the artist? How many wealthy people who own a Botticelli or a Titian actually don’t know what happened during the Renaissance to give birth to the movement that created these incredible works of art? And do the owners actually realise the importance of these works in a global context? I suspect not all.

The fact is that everything has to start from somewhere and so it occurred to me that for those of you who appreciate the qualities of Mercedes-Benz automobiles I might remind you of one particular giant in the world of automotive engineering that gave Mercedes the reputation that it has today. The mighty SSK, built in 1929, was a legend and acknowleged at the time as the fastest sports racing car on the planet.

Whilst I was serving in my regiment, the 14th/20th King’s Hussars, in Germany in the early 1970s I, like many fellow officers, failed to resist the pleasures of Paris. It was on one of these visits that I stood back, more with a sense of puzzlement than wonder, to take in the emerging shape of the Pompidou Centre. An extraordinary building for its time, designed by the up-and-coming British architect Richard (later Lord) Rogers. Extraordinary because so much of the building’s structural steel work and was on the outside of the building rather than concealed within.

Some months later I met Lord Rogers at a function and when asked what I thought of it I replied, “I’ll be able to tell you when all the scaffolding has been removed…. but I’m told that if it is the whole building will collapse.”

Most cars have an engine. The SSK is an engine that has a car, if you see what I mean, and flowing from the front of the machine are three huge polished exhaust pipes that were simply too massive or awkward to tuck neatly away somewhere. Just like the Pompidou Centre. Slap all the inconvenient stuff on the outside and tell them it’s art, or the new way of doing things.

AS I GOT OUT OF MY CAR I KNEW INSTANTLY THAT I WAS, WITHOUT A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ONE AND ONLY PURE SSK ON THE FACE OF THIS EARTH. AS I APPROACHED IT WAS CLEAR THAT THE PATINA OF THE COMPONENTS, THE AGE OF THE LEATHER INTERIOR AND THE CRACKED BLACK LACQUER OF THE DASHBOARD SCREAMED ‘ORIGINALE’!

Not being an expert on SSKs I read up on the marque before leaving London to see, unfortunately, the only example in the UK. In 1929, the blurb said, the factory started building 31 of these awesome machines, although a further six may have been assembled. Of these, only five are considered ‘good’ cars that are close to original, and only one car in the whole world is known to have been entirely built by Mercedes, is absolutely original and is as it left the factory all those years ago. Values? Anything from £1/2m for cobbled together cars to an estimated £10m plus for the one and only original car. In the UK in 2004 one was sold for over £4m that had a British body fitted to it. I reminded myself to be diplomatic to the kind owner of whatever this car was that I was about to see.

THE STEERING IS INCREDIBLY LIGHT AND AS FOR THE ENGINE… WELL IT’S A MIND BOGGLING 7.1 LITRES AND SUPERCHARGED! THE RESULT IS NOT JUST 350 HORSEPOWER BUT A WHOPPING 507 LBS/FT OF TORQUE

I arrived at the rear of the farmhouse and the cream coloured SSK was sitting there on the grass. Together with Stirling Moss I have judged cars all over the world, including Pebble Beach.

This legendary model was designed by Ferdinand Porsche and originally built as a very fast four- seater, designated ‘SS’ – somewhat unfortunate considering the war that was soon to break out. In Germany at that time hill climbs were almost more prestigious events than circuit racing and so a shorter (Kurz) chassis two- seater was built, designated the ‘SSK’. The following year a lightened car, the ‘SSKL’ was developed to be raced by such titans as Rudi Caracciola. The car was extraordinary for many reasons, as I was shortly to experience! The chassis was not developed from a removal truck but behaved beautifully on the road and at speed; the car is very well balanced, the steering is incredibly light and as for the engine… well it’s a mind boggling 7.1 litres and supercharged! The result is not just 350 horsepower but a whopping 507 lbs/ft of torque.

This unique machine was delivered to Roy Lewis in the UK in January 1931 and is the only one to have been bodied at the factory. The car passed to the present owner, Julian, in the mid 1970’s and he has been meticulous in ensuring that nothing whatsoever is done to alter its originality. So, as this mobile PowerStation was dubbed the ‘Mighty Mercedes’, and bearing in mind that Julian told me that it was mechanically as good as it was when it left the factory, I fully intended to find out if it deserved its title. After all, the car is regularly driven across Europe so at least it worked!

Julian eased himself in sideways round the handbrake to slide his legs under the imposing steering wheel. Only then could I slot myself in the passenger seat, slightly set back to allow the driver elbowroom. Ignition on, timing retarded on the steering boss control, a few quick pumps to pressurise the fuel tank, a pause then the vast motor erupted into life. Timing advanced, into first and off we go. Once out of first the box is remarkably nimble and the gears very close. I almost expected second to be amongst the spare tyres and third to be somewhere on the front mudguard. On this car you can adjust the front and rear shock absorbers by adjusting two valves that contain glycerin and water and as Julian stiffened the set-up he applied more power. Turning round I noticed with some amusement that Harriet was unable to keep up in the Audi A8. Then the supercharger kicked in and it seemed the Devil had let out a scream like a wailing banshee as the massive three-pointed star on the bonnet parted cars before us as if Moses was taking his people to the Promised Land in a real hurry!

As we left the next village I looked down and saw the rev counter at 2200, over 100mph, as Julian expertly put the machine, supercharger wailing, into the right hand bend. As he did so he said, “Look, the steering is so light that all that is needed is one finger each side of the wheel!” I was more interested in the poor sods coming the other way and idly wondering about the pathetically thin tyres. “So disgusted with the Dunlop tyres that I started a tyre company to make my own. I christened these ‘Blockley’ tyres”. This guy is a perfectionist. The brakes were excellent, even by today’s standards, and as we pulled to a stop and we talked about torque, he said, “Let me show you what torque is,” and with that he put the car in first, let the revs die to 50rpm, let the clutch out and the smoothly accelerated away! Most cars tick over at 750rpm and if you let the clutch out it stalls!

Later my Audi A8 caught up. If cars could talk I would love to have been a spanner on the wall just then. This machine is quite simply awesome. ‘The Mighty Mercedes’ is an understatement and the fact that it is just the way it was, in every detail, back in 1931 and it drives the way it does rightly explains why this legend is, at in excess of £10 million pounds, the world’s most valuable car. So when you slip behind the wheel of your air- conditioned ‘S Class’ or McLaren Mercedes remember the source of its genes. This was where it all started.

Words: Lord Brocket

Images: Lady Harriet Brocket

‘I  am  thrilled  to  have the children back. Family matters so much through good times and bad’

Lord and Lady Brocket are joined at their restored French farmhouse by Charlie’s children by his former marriage: William, 17, Alex, 23, and 20-year-old Antalya. Deceptively spacious on the inside, the property overlooks

Lord and Lady Brocket are relishing a family breakfast on their terrace high in the hills above Cannes. Their beautiful retreat, which enjoys breathtaking views over 60km of the Cote d’Azur, is where Charles and Harriet married two years ago and the house has since been lovingly restored. But more significant for the couple is that they’ve been joined in France by Lord Brocket’s three children by his former wife, the model Isa Lorenzo.

It’s been a somewhat rocky road for the 56-year-old British peer, who was jailed in the 1990s for conspiracy to defraud. His children departed to live with his wife’s family in Puerto Rico, where Isa continued to battle with her addiction to painkillers.

Since his release from prison, Lord Brocket has competed on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! and gained a reputation for a colourful life. Even after meeting photographer Harriet, who is 23 years his junior, he freely admits he was struggling to commit.

But after a tempestuous courtship that was chronicled eagerly in the gossip columns, they finally married and are now blissfully content. Better still, Alex, 23, Antalya, 20, and William, 17, have all returned to England, where they are happily crammed into their father’s bachelor flat in London.

“I am thrilled to have the children back as a family unit,” declares Lord Brocket, who is universally known as Charlie. “Family matters so much through good times and bad, and for them to be a tight-knit unit is so important. Harriet and I are trying to give them as stable surroundings as possible to help them progress in their lives.”

His wife is clearly relieved that Charlie’s children are together again. “I’m only ten years older than Alex and I think the children see me as a bridge to their father sometimes,” she says. “Before we got married the only reason we argued was because of the children – not because we had differing views but because we were under pressure. It was quite tricky at first, but I am more relaxed than I was before.”

CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN

The family have also resolved another bone of contention – Harriet’s desire to have children of her own. “It was a big issue surrounding our being together as I didn’t know if Charlie wanted any more children, but now he is more ready than I am,” she explains. “I wasn’t going to marry anyone who didn’t want children. Who knows, I might not be able to have them, but you have to at least try.

“I am not in a hurry, as I am only 33, but when Charlie has made a decision he kind of wants it to happen now,” she continues. “I know he will be a brilliant dad. I have just got to come up with the goods. The best bit is the practising!”

Charlie, whose children spent their early childhood at his family’s ancestral home, Brocket Hall, near Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, adds: “I know what to expect as I was much more hands-on than a lot of dads, as I worked at home. The other thing was that Isa wasn’t very well, so I used to do a lot of school runs and would get up in the night to change nappies.”

For the meantime, however, he has had his hands full restoring his farmhouse in France. “We didn’t want to have one of those showy second homes that are so common around here,” says Charlie. “We wanted to have something interesting. If you arrive at the back gate it looks tiny, fun and funky, but round the front you can see it’s much bigger.”

The 300-year-old property is not as impressive as Brocket Hall, from which Charlie now derives a healthy income after leasing it to a business consortium on a long-term basis (it will eventually revert to the family). But the French home already evokes strong emotions in the couple, who married in its gardens in June 2006. “We took possession of the house five weeks before the wedding, which is why it is evocative of the ceremony for us,” says Harriet. “Every time we drive up to the house we think about the wedding.”

“And we remember funny moments, such as waiting for the vicar, who was late,” laughs Charlie. “The choir had sung all their quiet numbers so they thought, ‘What the heck!’ and started singing Gershwin.”

Since the wedding the couple have opened up the house to the views, creating larger rooms with sliding doors on to the terrace. Tiled white floors and white paintwork have been replaced with stone flags and vibrant colours, particularly in the bedrooms – each of which is themed according to the different countries that have figured in their lives.

They also love the location of the house, close to the motorway: “We can go one way to Monaco and Italy, or the other way to Barcelona. And 60km north of us is the skiing at Isola, the last place to lose the snow,” Charlie says.

‘I can’t wait to have mini-Harriets. I’m just a big kid myself!’

The farmhouse contains many artefacts the couple have collected on their travels – including from India, where they spent their honeymoon. Below: Harriet and Charlie on their wedding day in the gardens of their

ROOM TO GROW

Harriet has another reason to relish the house. “When I moved into Charlie’s London flat there was no room for me, even though Charlie didn’t have any of his children living there like he does now,” she explains. “We both knew we wanted to do up the house during the first two years of our marriage, to create a base for the family. We are all so squashed in the London flat that we wanted this to be a real family home.”

When HELLO! comes to call, it’s the first time that the couple have been in France with all three children since the wedding. Alex lived in Puerto Rico before coming back to England to read international business at Bristol University and has returned from a year working in Beijing. “Even though Spanish is probably my first language now, I feel very English and will definitely live here once I finish working in China,” he says.

Antalya has decided not to follow her mother into modelling but plans to study creative writing at university, and William is studying at an American school just outside London.

“William is a delightful chap, he just enjoys life generally,” says Charlie, who says he hopes his children will discover the world. “None of us can understand how, with everything that has happened, he is so level headed.”

Antalya is visibly delighted that her brothers are also back in England. “Dad and Harriet went off to Morocco for a party and left William and me in the house here on our own. Afterwards he said it was like being married to me! I loved having that time alone with him. I am so happy he is back.”

Now, mindful that they don’t intend to spend more than 40 per cent of the year at their French house – the rest of the time they plan to rent it out to friends – Harriet and Charlie are also thinking about buying a home outside London so that they have space for an expanding family.

“I can’t wait to have mini-Harriets,” says Charlie with a laugh. “I’m just a big kid myself!”

‘Having a baby is the most exciting thing you can do as a couple and it sets the seal on our relationship’

Harriet Brocket stands in a private suite at Cliveden looking in amaze- ment at her expanding stomach. She’s only three months pregnant but could be at least halfway through her term. “Charlie thought there must be at least four babies in there,” she laughs.

Fortunately for the new Lady Brocket, last week’s scan proved her husband wrong. “I have to say, I’m relieved there’s only one,” she says. “It was so amazing to see the baby. It has quite long legs so it’s definitely a Brocket.

“I’d like a boy and a girl,” she adds, as Charlie nods. “We intend to find out what we’re having at the 20-week scan in April.”

It’s 34-year-old Harriet’s first baby, but Lord Brocket – a TV personality, writer and now co-owner of Brocket Hall Foods – already has three children, Alex, 24, Antalya, 21, and William, 17, from his first marriage to model Isa Lorenzo.

“They are all thrilled at the prospect of a new addition to the family, particularly Antalya, who’d like another girl to balance the numbers out,” says Harriet.

Lord and Lady Brocket celebrated Harriet’s pregnancy at Cliveden in Berkshire, once the home of the Astor family and now a luxury hotel. It has special meaning for the couple as it marked a turning point in a tempestuous relationship that many of their friends never thought would lead to marriage.

Lord and Lady Brocket celebrate their baby news by taking a break at Cliveden in Berkshire. The luxury hotel has special meaning for the couple as they stayed there when photographer Harriet, 34, come out of hospital after suffering from toxoplasmosis. It marked a turning point in their tempestuous relationship. “I’d been coming and going in Harriet’s life but I took her 31 under my wing when she was seriously ill,” says the 57-year- old I’m a Celebrity… star

LOVING CARE

The newspaper diary pages chronicled their ups and downs, from their split after Charlie’s appearance on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me out of Here! to a “minor disagree- ment” over Charlie’s autobiography (he offered her the rights as proof of his devotion then changed his mind). But it was after Harriet fell seriously ill with toxoplasmosis that the relationship became more settled.

“I’d been coming and going in Harriet’s life but I took her under my wing when she was seriously ill, as the doctors were having real problems identifying what was wrong,” Charlie says. “I found an expert from Soweto who confirmed she was suffering from toxoplasmosis and it was a question of waiting for her to get better.”

When Harriet was discharged from hospital, Charlie picked her up but, instead of taking her home to his flat in West London, he whisked her off to Cliveden to begin her recuperation.

“We stayed in the Prince of Wales suite for a weekend and I spent much of the time feeling very weak,” recalls Harriet, a feisty blonde who isn’t overshadowed by Charlie’s exuberant character. “However, I rallied enough on the second night to have dinner at Waldo’s in the cellars. It was the most amazing meal I’ve ever had.”

The couple tied the knot at their home in the South of France in 2006 but resisted starting a family immediately.

“When you’re married to an older man, everyone thinks you should get on with having a baby, but Charlie and I wanted to enjoy life beforehand,” says Harriet, a travel photographer. “The fact is Charlie is going to be an older father so it doesn’t really matter what age he is when the child is born.”

So does 57-year-old Charlie feel daunted by the prospect of a new baby? On the contrary, he’s genuinely looking forward to it. He says he was fairly hands on with his other children as he worked at home and his ex-wife wasn’t well, and claims he’s an expert at changing nappies and doing school runs. “Anyway, Harriet says I’m a big kid myself so at least I’ll have someone to play with,” he chuckles.

Harriet is certain the baby was conceived when the couple were on holiday at Kizingoni Beach in Lamu, off the Kenyan coast. Harriet’s father had just remarried at the age of 70 and the whole family went on holiday to celebrate.

“On New Year’s Day in France I had a feeling I was pregnant, so while everyone was sleeping off the effects of the night before I did a test,” she says. “Charlie was still in bed with a hangover when I told him a baby Brocket was on the way. All he could mutter was, ‘Oh good, we’ll have to go shopping, there are lots of things to buy,’ before going back to sleep.”

‘Charlie was in bed with a hangover when I told him a baby Brocket was on the way. All he could muster was, “We’ll have to go shopping’

A STRUGGLE TO COMMIT

Many of Charlie’s friends are surprised he has chosen to have another child.

“I don’t think he’d thought as hard about having children with his ex-wife, it was the next thing to do,” says Harriet. “But because of the way our relationship unfolded he had to make that decision, and because Charlie has had a turbulent past he wanted to be sensible on this one.”

“I always knew Harriet was the one for me – I just fought it hard,” says Charlie. “As a single man I maintained an independent lifestyle with a good standard of living. Life was great, with no responsibilities. To give up your independence and commit is one thing all blokes struggle with. I was inclined to commit for two to three months – a holiday rent rather than a mortgage!

“I also had to consider whether I wanted another family, as Harriet wanted children. If I didn’t I had to tell her so, and I had to stop coming back to her like a boomerang. But in the end I relished the prospect of more kids with her.”

Charlie proposed to Harriet several times and she refused him, unsure whether he was serious. “In the end I accepted as I knew he’d worked out his demons. Now we have the proof,” she says, patting her tum.

They’re still living in Charlie’s bachelor pad by the Thames, although the elder children have moved to a nearby flat as it was becoming increasingly cramped with four adults over 6ft tall.

Although they were away for some of their formative years, Alex, Antalya and William are close to their dad. They were 11, eight and four when Charlie was imprisoned for insurance fraud, and they left England to live with their mother in her native Puerto Rico.

“It’s a great pity that I wasn’t there for my first three kids in the formative years as I was in Her Majesty’s hotel,” says Charlie, referring to the two and a half years he spent in jail.

“I feel hugely guilty but it’s not eating me up as you can’t ‘unhappen’ it. However, I’m trying to do a lot now to make up for it. They often feel I’m being rather strict with them but it’s to bring them back on course to where they’d have been with a functioning father and mother in the same house.

“I also feel sad that they haven’t had what my next child will have but there’s nothing I can do about it. We have talked about it and it’s just one of those things.”

‘When you’re married to an older man, everyone thinks you should get on with having a baby but Charlie and I wanted to enjoy life beforehand’

ON THE MOVE

Charlie had built up his ancestral home, Brocket Hall, as a conference venue but has leased it until 2056 to a German consortium that will run the conference and golf business that Charlie set up. If the lease goes the full term, his heir Alex will be 71 years old.

Meanwhile Charlie and Harriet decided to buy their home on the French Riviera, completing on the house five weeks before their wedding. They spend four months of the year in France, but this year plan to rent out the house as Harriet wants to make sure she gives birth in England – her due date is 9 September. “A 999 baby,” laughs Charlie.

The couple have also been looking for a large family home outside London to accommodate the growing number of Brockets. Harriet would like somewhere with a garden and where the older children will be able to spend weekends.

For six weeks of her pregnancy she will have to do without her husband, however, who’s off on a motorbike trip with seven friends. “We’d already started making arrangements when she found out she was pregnant and she wouldn’t let me cancel it,” he says. The 9,500-mile journey will take them anticlockwise around the Mediterranean, starting in France and taking in areas from the Gaza strip to Bosnia – and as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites as possible.

“A mate arranged for Harley Davidson to lend me a bike,” says Charlie, who’s relishing the prospect of life on the open road. “The Hells Angels had already lent me a ‘Fat Boy’ to leave jail to avoid the paparazzi. It was fantastic – it had Born to Be Wild pumping through the headphones.”

As the trip falls in the middle months of her pregnancy, Harriet plans to visit friends and take time to prepare herself for motherhood, although she will visit Charlie in Syria for a few days.

“I’ll find out the baby’s sex while he’s away and I’ll ring him to let him know,” says Harriet. “I don’t mind whether I know or not but Charlie wants to plan ahead.

“It’s scary and I have moments of being slightly overwhelmed by the whole idea of becoming a parent. But Charlie and I have a great partnership and I see this as something we’re very much doing together. Having a baby is the most exciting thing you can do as a couple and it sets the seal on our relationship.”

It’ll be Harriet’s first baby but Charlie already has three children by his former marriage – William, 17, Alex, 24, and Antalya, 21 (left, with Lord and Lady Brocket at their house in the South of France). “They’re all thrilled at the prospect of a new addition, particularly Antalya, who’d like another girl to balance out the numbers,” says Harriet. Charlie’s looking forward to becoming a dad again. “Harriet says I’m a big kid myself so I will have someone to play with,” he chuckles

Harriet and Charlie, who married in France in June (top left), spent part of their honeymoon at the Devi Garh Fort Palace. The 18th-century landmark, now a hotel, is where Elizabeth Hurley is rumoured to be getting married

‘We’ve been able to experience the sights, sounds and colours of rural India in a way that will stay with us all our lives’

In 2004, Charlie survived the jungle in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! – so riding a camel on his dawn trek from Devi Garh posed few challenges for the peer. The couple were making their way to an historic hunting tower

Harriet and Charlie were keen to absorb some of India’s culture. Relaxing at Devi Garh, in a room decorated in blue marble, the new Lady Brocket wears a locally bought kaftan (above); and Charlie is anointed with a tikka (a painted dot) as they arrive at another of their honeymoon hotels (below)

Sitting in the Devi Garh Fort Palace in India, the new Lady Brocket looks radiant. The colours on her Indian kaftan perfectly match the blue marble surrounding her, and by her side is new husband Lord Charles Brocket, the former I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! contestant. She has plenty of reason to be happy as, on honeymoon in one of the most romantic locations in the world, Harriet is at last getting to spend three weeks alone with Charlie after four months of marriage.

Now an author, television presenter and journalist, Charlie Brocket, 54, and 31-year-old photographer Harriet formalised their frequently tempestuous relationship in June – but decided not to go on honeymoon immediately. The couple, whose on- off courtship – during which Harriet once famously tried to sue Charlie – featured regularly in the gossip columns, felt it was important to spend time with Charlie’s children from his first marriage at their new house in the South of France, where the wedding took place. Alex, 22, has been studying at Bristol University, Antalya, 19, is spending her gap year modelling in England, and William, 15, lives with his mother, the former model Isa Lorenzo, in Puerto Rico.

“We felt it wasn’t right to rush off leaving the children in a new home in France while we were gallivanting in India,” says Harriet. “We opted to spend the summer with them and then go away, which was ideal, as this past year has been so full- on. We wanted to be able to disappear for a good length of time without feeling we should be doing something else and for that reason alone, it’s been a complete luxury.”

Sitting over dinner by the moonlit lake they seem relieved to be man and wife at last. The age difference of 23 years is not apparent at all in their demeanour – “Charlie is just an overgrown child,” says his wife teasingly – and they have revelled in the heady sensuality of seven-star hotels and the sights and sounds of the sub-continent.

They started their romantic trip at perhaps the best-known of India’s tourist attractions, the Taj Mahal in Agra. “I have seen pictures of it all my life but to be standing there feeling the marble under my feet was amazing,” Harriet says. “At our resort, the Oberoi Amarvilas, we were upgraded to the Presidential [Kohinoor] Suite, which was so huge it had four front doors and its own staff flat – when the butler rang the bell we didn’t know which door to open and we kept losing each other in the suite!”

After two days at Agra the couple began their tour of Rajasthan, the ancient province that epitomises the grandeur and heritage of India. Fortresses, palaces and temples rise from the landscape, monuments to the courtly yet warrior-like past of the ruling families. Many of the palaces are now converted into luxury hotels, and while Harriet and Charlie visited the most famous of these, they also wanted to absorb some of the culture.

A highlight of the honeymoon was a visit to the Taj Lake Palace hotel, a vision in white marble that sits in the middle of Lake Pichola in Udaipur. As a romantic touch, for their champagne cruise around the lake, Harriet donned the Jenny Packham dress she wore to her civil wedding ceremony at the town hall near their new home in the South of France, which preceded a more formal private blessing

‘The past year has been so full-on, we wanted to be able to disappear. It’s been a complete luxury’

“We both love places with lots of colours, smells, activities and madness. It was one of the reasons we chose India,” Harriet says. “Neither of us is good at doing nothing for long and we wanted somewhere we could really experience.”

Charlie adds: “We were guided sometimes by members of the royal families who had once ruled these lands and they taught us about Indian culture in a way we would never have learned otherwise. They all have an incredibly aristocratic bearing – they are tall and always good-looking and athletic – and they work hard like I did at my ancestral home Brocket Hall when I ran it as a conference centre. They showed us how the rural Indians use and irrigate the land and how their villages and society are constructed. That was really very special.”

Staying at the Devi Garh Fortress Palace – now a luxury hotel where Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar are rumoured to be getting married – they made a dawn trip by camel to view the historic hunting tower. They played elephant polo at Dera Amer where they were saluted by a regimental band, before being taken on an elephant safari for a romantic candlelit dinner at a rural temple. “It was extraordinary – six immaculately dressed staff appeared out of nowhere to give us the most beautifully presented meal,” recalls Charlie. “On another occasion we had an evening repast at a temple where a sitar player serenaded us under a full moon. We have been able to experience the sights, sounds and colours of rural India in way that will stay with us all our lives.”

Standing in the Grand Presidential Suite of the hotel, Charlie wears a tailor-made jacket and Harriet a Lindka Cierach gown. “Because we were formally dressed, all the locals thought we were starring a film,” he jokes

‘People are already asking us when we’re having children. But we aren’t in any rush. I want to focus on us for a while’

But it was the Taj Lake Palace hotel in Udaipur, a vision in white marble sitting in the middle of the lake, which proved to be the most memorable part of the trip. Made famous in the Bond film Octopussy, its visitor book includes royalty and Hollywood celebrities. “I felt I should have a white dinner jacket, and it got lots of use,” Charlie says. “We got double-takes from tourists and locals as Harriet wore her beautiful Lindka Cierach gowns and we looked as if we were from another era. Because we were formally dressed, we went out on the town and all the locals thought we were starring in a film!”

Their travels took them to Jodhpur, where Harriet caught up with her old university friend, the city’s Crown Prince Shivraj Singh, who is recovering from a near-fatal polo accident last year. “Shivraj gave me a very odd look when I told him that while he had been at college with my wife, I had been at school with his father,” laughs Old Etonian Charlie. “I’m not sure whether he quite believed me.”

In Jaipur they shopped for antiques for the new house in France. “We spent a couple of hours in each emporium bargaining heavily,” says Charlie. “We found old pieces including some beautiful silver- and enamel-plated doors.”

Following his prison term for attempted fraud in the 1990s, Charlie decided to lease his lavish Hertford- shire home, Brocket Hall, to a private company and it won’t return to his family’s control for another 49 years. So for the time being, the house in France will become their main family home, with the couple spending several months of the year there when not residing in their London flat. They have furnished much of the French property with bargains from London’s auction houses, but they are also creating themed rooms to incorporate Harriet’s ethnic pieces collected on her photographic trips.

“We went to a birthday party in Morocco last November so we bought a lot of items out there, and we are doing an Arizona room because Charlie’s daughter Antalya was at school out there,” says Harriet. “Some things we are taking our time over, like the Indian bathroom with lots of marble, little arches and stained-glass windows, and the Thai bathroom with its banana-leaf tiles.”

Their three weeks alone on honey- moon have been a welcome finale to a year that has been intensely busy. “The house should be finished by June so it will have taken just over 12 months,” says Harriet. “But that’s not too bad considering we bought it only weeks before the wedding, then we had the children for the summer and now we are here in India. It’s going to be great to get our lives back on an even keel and just get on with being married.

“There’s something very different about being married,” she adds. “It’s hard to put your finger on it – it’s a sense of being complete and doing everything for the greater good of the couple and, in our case, the team. I definitely feel more settled as we are building our future together.

“People are already asking us when we are having children. It was such a big issue surrounding our being together, as I didn’t know if Charlie wanted another family and I knew I did. But we aren’t in any rush. The fact remains that Charlie is going to be an older father and he is planning to be around for a long time yet, so I want to focus on us for a while.”

As well as getting used to living together, they are also beginning to work together, Charlie writing travel pieces to accompany Harriet’s pictures. His new wife, meanwhile, is learning car photography to illustrate her husband’s motoring articles. “She thought it would be dull taking pictures of cars but she’s getting in to it,” Charlie laughs. “I guess it’s teamwork and that’s what Harriet andIarenow–ateam!”

Lord and Lady Brocket sip cocktails as they watch the dramatic sunset over the mountains at Devi Garh Fort Palace. The couple relished being able to spend a few uninterrupted weeks together after their most eventful year