Book description
The parents of Anthony Armstrong-Jones (he was given the title Earl of
Snowdon in 1961) were very different. He was Welsh to his fingertips,
she an exotic mixture of English and Jewish. They divorced when he was
five and Tony's relationship with his aloof glittering mother never recovered.
His inventiveness was soon apparent, at Eton and then Cambridge, where
as cox in 1950 he designed a new rudder for his (winning) Boat Race
crew. The engagement of this motorbike-riding freelance photographer in
1960 to Princess Margaret was a bombshell. Friends privately predicted
disaster. And so it proved. But meanwhile in the 1960s, mixing with
actors, artists and pop stars, they were the epitome of stylish and
unstuffy arts-loving Royals. Along with John and Jackie Kennedy or
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, they were one of the iconic
glamorous couples of that era.
Tony continued to work and both began to have affairs. They divorced in
1978, the first royal divorce since Henry VIII divorced Anne of Cleves
in 1540. Snowdon married again but this marriage collapsed after the
birth of a secret love-child in 1998 and the suicide in 1996 of his
mistress of twenty years, Anne Hill.
His low boredom threshold and waspish cruelty are balanced by his
fabled charm and genuine concern for the disabled and underpriviledged.
One of the great British photographers, up there with Beaton, Bailey
and Parkinson, at 76 he now suffers from a recurrence of childhood polio
and needs sticks or wheelchair to get around. But by any standards he
has had an extraordinary life. Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer
with a long career in journalism, most recently with the DAILY MAIL, for
whom she did interviews, historical features and book reviews, as well
as editing a page on readers' dilemmas. She lives in London and
Gloucestershire.
