The Life and Death of Lord Erroll: The Truth Behind the Happy Valley Murder. Errol Trzebinski
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debts, and somewhat symbolically the oak collapsed.
Lady Kilmarnock’s hoard of cuttings from The Times and other newspapers constitutes more than milestones in the professional life of Joss’s father: they are indications of her pride and affection, her steadfast interest in everything undertaken by ‘Vic’, be it the landing of a fine salmon, speaking well in public, shooting the largest stag of the season or receiving a good book review. Their annual interludes in Scotland contrasted sharply with life on the Continent. Once the royals had departed for Balmoral and Parliament was in recess, just before the Glorious Twelfth, Joss’s family partook of gentlemanly pursuits, taking to the glorious tracts of heather to stalk, to shoot and to fish – luxuries that drained the Hay purses like those of other old Scottish lairds.19 Joss’s father went deerstalking at Braichie Ballater, a village on Deeside near Balmoral. His wife faithfully recorded Vic’s prowess and annual bag: ‘Spittal Beat 1 stag 13 stone 13 pounds = 6 points’ or ‘Horne Beat 1 stag 15 stone = 7 points’.20
Blood sports would leave Joss cold – one cannot help but wonder whether his repulsion for killing began in Scotland with the display of these huge dead beasts. He was never squeamish, but unlike his father or his contemporaries he would never kill for the sake of killing.
In the sincere belief that he was preparing his son for the wilder excesses of the Scottish calendar – ‘Burns’ Night, the St Andrew’s Ball at Grosvenor House, the Caledonian Ball, and of course Hogmanay – Lord Kilmarnock introduced him to whisky before he was six. ‘Have a sip,’ he would say whenever the decanter was lifted while Joss was in the room. But Joss did not want a sip.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Come on, just a little sip,’ cajoled his father. ‘Try.’
‘No, thank you, sir.’
‘Just try.’
His father’s ‘lessons’, while well intentioned, constituted an early conflict, and since often the first exercise of power is in denying someone something, it is not difficult to imagine Joss’s private satisfaction when he discovered that one could reject a request, even from one’s father. However, since the boy was well mannered, he would eventually give in and take a sip, just to have done with the matter. That scene was to be re-enacted many times. Joss’s acute sensitivity to smell meant that he was never able to stomach the odour, let alone the taste, of whisky. His adult drinking habits would be confined to the occasional sip of wine, and even then, more as a courtesy to others who were drinking than for his own pleasure.21
For all his delicacy in the matter of hunting and drinking, no one ever called Joss faint-hearted. He would become an excellent shot, riding well and hard on the polo field; and by the age of seven, when in England, he rode to hounds with his parents, going out with packs such as the Marquess of Exeter’s – accompanying them at Guthrie, Lumley Castle, Burghley House and Clifton Hall. Once the choice was his alone, he preferred going out on foot with draghounds or playing ball games – polo, football, squash racquets, tennis and cricket – and he would excel at each.22
As time went by, Joss’s brother and sister could not help noticing that Joss was the apple of his mother’s eye. No doubt she loved all three deeply, but her partiality eroded any chance there might have been of Joss and Gilbert being close. Their aloofness towards one another affected Rosemary too. Joss was unshaken by their baby sister’s arrival. Nearly four years old when she was born, he was already certain of his place, tending to feel more loved, more sure and more deserving of his mother’s attention than either of his siblings. Not surprisingly, Gilbert and Rosemary grew closer, regarding themselves as a pair. Enjoined against Joss, they may actually have had an easier ride as youngsters, and they would remain close as adults, although by then Joss had disappeared to Africa. Gilbert would become a quiet, reliable family man – to an almost plodding degree – never quite managing to live down the differences between himself and the more flamboyant Joss.
Joss’s interest in clothes and dressing up was due in part to his father’s interest in things Thespian – dancing, literature, music, costume and even lighting. Naturally, all productions by the Kilmarnocks were put on for charity. Joss was the audience to everything in rehearsal at home and thus became au fait with the underpinnings of stage production. In plays such as ‘Le Cours de Danse de Monsieur Pantalon’ his parents performed the Highland schottische in kilts for ‘the assembled distinguished company of Viennese society’. Joss’s father adapted this entertainment from the classic Harlequin and it would become integral to Joss’s Christmas activities. Lady Kilmarnock’s fund-raising in Brussels was undertaken with a Monseigneur and Madame Le Comte de Flandre, with whom, heading the Committee for the Scotch Kirk, she instigated fetes, ‘fancy fairs’, dinners, balls and masquerades. Joss developed his astonishing eye for detail as a child through watching his parents as they debated issues such as: should Harlequin dress in the ‘torn’ or in the ‘patched’, or in the stylised Victorian pantomime costume?23
Joss would soon slip into playing, posing and speaking in the style of whichever country he and his family happened to be living in. At home he was encouraged to cast inhibitions away; because he was funny his parents enlisted him to mimic or join in as the adults went through their lines, singing songs and doing dance routines. The importance of make-up, lighting and – most vital of all for an actor – timing Joss learned from his father, as well as how to draw upon the classics, recasting men in drag, setting an ancient piece in modern costume, giving a fresh twist to an old theme. One day Joss would give several hundred weatherbeaten colonials the impression that they had stepped into the Opera House in Vienna.24
The effects of these theatrics learned from his parents would be revealed in many ways later on. His interest in costume would border on fetishism. His mother’s fine clothes and sophistication triggered an acute awareness of female attire and scent in Joss – always the first attributes he noticed in a woman.
Lady Kilmarnock was hardly ever far away from him during his childhood, and when she was he must have felt her absence acutely. He was seven years old when she suffered something akin to a nervous breakdown, following the miscarriage of her fourth child, a son who had been born prematurely. Lady Kilmarnock needed privacy during this period of misfortune – the family had been staying with Count Hugo and Countess Ilona Kinsky in Bohemia at the time of the tragedy. Determined never to forget the loss of her third son, she marked the infant’s passing in a sketch in purple ink – mourning the tiny ‘Sacha Louis’ suspended in a shawl from the beak of a miniature stork, and recording his name in mirror writing. Her children were quite unaware of the disaster. Their mother was confined to bed, while they were taken up with the world of the gymkhana and polo matches at the Kinskys’ at Chlumetz, Bohemia. The Kinsky family were passionate equestrians: ‘The great challenge of every year … was the steeplechase of Pardubitz.’ In Europe this competition was recognised as the world’s most difficult course and so it was an occasion when ‘they could show off their prowess on horseback to the full – in other words – the Kinskys could win outright’.25
Lord Kilmarnock played a good deal of polo himself, and on his eighth birthday Joss was among the spectators at the Parc Club in Budapest, where his father was competing. He would develop a good eye for the ball, though his reflexes were to be more mercurial. Joss would later help to improve standards of polo in Kenya, establishing and encouraging new young teams.
The event that inspired Joss’s lifelong passion for beautiful cars also occurred in Hungary, on an earlier visit to Budapest when his parents took him to the Magyar Automobile Club, an event ‘with floats and fancy dress’. Joss experienced first-hand the dramatic changeover from horse-drawn traffic to automobiles. His mother’s hats now had to be clamped on with netting and veils as they charged through Bohemia, faster and faster, a journey that was repeated the following