Cocktails and Laughter (ed) (1983) Hardback edition (UK) 1983 When she published this album, Loelia Lindsay was one of six women alive who at one time or other bore the title of Duchess of Westminster. She was born with what many people considered a silver spoon in her mouth. Her father, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, was a key figure in the households of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V. She grew up in St James's Palace, where she led a cowed and unhappy childhood before emerging, shy and bewildered, into the bright world of the Twenties. Irritated by conventional society life, she gravitated towards a more amusing milieu, the world of 'The Bright Young Things', of Noël Coward and Cecil Beaton. Their high jinks, though harmless enough in retrospect, astonished her parents' generation. These remained unsettled years for Loelia until she met the legendary Bendor, the dashing and eccentric Duke of Westminster, who in a fantastic eighteenth-century style until his death in 1953. Twice married, he was not what Loelia's parents deemed a 'suitable match' but Loelia was soon swept off her feet and married him in a blaze of publicity in 1930. She was transformed at once from being a relatively impoverished girl to the mistress of Eaton Hall, several other houses and two huge yachts. She looked set to live happily ever after. But Bendor was a man of changing moods - devastating charm at one moment, tyrannical jealousy the next. In less than five years they parted. Loelia had to create a new life for herself, devoted to travel and music, and to needlework at which she was an expert. In 1961 she published her best-selling memoirs Grace and Favour in which she related the story of her life. This album was created out of twenty large albums, leather-bound and coroneted, containing photographs of her life - a life led at the very heart of the twentieth century. Out of print - copies can be found on Bookfinder.com A very few copies may be available via this site, which can be signed by Hugo Vickers. Apply: booksales@wyeford.co.uk