Letter From London - The Deed is Done - Humorous Gossip from London

Dave’s Big Clear Out- 26 June

Let’s Make a Deal. Too late. Dave has gone underground; Dave is in hiding. “Linley has sold his soul,” suggested one courtier. Princess Margaret’s son Viscount David Linley, aka Dave as he prefers, has also incensed and alienated his father, Anthony Armstrong-Jones…said to be positively livid and driven to despair, fallen out with his sister Lady Sarah Chatto, upset the Queen…never clever, been labelled blokeish, vulgar and greedy – and now in the money. No more standing in a 45 minute queue at Ikea like a peasant; he can now afford his own furniture.

“I’m a megalomaniac when it comes to quality.” Surely due to Dave’s quality-awareness, a two day auction at Christie’s of Princess Margaret’s bric-a-brac, royal tat, bagged him and his sister a staggering £13.6m to pay off £3m death duties on their mother’s £7.6m estate. “My children aren’t royal (and that explains how Viscount Linley, David Albert Charles Armstrong-Jones, is 12th in line for the throne), they just happen to have the Queen for an aunt.” As do so many of us.

It was reported that we-the-insignificant could contribute with as little as a manageable, modest £50. Dream on. That very item we could have pulled hair out over went for £550, while a silver paring knife valued at £200 fetched £12,000…£15,600 for a menu Margaret once perused, three plastic umbrellas for £2,400. Now, don’t you wish you were rich? Dave is. His wealth is now estimated to be £20m. Not bad for 800 items and two days work. “I never asked for any money at all [from my family]…Look. I recognise people think I’m wealthy. I just wish I was.” Maybe he was just biding his time, because he surely is now. Quite the boot sale.

The royals and the non-royals were all a bit miffed over Dave’s unbridled enthusiasm when he flogged Margaret’s stunning diamond-studded wedding tiara and Pietro Annigoni’s spectacular 1957 portrait that matches the Queen’s. It had been said that the Queen bought the painting, but apparently Dave was shamed into buying it back himself. That’s minus £680,000 from his sudden fortune. He did get caught out when he tried to sell off fixtures and fittings from a royal residence protected under heritage laws incurring a prison sentence up to seven years. Do you suppose he could have taken his furniture and staff…or was that just in the Tower?

Dave has a history of unsentimentality. He pasted a ‘for sale’ sign on the Aston Martin DB5 previously owned by Peter Sellers given to him by his father; he shifted his mother’s beloved home on Mustique, given to him to avoid inheritance tax leaving her reportedly ‘heartbroken’. So many memories. He bought himself a £800,000 hunting lodge in Provence presumably with the pecuniary reward.

He owns a chain of restaurants, has his furniture shops, is a major shareholder in a holding company, renovates hotels, does interior design and buys and sells properties he and his family inhabit…his most recent one on the market for £1.5m. His bank balance may not have been the talk of the tellers, but it was always a matter of time. His wife, Serena, stands to inherit a fortune from her father Viscount Petersham, who is in line to a vast estate worth hundreds of millions when he becomes the Earl of Harrington. Best not to spend it all once, Dave.

His father feels he will sell anything that isn’t nailed down…as we have seen first hand. “He’s up for anything if it’s free,” says a long-standing acquaintance. So if you are ever inclined to send Dave a gift, maybe you should give it a little think. Your engraved sterling silver box, cufflinks, bracelet, letter opener, tie clasp, business card holder - To Dave, my dearest friend in all the world - could end up on e-Bay within the day if a surplus of £20m hasn’t changed the man.

TTFN

Maggie

Letters From London