Relatives

Both my parents and Prim's were only children, so we have no first cousins.

Amber has one brother, who is 13 years older

Alison

My sister Alison was born in 1940. We always got on well (though I do remember, with great shame, once pinching her with a set of pliers). She went to Northlands School in Oivos, where we lived. She came to a school in England (Markyate?) a year or two before me, say 1953. When she left, my mother had taken a flat in the Earls Court Road, just 1 block north from Cromwell Road, and Alison went to secretarial college, as one did in those days. She had a fairly steady boyfriend (Peter East?) but it never came to anything. Then she came to Lima and took a job as secretary in the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, which was the big Peruvian mining company. She met Harry Mayrock, and they got engaged and then married.

Harry's father had a business in Lima, and he was one of the foremost archaeologists in the country (he gave a large collection to a museum in Germany. Harry said that up in a pre-Colombian burial ground he found an undeniably Chinese ivory carving). In about 1938 they went to Munich to stay while Harry went to the Salem school founded by Kurt Hahn, who later went on to found Gordonstoun school in Scotland, where Prince Charles was sent.

Click on the button above for a really fascinating interview with Harry about his war years.

When Harry got back to Peru he worked as an agent for the Swiss flavouring company Firmenich, which eventually developed into Montana, big in chicken feed, and became quite rich. In Peru you catch sight of chicken farms in the middle of the desert, deliberately isolated. I must say that Peruvian chicken tastes far better than UK chicken, surprising though that may seem. Harry was quite Anglicanised, and belonged to the British Country Club. There was an ex-servicemen's hockey team, and they wanted him to play. Had he served in the war? Of course he said Yes. He is and has been very nice and attractive, and very correct.

My parents left Peru for Argentina in about 1970. Alison and Harry had three kids. The first, Caroline, had Downe's syndrome. In those days in Peru they were almost isolated, and not mentioned. It was a very difficult decision, but they sent her to a home in Bristol, England, where she was well looked after, and we went to visit her from time to time. Alison had two more daughters, Monica and Sylvia, who eventually built nice houses on Allison and Harry's land at 311. Monica went to Gordonstoun for a while. Monica married Conrado, who was nice, and charming, but it didn't last. They had 2 children, Caro, who came to live in Spain, and Con Con, who is a 4-handicap (that is goood!) polo player. Sylvia married Federico (Fede) Bauer, who took on running the Montana business, and they had 3 lovely boys, Thomas, Adrian and Daniel.

Oscar

Oscar was born in 1972. He and George started off going to Wendell Park primary school up the road, bet were unhappy and bored there, so we decided to send them to a private school just of Turnham Green. This was in the days when you did what you wanted and what you could, without everything being a political statement. He progressed well here, and we put him up for St Paul's school, which was practically the best school in England (after Eton), and he got in. From term to term I had no idea how I would pay next term's fees, but it all worked out. Prim's father said he would help us, but if the fees were £2,000, he proposed £112, so it was not that much help. Ever since I have worried that I might be that much out of touch when giving presents.

So Oscar was doing well at school, but then when he was 17 I got up early and Oscar worriedly said he had done something bad. He and a friend had painted rude things about the masters on the school main square, the night before a big parents day. The police came, and caught the other boy, but Oscar escaped. Without thinking much about it, I quickly decided to ring toe headmaster and tell him. Oscar and the other boy were of course expelled. But I think that in view of Oscar and my prompt contrition and confession, they were very good, and arranged for Oscar to continue his A level studies and exams at Wimbledon school, and his St Pauls housemaster continued to mentor him. There were probably drugs involved (weed?, nothing too alarming in those days) and the other boy was known to be a bad'un. I am glad of my prompt decision to turn him in, and Oscar's similar decision to confess to me. It would have been possible to have kept stum. But the consequences of it all coming out pretty soon would have been much worse, and the consequences of succeeding in keep quiet are, on reflection, quite frightening. Sorry, Oscar, to write all this down, and we don't talk about it any more, but it is a strong and actually positive part of our relationship.

Oscar went to Leicester University, then got involved with a slightly posh Chiswick girl who was living in darkest Wales. But that didn't work out, and besides it was impossible to earn a living there. He came back to London and trained to be a teacher, and for 10 years or taught English at west London schools. He really enjoyed it, and the kids really appreciated his personal style. But eventually the advancement of the education system, with ever-increasing internal politicalisation of schools meant that he was more and more out of place, and eventually he could stand it no more and he quit. A great loss to the educational system, I think.

By this time he had taken up with Indra ones, who had been at St Paul's Girl School. She was doing very well, with some fantastic work in lighting. Her father, Peter, was a Mortlake dentist who was into old VSCC cars (we competed with him at two or three hill-climbs), and who also went to Eastern India every year, for fun, and doing good dentistry works. He was separated from Indra's mother, and Indra had a difficult relationship with her. Oscar and Indra were living together in Hammersmith, were trying very hard to have a baby, and Indra was having severe medical problems, which lasted about 10 years. She'd go to hospital once or twice a week, and some days would be so weak that she couldn't get up out of bed. And Oscar wasn't working. Altogether a very stressful and emotionally wearing situation. But Indra got gradually better, and Oscar got a job looking after a new Quaker Meeting House just up the road. (Julia Hancock, an ex movie and TV star, was primarily involved

George

George was born in 1970

Julie

Julie was born in 1974

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Astra

Astra Zoe Emma Holmes was born in 1972, and was the daughter of Amber and her then husband Chris Holmes. After school she went China for a gap year teaching English, and when she came back enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) to study Chinese. After one year, as part of the course, she went again to China, but liked it so much she decided to stay. She met and married Li Ji, who had his own Belgian bar. She worked for a time running the HR in a Chinese/American hospital. She had a son, Finn Eco Li Holmes in 2000 (he has a British passport).

Li Ji is the son of two fairly prominent ballet dancers. During the cultural revolution they had a hard time, but then they travelled the world as part of a Chinese cultural package. Li Ji made a film about them, which was shown in Europe. Li Ji was the first break-dancing champion of China. He also managed the first rock band in China, Budowong. He became good at designing and starting restaurants, (eg Serve the People), Thai, Vietnamese etc, and at one time he had five of them on the go. But it is a precarious business in China, and Li Ji is bound by Chinese generosity rules to family and friends, and eventually he had just one.

He started acting, and was regularly employed on TV series. He also re-started Budowong, with himself as singer, and they had some success. We went to his 50th birthday party in a bar, with all his friends, and the band, and he was an excellent front-man. On the way home, he left a bag containing all his presents in the taxi – typical Li Ji. Astra says she reckons he has lost at least 150 mobile phones. In London one summer, while they were staying here, we saw a fox coming out of the garden room, and dropping something as it disappeared into the bushes. Later, Li Ji realised that his wallet was missing from the bed in the garden room. Astra had, just before, nagged him to tidy up all his things, and he had all his cash and cards in the wallet. The fox had obviously nicked it. The worst was his Chinese ID card, which was a helluva business to replace. Amber searched all the neighbouring gardens, to no avail.

One time, they arrived one evening from China. Next morning, Amber got up as usual to make a cup of tea. Meanwhile, Li Ji got up for a pee, and mistakenly went back into our room and into bed. I was more or less asleep, and reckoned Amber had come back. I don’t actually and understandably remember any details, but after some expressions of friendliness on my part, and acceptance by him, we both realised that he was in the wrong bed. Our relationship was such that we thought it was amusing and not embarrassing. He never spoke any English. But he went to the East Acton snooker hall and was a great hit.

Finn Eco Li Holmes was born to Astra Holes and Li Ji on 05-Dec-00. He has a British passport,

I once set him the task of learning to recite Shelley’s Ozimandias King of Kings poem for 50 quid. He did like buying things, in this case a special camera, and he learnt to recite the whole thing by the end of the day while we were in a Japanese restaurant in Beijing.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Oak

Oak Orlando Dedalus Taylor-Smith was born in 1977, and was the son of Amber and her then husband Guy Taylor-Smith.

Ines

Ines Arevalo, married to Oak, was born to Cruz and Juan in Madrid in 1979.

Born

Inez

Arlo

Oren

Cass

Cass in Amber's youngest son, born on in Norfolk in 1979. His full name is Cassius Alaric Guy Taylor-Smith His father disappeared soon after, and he came to London. Through enormous effort Amber got him to a free place as a boarder at Cheltenham College. He then went to Newcastle University, didn't like it, and left after 1 term. He then worked at Max Fordhams site engineering company (Amber's cousin Annie was involved in running it). Then he met Lucy, a banker, who was born in 1976 in Singapore to Sandy and Peter Phillips. I want to have his babies, she told us on I think the 4th time they went out. Then they went to Hong Kong, because of Lucy's work with ?. He ran a company called Giant, doing various art-related things.

Then he was organising Anthony Gormley's exhibition where he had about 30 life-sized statues in various publicly visible places, like the top of a bank building. Trouble was somebody jumped off the side of a bank building very publicly, so the whole thing was put off until Cass could persuade people to let him do it again. Anyway, the show was a big success, but Cass felt very under-appreciated by Gormley. Oak, who was just the official photographer (through Cass) went on to do a lot of work with him.

Then Cass got a big job in property marketing. Cass and Lucy had 3 children in HK, and then moved to Singapore, where Lucy worked for Standard Chartered, and Cass for ?. After a couple of years they came back to England, and bought a big house in rural Kent, with a lavishly re-done barn next to it which Amber and I moved in to in late 2020. Cass had an even more important job in property management, and Lucy had decided not to work at all (she had had several years of extremely high-pressure jobs).

Rex is 11, and at Kings School in Canterbury. He is bright, can read a whole Harry Potter book in 24hrs, and quite sporty. Hebe is 9 and in a world of her own. Otto is 7, and quite remarkable. He came in and used the word 'symbiotic' in a sentence (we had to look it up). And he once said to me 'how are you, my fine fellow?'. He can be charming, and he can just ignore you.

Kath

Kath Wilton was Amber's sort of aunt, who lived neat Upton. She never married. She had a very nice large house in Earl's Croome, with about 10 acres of land. She had a very good friend, who died, leaving a daughter Elizabeth, whom Kath adopted. Elizabeth married Brian, who was in the army, but punched a superior and was discharged dishonourably. They had two daughters, Sarah and Debbie, and Kath left all her possessions to them. Then Elizabeth died when the kids were still young. Brian re-married to Peeps, and came to live in part of the house, and managed to get his daughters to sign off on a mortgage of about 300k on it. Then he couldn't repay the mortgage, and Kath had to pay it off. So Brian was cancelled.

Sarah had a daughter, Saskia, and took up with antique dealer Peter, and lived in the coach house, and they had a son, Oak. Kath drank heavily, a bottle of whisky or brandy every day, and smoked 40 cigarettes a day. It didn't seem to do her much harm, and she died when she was almost 90. She was a very good cello player. I remember she sold a bow at auction, and it realised several thousand pounds. She was a very good member of the local church, and did the news magazine for it. While Amber was at equestrian college in the 90s she lived at Kath's. Kath was certainly one of the world's good people.

Faith

Faith Crook was Amber's sort of cousin. She was born in 1931. She was a remarkable person. She was one of the first chalet girls. She worked in the House of Commons for an MP for many years. She was really attractive, but we know of no romantic history. She fell off her scooter and was quite seriously wounded. She sang in the Bach choir, and went touring with them all over the world. Her folk were from Malvern, and were close friends of the composer Elgar. Faith had a whole drawer full of correspondence with Elgar and others.

She suffered a brain haemorrhage, and in later life became more and more bent, till her upper body was at about right angles to her legs. She had tremendous get up and go, and would go to the bank with her wheeled pusher. She lived alone in Hackney, though Oak lived in a downstairs room for 3 or 4 years. She was related to Kath, whom she would visit once a year, and they loved bickering. She was completely un-fazed by anything - politics, religion, sexual misconduct, anything. She had an impossible filing system, with letters kept in their envelopes in various piles with handwritten notes all over them. I tried to rationalise it all, in proper files, and filled bags full of envelopes etc. I doubt whether she was grateful for it. Never try to change anyone's filing system. She died in 2018, and left her house to Amber.

Anni Snow

Anni was Amber's favourite relative, less than 15 years older, who was a sort of elder sister. She lived in Camden, just north of Regent's Park, and was a goof friend of Max Fordham, and worked there, as did Oak and Cass for a time. She had a husband, who b.....b off to Norway, and a son, Chog. She sang in a couple of amateur choirs. At Christmas she would give everybody, say 20 people, the same thing. One year it was an excellent knife sharpener. She had had breast cancer, and one breast removed, and unusually did not usea false bump.

John Snow

A cousin of Amber's, and the brother of Anni. as a young man, he was teaching in India. He shared a taxi with Farrouk Dhondi, who later became semi-famous, and they became good friends. Farrouk wanted to marry a girl against her parents wisher, and she couldn't get a UK visa. John was persuaded to marry the girl so's she could get into UK. She got in and they divorced. Then he was in Cambridge doing brilliant work with a group of astrophysicists (he knew all the famous ones) and was into early computing (where each bitt was important, never mind a Kb or a Mb), but seems not to have progressed to the top. He was offered a job in Saudi Arabia on condition that he was married, so he got married, and then the job fell through. Later he had a job whereby he was paid to be in London, and so stayed at Amber's house, but never gave her any of the money although she was poor. But Amber is the most forgiving person i know. I only saw him later, when he was doing odd jobs. He made some shelve boxes for us, and fixed up the gaps in the parquet flooring, and did slow but excellent work. He smoked a lot, and was very thin, but one could have very interesting conversations with him. He would go to bed at 2am, and get up at 11am. His son, Tim, also came to see us, very nice and very clever. His wife didn't talk to him, and though they lived together in a little house in the small village of Saperton, Glos, completely ignored each other. Which was awkward, because he couldn't drive, and was thus deprived of cigarettes. Once he was talking with some friends outside King's Cross station when this woman came up and seemed to want to attach herself to them. Only later did he realise it was his wife.

Tim and Celia

Tim is Prim's elder brother. He was burn in Huddersfield, went to Charterhouse, then to RIBA where he was a star. Worked on the Economist building with Alison and Peter Smithson, the prime Brutalists. He worked also on the various brutalist council flats, which have mostly been pulled down. He married Celia, only daughter of a well-off accountant and his wife. They had a house in Queensdale Road, Holland Park (Amber was working in the next door neighbour's garden, and 'had words' with Tim. Then bought a house in Graffham, which the added to bit by bit, and then sold Queensdale and bought a flat in Camden Hill. They had Tess, Mark and Blythe.

This is at Tim and Celia's annual party in the 1990s, I think.

Front row: Wanda, Tess, Alan McGee, Kate Holmes, ?,?,?,Sarah's husband

Middle row: Blythe, Tess, Prim, Julie

Back row: Gavin, Anthony, George, Mark, Tim, Celia, Mary, Zenzie