THIS WON’T DO AT ALL

We don’t risk hanging valuable art on our walls in the Bahamas. Not because we are afraid of robberies (around here boat keys, diesel and generators are much more desirable), but because the climate can be so damaging. Salt air and tropical sun is not all fun and games.

But I grew up surrounded by wonderful art: my mother inherited remarkable pieces and my father had a strong eye for mixing the unexpected – most often displaying the arrestingly modern with the traditional and ancient.

The panels in my mother’s study (seen here) were painted in 1937 by Rex Whistler for the London boudoir of my grandmother, Edwina Mountbatten. The panels were removed when the World War II started and they were stored in their country house Broadlands (the house seen here above the fireplace) for safe keeping. Pretty lucky really since a bomb landed directly on that London room a few weeks later.

Just after the artist completed the room, my grandmother brought the butler in to show off the panels. He nodded approvingly as he looked around, until his eye caught sight of Father Time, lounging naked against the clock. And then he saw the depiction of my grandmother, equally naked, sleeping at the other side. “Oh no my ladyship,” said the butler, “this will never do!”

But it did, very well. And it still does to this day.