Wait for Me!

by Deborah Devonshire

  Kitty Mersey, 1953

  DD, 1950. Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s

  Nancy (left) and Decca at Rue Monsieur, Paris

  Pamela with her dachshunds. Zürs, 1964

  Diana and Oswald Mosley. Venice, 1955

  Aly Khan, Teresa de Sousa Campos (centre) and DD. Rio de Janeiro, 1955

  DD (left) and Nancy on the Lido, Venice. By kind permission of Marina Cicogna

  Hardwick Hall

  Sitting for Pietro Annigoni, 1954

  Lismore Castle

  With Royal Tan, winner of the 1954 Grand National

  Andrew and Violet Hammersley. Lismore, c.1950

  Lucian Freud, Andrew, Penny Cuthbertson. Careysville, 1972

  Robert Kee and Patrick Leigh Fermor. Lismore, 1960

  With Andrew in the garden at Chatsworth

  With Sophy in the yellow drawing room. Chatsworth, 1960

  Emma’s wedding to Toby Tennant. Chatsworth, 1963 (l. to r.) Mary Devonshire, Stoker, DD, David Skailes, Sophy, Toby, Emma, Matthew Yorke, Andrew, Christopher Glenconner

  With Cecil Beaton, 1969

  At Stoker’s wedding, 1967 (l. to r.) DD, Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Emma

  In the west garden with Sophy (left) and grandchildren Isabel and Eddie Tennant, 1968. By kind permission of Ron Duggins

  My bedroom at Chatsworth. By kind permission of Simon Upton

  My sitting room at Chatsworth. By kind permission of Simon Upton

  With the ‘guns’ at Bolton Abbey. DD and Harold Macmillan mounted, early 1960s

  Shooting at Chatsworth, 1960. By kind permission of Snowdon

  With Stoker at the Game Fair. Chatsworth, 1966

  Lagos, 1962 (l. to r.) the Olori of Lagos, Andrew, the Oba of Lagos, DD, Dorothea Head

  With Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) and my sister-in-law Elizabeth Cavendish. Chatsworth, 1961

  Visit of the Shah of Persia to Chatsworth

  Invitation to the Inauguration of President John F. Kennedy

  Greeting Robert Kennedy on his visit to Chatsworth in 1964 (Eddy Sackville-West is immediately behind me). By kind permission of Ron Duggins

  Pushing over a pile of pennies at a charity event in Whitwell, Derbyshire

  Serving behind the counter at the Orangery Shop at Chatsworth

  With Sophy at the Countryside March, 1997

  Celebrating our Golden Wedding at Chatsworth with over 1,000 couples from Derbyshire who also married in 1941. By kind permission of Ron Duggins

  Tercentenary of the dukedom. Chatsworth, 1994

  With the Prince of Wales, 2000

  With Sybil Cholmondeley at Houghton

  Diana, Pamela and DD at Chatsworth

  With my granddaughter Stella Tennant

  With Jean-Pierre Béraud, chef and entrepreneur, wearing his fortieth birthday party wig, 10 August 1996. He was killed in a car crash two months later

  At Andrew’s and my eightieth birthday party in the dress made by Worth for Duchess Louise for the Devonshire House Ball in 1897. Chatsworth, 2000. By kind permission of Simon Upton

  Feeding the hens. By kind permission of Bridget Flemming

  With my great-grandchildren in 2009 (l. to r.) Barney Dunne, Rosa Tennant, Jake Carter, Lily Hill, Victor Hill, Marcel Lasnet, Cecily Lasnet, Alfie Carter, Harry Tennant, Ned Carter, Georgia Tennant, Jasmine Lasnet, Iris Lasnet, Willa Carter, Cosmo Dunne, Isla Tennant, Maud Cavendish. By kind permission of Charlotte Bromley-Davenport

  Aged ninety at the Old Vicarage, 2010, under the portrait of Muv painted by Philip de Laszlo in 1916 – four years before I was born. By kind permission of Bridget Flemming