Interview with the current Lord Carnarvon

The Scotsman

Highclere is a grand, foursquare, not very welcoming house, and the room is a mix of the very expensive and the shabby: priceless paintings, pre-war lamp flex, flaky Morocco-leather volumes fenced in with picture wire and screw-eyes. The current Lord Carnarvon himself is 51 but seems younger, with his floppy toff's fringe, arresting blue eyes and rather hurried air of noblesse oblige (I've arrived appallingly late).

"Great-grandfather was a bit of a rakish character and a gambler," he says. "He had hurt himself quite badly in several car smashes, damaging his ribs, which is why he went to Egypt in the winter, to avoid catching pneumonia in England. He was a man of endless thoughts and ideas and would have been bored silly by the social scene there very quickly. And if you're in Egypt, why not look for ancient objects? He was a passionate collector, who genuinely liked uncovering objects of beauty."