I worked for the 11th Duke of Northumberland.......but he was dead at the time.

Henry Percy was a neighbour of mine so I took a great interest in him and his life. When I say neighbour I had a two up two down terrace house in Isleworth and he owned the second largest house ( in Isleworth) in the whole of Greater London, the first being Buckingham House.

He also owned a huge castle in the Northumberland, and also had land in the West Country and Yorkshire. 

All I really knew about him was that he admired beautiful women and he loved films. He always came across as a friendly likeable man, not that I ever met him, but just from press reports and word of mouth. 

Thus I knew it was only a matter of time that someone as rich as him would finance a film. 

He had, I was later told, a love of Africa and of elephants and therefore when a script called LOST IN AFRICA came his way, he not only fully financed it, he also acted in it. 

One year after it was completed he died at the very young age of 42 never having married.

His brother, now the 12th Duke, keen for the Estate to claw back some of the budget I was told ( £5 million then about £10 million today) asked his lawyers to find someone to distribute LOST IN AFRICA in the UK. I understood I was the very last on the list. I watched the film. Oh dear. 

I wanted to help the dead Duke as his heart was in the right place and so said I would do it, if the Estate either put up the P&A or I was able to raise this via a TV sale. The fact that one of the richest landowners in the country said no to the former gives you an idea of how good the film is.

I was uable to find a UK broadcaster to pre-buy the TV rights. Therefore it is yet another, in a long line of British financed films, that sit on a shelf somewhere gathering dust, whilst the 11th Duke who made it, became dust.

I was told at the time, that over the years Henry Percy had been asked to invest in films like CHARIOTS OF FIRE and GHANDI but as he was only the Earl then, and not having access to the Estate funds, could do nothing.

It is so sad, that even with all his money, and one assumes the best advisors that he could buy, that this genuine lover of film as an art form, only involvement with a film, was a turkey!

To most of us he had it all.

But did he ?