Alvilde lees milne biography of barack
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Alvilde Lees-Milne
Alvilde Lees-Milne was a designer active in the mid- to late-20th century. She was born in London on 13 August 1909, the only child of Lieutenant-General Sir George Tom Molesworth Bridges (born 1871, died 1939) and Janet Florence Marshall, née Menzies (born 1867/8, died 1937), his wife.
On 9 January 1933, she married the zoologist, Anthony Freskin Charles Hamby Chaplin (born 1906, died 1981), who succeeded, in 1949, as third Viscount Chaplin, and with whom she had a daughter, Clarrissa. In 1950 their marriage was dissolved.
After 1950, she moved to France to a house left to her bygd Princesse Edmond de Polignac. In France she met architectural historian and conservationist (George) James Henry Lees-Milne (born 1908, died 1997) whom she married on 19 November 1951. She and her husband, James moved to Roquebrune in the Alpes Maritimes soon afterwards to a house, La Meridienne. Here Alvilde Lees-Milne created one of her first gardens.
In 1961 the couple return•
Late Worm
Anyone who knew or knew of James Lees-Milne in his later years might have formed the impression of an exquisitely polished round peg in a perfectly round hole. Aesthete, diarist, wit, he had known everyone from the Mitfords to Mick Jagger and wrote about them amusingly. His work for the National Trust over three decades had made him personally and professionally familiar with most of the great houses of England. In some he was a regular guest, while many more owed their continued existence wholly or partly to him. If it had all really been so smooth he would probably have been an intolerable person and certainly a bad diarist, for the stuff of diaries is the uneven texture of the everyday and the comedy, or tragedy, of contrasts. But Lees-Milne, as he emerges from his diaries and memoirs, is decidedly unpolished, the anti-hero of his own life. From January 1942, when he describes breaking down in the National Trust’s Austin, only to be told at the garage that the
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Obituary: Alvilde Lees-Milne
THE FIRST time I met Alvilde, writes Lady Dorothy Heber-Percy, was before the war, at a luncheon party given by John Sutro. I was at once impressed by her sparkle and sophistication. But it wasn't until well after the war, when she and Jim were married and living at Alderley, in Gloucestershire, that we became friends and I came increasingly to value the infectious enjoyment she brought to all aspects of life.
If there was criticism to be made she enjoyed the criticising and took a most lively and sympathetic interest in all one's ups and downs. Her gardens and homes glowed and sparkled with a reflection of her own personality.
Alvilde Bridges, gardener and writer: born London 13 August 1909; married 1933 Anthony, 3rd Viscount Chaplin (died 1981; one daughter; marriage dissolved), 1951 James Lees-Milne; died Badminton, Avon 18 March 1994.
ALVILDE LEES-MILNE was a garden maker of great distinction. She also had a talent for friendship. The daughter of