Outsiders the best of their kind

Deborah Devonshire

SASSOON: THE WORLDS OF PHILIP AND SYBIL by Peter Stansky

Yale, £25, pp. 295, ISBN 0300095473

Describing these two shining stars from the East, who arrived in this country apparently by

divine providence, Peter Stansky has quoted from their many friends. Luckily the people who knew the Sassoons were famous themselves, so their thoughts are in diaries and memoirs from before the first world war until Sybil's death, aged 96, in 1989.

Their ancestors were devout Jews from Baghdad who settled in Bombay, traders who dealt in opium and skins. Six Sassoon brothers arrived in England in 1858 and immediately made their mark. Abdullah, soon to be Albert, was the first Jew to receive an honorary Freedom of the City of London and was made a baronet in 1880 as a reward for good works.

Albert's son Edward married Aline de Rothschild and so the fortunes of the two great Jewish families were joined and, in due course, came to their children Philip, born in 1888, and Sybil, six years younger.

Their exotic background stayed with them for all to see and enjoy. They were at the core of what used to be called 'society', and set a standard of luxury and elegance slightly foreign to the old English families, who delighted in glimpses of a glamorous way of life which they did not go in for themselves. Philip went to Eton. When his house was on fire he poured a bucket of eau de Cologne on the floor of his room, Osbert Sitwell was his fag, so presumably had to clean up the mess.

In 1912 he became the youngest MP

(aged 24), winning Hythe, a seat he held for 27 years. He was ADC to General Haig from 1915. Eyebrows were raised about a man of his age being safely on the staff while his contemporaries of promise were killed. After the war, he passed, apparently effortlessly, as PPS to Haig's loathed Lloyd George. a chameleon-like feat. He served

At Trent Park north of London, Port Lympne overlooking the Romney Marsh in Kent and 25 Park Lane, he lavishly entertained politicians of all persuasions, the royal family, writers, actors, musicians and artists, from Charlie Chaplin to the Prince of Wales via the Sitwells, Sargent, T. E. Lawrence, Lytton Strachey and Noel Coward to Lloyd George and his mistress, and Mr and Mrs Baldwin. The former diluted the claret with Malvern water. All were delighted to luxuriate in his company, eat his superb food surrounded by works of art shown to me later by Sybil with 'These were my brother Philip's things. They are the best of their kind.'

In 1924 his love of beauty led him to reface the sombre-looking Trent Park with rose-coloured bricks from the demolished Devonshire House and people it with statues from Stowe. At Lympne he took his guests up for a spin in his own aeroplane, to the fish market in Folkestone (in his constituency) where the fishmongers crowded round him. Then polo, followed by a swim in the sea, and a memorable dinner. His energy was frenetic.

The red-headed radical Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson recorded his arrival in the House of Commons with 'that fascinating lisp of his'. She continued. 'If he were to tuck up his legs and sit on the Big Table behind the Mace with one finely carved hand on each brass box, he would make an appropriate Eastern altarpiece.' In the 1930s, his service in the Air Ministry was dear to his heart, being an aviator himself. It was followed by the perfect appointment for him — the Office of Works.

Philip, the perfectionist, loved life and made the most of his glittering opportunities. In Rome he had audiences with the Pope, Mussolini and the King. He preferred the exquisitely dressed Pope's 'white flannel and sapphire'. His Holiness 'kept me over an hour and rocked with laughter, thankful to be with a heathen and not to talk shop'. But in spite of the trappings he seemed to remain an outsider, an exotic, solitary in his invited crowd, described so often as 'oriental'.

His adored Sybil ('She is the most charming person in the world. I love her so much. I can never marry, she sets me too dizzy a standard') must have made the stuffy 'society' of 1913 sit up when she married Lord Rocksavage, to become mistress (and saviour) of Houghton Hall from 1919 until her death.

In both world wars Sybil held high office in the Wrens. Years later, I watched her, well over 80, pulling on miserable thin blue gumboots for a day's shooting on the frozen Norfolk plough. 'Naval issue' she said, proudly. She was the best woman shot I ever saw, as easily in tune with the Houghton keepers as with the aesthetes of Kensington Palace Gardens, the Cholmondeley's London house.

Her 55-year marriage to the handsome Rock Cholmondely, Lord Great Chamberlain, was a total success. She had a parade of would-be lovers, including Sir William Orpen (Old Orps' she called him), but Rock. their children and Houghton were the solid background of this fascinating creature who spread her aura over all lucky enough to know her.

If you want to escape from war, sex and shopping, join Philip and Sybil on their magic carpet and read this book.