THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE
Born Diana Dawson in Southampton, her parents were Geoffrey, a railway clerk, and Margaret Turnbull, a cleaner.
Her father was absent from home during the first years of Diana’s life, as he was on war service.
When he returned at the end of the war, the family moved to Essex. Shortly afterwards, her parents were divorced.
Diana went to Colchester Girls Grammar School.
When she was sixteen, the Headteacher accused Diana of, “Letting the school down”, because she had been spotted in a hotel with a soldier. Diana walked out of the school, never to return.
Diana was packed off back to Hampshire to live with her godmother.
Soon afterwards she moved to London where she became a ‘hostess’ as the Cabaret Club, a discreet and risqué establishment where rich, male guests ‘entertained’ scantily clad women.
It was the nightclub where John Profumo had met Mandy Rice-Davies.
Diana was paid in tips and in Sobranie Black Russian cocktail cigarettes, which she took home for her mother.
At this point, her mother was working as a housekeeper in a large villa in Hampstead. She lived in the basement flat with Diana.
At the club, Diana met Michael Ashe, an aristocratic Irishman. They married soon afterwards. They had one son called Patrick.
The marriage did not last long. Diana couldn’t stand her overbearing mother-in-law, and Michael refused to lift a finger around the house – “A real sense of entitlement.”
Diana moved out, going to live with her mother again. She was still only eighteen.
She gave her baby son, Patrick, to her aunt, leaving her to bring him up. “I was seventeen when he was born and I was childish and selfish.”
Diana then went off to Afghanistan with writer Michael Alexander, whom she got engaged to. He was doing research for a book, which was eventually published as ‘Offbeat in Asia’.
Their relationship did not last. “When we came back, he left me and married someone else.”
Diana got engaged twice more – and had a string of (often unsuitable) boyfriends.
She got a job as an assistant at a ladies’ haberdashery in Mayfair but left after she stole a pair of white gloves.
At the age of twenty, Diana got married again, to sportswriter John Moynihan, whom she met in Muriel’s Drinking Club.
They had a daughter, Candy, but divorced soon afterwards.
For a while, Diana worked as a mini-cab driver.
She met jazz musician, George Melly, in another Soho club, the Colony Room. Princess Margaret was also a member.
George and Diana were married when she was twenty-six. He was nine years older than her. It was an open marriage and both of them had many lovers (although George was more promiscuous than she was).
Diana admitted that at the time of the wedding, “I was unstable and neurotic.” She claimed George straightened her out.
Diana was desperate for this marriage to work. She took over managing his life – his musical career, his finances and his home life – “So that he would not look away”. She became indispensable to him.
George called Diana, ‘Miss Perfect’.
Nevertheless, it was a happy marriage. “We were held together by an elastic band that stretched but never snapped.”
They had one son called Tom.
They lived a life that reflected the 1960s – “Drugs, kaftans and sex.” Diana admitted, “I made many bad choices.” These included neglecting her children.
She said the only thing that irritated her was that if she was on her own and met somebody they knew, they would always say, “Hello Diana – where’s George?” She sometimes felt crowded out by him – “His personality was bursting out all over.”
In 1971, Diana volunteered for a charity called ‘Release’, run by Caroline Coon and her partner, Rufus Harris. The aim was to help addicts and decriminalize drug taking. Diana admitted it was, “All peace and love”, and very hippyish.
Her jobs included making tea and manning the phones during the night as well as fundraising, which Diana proved very adept at.
On one occasion, playboy entrepreneur, Victor Lownes donated a gift he had received from his friend Roman Polanski (whom he had fallen out with) – a golden penis. It is not known what Diana did with it.
Diana wrote two novels, ‘The Girl in the Picture’ and ‘The Goosefeather Bed’. She also wrote a number of non-fiction books, including her autobiography, ‘Take a Girl Like Me’.
There are some photographs of Diana in the National Portrait Gallery.
She was obsessed with animals and had many pets including dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and once even a fox.
Diana had an open-door policy and took in many, “waifs and strays.” This included a challenging spell with writer Jean Rhys. Later, Diana edited a book of Rhys’ poetry.
The writer, Bruce Chatwin, invited himself for a few days to the Melly’s second home, a ramshackle house in the Brecon Beacons called ‘The Tower’. He promised to do his share of the cooking and cleaning.
Chatwin ended staying five years. Diana said, “He failed even to make a cup of tea.” It was whilst staying at their house that he wrote his bestseller, ‘On the Black Hill’.
When Chatwin was dying of AIDS, it was Diana that looked after him.
There was tragedy in her life as well. Her son Patrick, died of a heroin overdose aged twenty-five. This led to Diana having two half-hearted suicide attempts and she was hospitalized with severe depression.
George was diagnosed with both dementia and cancer. Diana became his full-time carer. “George cared for me at the beginning and I cared for him at the end.”
She also became patron of a dementia charity. Diana would give talks on the effect of the disease on George. They were entitled ‘He seems fine to me’.
George died in 2007. He had had a forty-five-year marriage with Diana.
After his death, Diana became a patron for the charity ‘Dignity in Dying’, a group that support assisted dying.
She also became a vegetarian.
Diana was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes. At a dementia conference, a doctor told her ballroom dancing was a way to stave off the effects of the illness. She decided to give it a go.
To her own amazement, Diana fell in love with it and became obsessed (she wrote a book about it called Strictly Ballroom). Tango was her favourite dance.
Diana went to regular classes, lost weight, made new friends – and the diabetes problem disappeared.
She also loved opera, travelling far and wide to see performances. She was also a regular listener to Radio Four.
Diana took up mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, attempting to finally get some academic qualifications.
Diana’s daughter, Candy Moynihan (a single mother), died of breast cancer, aged fifty-two. Diana took her granddaughter, Kezzie, into her home and brought her up as her own.
In the ten days between Candy’s death and her funeral, Diana went on a short ballroom dancing cruise. “The space needed to be filled by something. Anything!”
At the deaths of two of her children, Diana described herself as, “Frozen with grief and guilt.”
Diana said, “Grief can be isolating. The deaths of George, Patrick and Candy are part of me and never far away.”
When she herself was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Diana was very philosophical about it. “Death is boring but dying is fascinating.”
“I have learned to look death in the face but when I’m dancing I can look away.”
Diana was eighty-seven when she died.
RIP – Relationship Is Promiscuous
