English aristocrat and undertaker Robert Heber-Percy was BOTD in 1911. Born in London to an aristocratic family, he was raised at his family estate at Hodnet Hall and educated at private schools. He was offered a commission the King’s Dragoon Guards, reaching the rank of lieutenant until his outrageous (read: homosexual) behaviour ended his military career. In 1932, aged 20, he met and fell and love with fellow aristocrat Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, 29 years his senior. Shortly after their meeting, their mutual friend Diana Mosley wrote that Heber-Percy’s “high spirits, elegant appearance and uninhibited behaviour enchanted Gerald, who no longer needed a drug to give him contentment”. Berners quickly installed Heber-Percy at his estate at Faringdon Hall in Oxfordshire, presenting him with a custom-built 100-foot tower on his 21st birthday. (Heber-Percy later admitted that he would have preferred a horse). He assumed informal control of running Faringdon Hall, rising early to work in the fields with estate workers and persuading Berners not to raise rents for long-term tenants. He also maintained an active social life, hosting London society friends including John Betjeman, William Plomer and Nancy Mitford, who immortalised Berners as Lord Merlin in her novel The Pursuit of Love. As a side hustle, Heber-Percy ran an undertaker’s business with a friend, enthusiastically attending annual conferences as a fund of good anecdotes. During World War Two, he worked for British intelligence in the Middle East and the Balkans, chauffeur-driven in a giant black Buick. In 1942, he married family friend Jennifer Fry to legitimate her pregnancy. Jennifer and her daughter Victoria lived with Berners and Heber-Percy at Faringdon Hall, and were photographed together in an extremely strange portrait by Cecil Beaton. Their ménage-à-trois lasted two years until Jennifer returned to her family home, and the marriage was dissolved in 1947. On Berners’ death in 1950, Heber-Percy inherited Faringdon Hall, continuing his benevolent feudal rule by hosting fireworks displays and afternoon teas for locals, hosting the annual village fête and giving public access to the estate grounds and fishing lake, and gifting the tower and surrounded woodlands to the town. He maintained the estate’s exotic aesthetic, constructing a swimming pool reached by high steps and overlooked by giant gryphons. Later in life, he married Lady Dorothy Lygon, daughter of the notorious homosexual William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, separating amicably a year later. He died in 1987, leaving Faringdon Hall to Victoria’s daughter Sofka Zinovieff.