Thursday 31st August 2023
Danny Howell writes:
The other day I was in conversation with a woman who lives in Warminster and has her own successful business based in Warminster. She told me, quite openly, the following story about a brief encounter she had with Alexander Thynn, the Marquis Of Bath:
“Before I came to live in Warminster I lived in Somerset but my workplace was in Warminster. I was an employee in a business, run by a woman, with a small staff who were all women. One day, one of my work colleagues, who I had got to know quite well, confided in me that she was intimately acquainted with Lord Bath [Alexander Thynn]. I asked her what went on and she said it was basically parties with food and drink and you got the opportunity to go to bed with him. Seeing that I was intrigued, she suggested that I might like to meet him, and she hinted that if things went okay then I might perhaps become another of his many wifelets.”
“Not long afterwards, and she had obviously made some sort of arrangements, because she took me to Longleat House to meet Lord Bath. We went in a door on one side of the house, not the front door, and I do remember going up some stairs to Lord Bath’s private apartment. If I recall rightly the corridors or passageways, whatever you want to call them, were quite dark. Well, they seemed dark to me. Anyway, my friend introduced me to Lord Bath and he offered me a glass of wine and we chatted. He said I was to call him Alexander – his title was not necessary in those circumstances. He was very colourfully dressed. I got the impression though he was a bit shy. It was all very nice though and it seemed that he liked me a lot. It seems I would be welcome to become one of his wifelets. It transpired that being a wifelet was all very much about spending bits of time with him, drinking and eating, and then going to bed with him. There was no money involved. How you got to and from Longleat was down to you and at your expense, and he was never going to give you money or help you out with anything financial.”
“That first meeting was the only time I met him directly. I enjoyed talking to him and thought he was a very interesting man. But I didn’t take it any further. I never became a wifelet. See, I was married and had a child, and I didn’t want to jeopardise my marriage or create problems for my family. I just couldn’t do it. I do wonder though what might have been if I had become one of Lord Bath’s wifelets. I’m sure he would have been good fun to be with and who knows where it might have led, but I’ve heard since how some of the wifelets were very bitchy towards one another and got into fights. In a way I’m glad I didn’t proceed with it.”