The Kent House Series
The Duchess of Rutland
In conversation with Stewart Collins
Kent House Knightsbridge, Rutland Gardens, London SW7 1BX
Date: Wednesday 12 June
7.00pm Doors open & complimentary drink
7.30pm Event starts followed by Q & A
8.30pm Book signing
Ticket Price £25
includes talk & complimentary drink
Please note: seating is unreserved except for Sponsors and parties of 10 or more.
About The Duchess of Rutland
The first Kent House Series - housed as it is in Rutland Gardens - closes in the company of Emma Manners, Duchess of Rutland, the British noblewoman and podcaster. The Accidental Duchess is the daughter of a farmer from Wales who married David Manners, the 11th Duke of Rutland in 1992.
Interviewer: Stewart Collins
Stewart Collins is the Literary Director of the Kent House Series having also founded literary festivals in both Stoke-on-Trent and Petworth, West Sussex. A fifteen year career as a singer has been followed by extensive experience as a writer, broadcaster and festival director, the latter most notably as the Artistic Director of the large scale Henley Festival.
The Accidental Duchess
'The Duchess does indeed seem a remarkable woman . . . this is an engaging book'
Lynn Barber, DAILY TELEGRAPH
When Emma Watkins, the pony-mad daughter of a Welsh farmer, imagined her future, she thought she would follow in her mother's footsteps and marry a farmer of her own. But then she fell in love with David Manners, having no idea that he was heir to one of the most senior hereditary titles in the land. When David succeeded his father, Emma found herself the chatelaine of Belvoir Castle, ancestral home of the Dukes of Rutland.
She had to cope with five boisterous children while faced with a vast estate in desperate need of modernisation and staff who wanted nothing to change – it was a daunting responsibility.
Yet with sound advice from the doyenne of duchesses, Duchess ‘Debo’ of Devonshire, she met each challenge with optimism and gusto, including scaling the castle roof in a storm to unclog a flooding gutter, being caught in her nightdress by mesmerised Texan tourists and disguising herself as a cleaner to watch filming of The Crown. She even took on the castle ghosts.
At times the problems she faced seemed insoluble yet, with her unstoppable energy and talent for thinking on the hoof, she won through, inspired by the vision and passion of those Rutland duchesses in whose footsteps she trod, and indeed the redoubtable and resourceful women who forged her, whose homes were not castles but remote farmhouses in the Radnorshire Hills.
The Accidental Duchess will appeal to everyone who has visited a stately home and wondered what it would be like to one day find yourself not only living there, but in charge of its future.