These were not good times for me, either at school or at home. In both places, I was all too much aware how I stood on the precipice edge of rejection. But it was Henry's lack of esteem for me which I really found so galling. I was someone whose school reports were almost invariably of a glowing nature, but I find that Henry has seen fit to underline heavily in pencil two less complimentary comments upon my personality, which appear in one of the reports. "There were occasions on which his room was filthily untidy." And: "I felt that he was not altogether at ease with his contemporaries." It was as if my father was standing in the wings when these criticisms were voiced, and exclaiming: "Hear, hear!"

There was a lack of concern about what I might think or feel. I might take the instance of the death of Charlotte, my dog. I was merely informed while away at Eton that she had died. But I could tell, when querying the causes for her death when back at home, that it had been for no other reason than Henry's decision that she was now getting too old and should be put to sleep. She really wasn't as old as all that, and it was typical that he should have taken such a decision without thinking it necessary to ask for my consent.

In some matters, my father's values genuinely came as a shock to me. An example of this was when, after Mr Hammond had come back to Sturford with us after a shoot and presented me with some small gift like a pair of leather gun-mittens, Henry advised me - with a characteristic smirk - to "butter up the old man, and he'll probably leave you something in his will!" This was said to me in such a tone of complicity, as if I'd appreciate the cunning in being pleasant to anyone, that it left me bewildered and embarrassed. If that was the way he viewed life and its motivations, then I was hardly in a position to tell him that it worked differently. But he had made me feel unclean from the very fact that I was being nice to Mr Hammond, and I was well aware that the man liked me. I was left uncertain whether this was a case of unjustified cynicism on Henry's part, in supposing (and perhaps criticising me) for already displaying behaviour of that motivation, or was he really telling me that this is how I ought to be behaving? There had always been this something that was utterly antipathetic in what he advocated as the ways of the world. But the net result was that henceforward, I endeavoured to be less nice to Mr Hammond in case anyone might possibly misinterpret my motivations.

There were other aspects too in which I regarded Henry's values as suspect. For example there was what he did with the £2,000 which still remained from what I had originally been bequeathed by my godmother, Laura Corrigan. It was probably no fault of Henry's that he had acted on our lawyer's advice to transfer the entire sum from America during the week prior to the massive devaluation of the pound by Sir Stafford Cripps. Many others had believed the Labour government's assurance that no such devaluation would occur. But I do remain critical of the way he persuaded me, around this present date, that I'd save myself some unnecessary expense of a stockbroker's fees if I invested what remained of my bequest in New Pioneer gold mine shares, purchased directly from himself.

I find it extraordinary in retrospect that he did not see fit to consult his stockbroker on where this money should be invested, in the same manner as he was in the habit of doing whenever it was a question of placing his own investments. I can only assume that this must have been a case of Henry disposing of some shares about which his stockbroker knew nothing, or which were now being retained against his stockbroker's advice. Or perhaps he had originally acquired these shares after a strictly personal tip, and they had risen very well indeed during the time in which he owned them; so he was now reluctant to take anyone's advice upon their changing worth. In any case it would have been in character if Henry, in his stubbornness, had then decided to sell the shares to myself - thus avoiding the nagging persistence of his financial advisors that he should admit that they were overvalued.

But such was indeed the case, since over the course of the next few years the shares sank from a valuation of over forty shillings per share to something less than ten. Over this period of their gradual depreciation, I would comment to him occasionally how their price was falling. He always greeted this news with a cheery assurance that they would rise again in the long run, but they never did; or not by the time they were eventually sold on my behalf.

Something was evidently lacking from Henry's moral judgement in that he never appeared to feel responsible for my financial losses. But to try and view the situation with empathy, I suppose he may have felt that I had received the money in the first place from a godmother whom he had appointed on my behalf. So my losses were in that sense a mere depreciation of what was still his personal gift to me. And it should also be noted that he did eventually buy a number of national savings certificates for all of his sons. So perhaps this was his method of redistributing a sum of money which he had originally pushed in my direction, in a manner that was now more even-handed.

Now that I am on the subject of his values, there was another instance when I found them reprehensible. The situation was as follows. He had sent me out to work in the woods for my usual spell of one week during my Christmas holidays, and he had deliberately placed me in one of the forestry gangs that he regarded with suspicion because they were "bone idle". They were under the foremanship of Jimmy Carter, a pleasant man who was a bit easy-going when it came to asserting his authority. Henry evidently wanted to hear for himself what they got up to in this gang when they were supposed to be at work, so he plied me with questions on the subject once my stint had been completed.

I answered his questions truthfully enough, that they were not the most industrious of gangs. But I had found them a likeable crowd, and told him so. What horrified me however, was to learn some twelve months later, that Henry had found excuses to sack every one of them - apart from Jimmy Carter himself, who was merely demoted from his status of foreman and sent to work in one of the other gangs. This news made me feel really uncomfortable, for it amounted to the fact that I was being used as an informer upon my colleagues at work: a point that was not missed by others amongst the estate employees. I noticed how henceforward, a false sense of industry was occasionally put on for my benefit while I was at work with a gang - especially so that the right kind of report would be passed back to my father. But the role in which they now perceived me can hardly have done much to merit their respect, despite the fact that the exercise of such tactics was Henry's doing rather than my own.

Although I invariably looked forward to the day, each half, when my parents would be coming down to take me out, it was sometimes a bit of an anticlimax in the event. Often enough a mood of despondency set in, when I felt myself to be the mere onlooker to their own hard-drinking revelry. There was an occasion when we had been lunching at the Café de Paris, down on the river at Maidenhead, and we all climbed into an electric canoe afterwards for a cruise upon the river.

Henry was at the controls, whilst I was sitting up in the bows. As we were returning to the raft however, he made the error of throwing the accelerator fast forwards, when he had intended to throw it into reverse. The canoe then shot forwards and crashed into the side of an empty punt, which promptly sank. He promptly accepted financial responsibility to the management of the hotel. But all the talk afterwards was as to how I had displayed no gumption, just sitting there up in the bows of the boat, whereas I could have been making some effort to lean over the side so as to fend off that punt with my foot, or something.

I was hearing quite a lot of criticism in that vein from Henry. He made the point in a more conversational vein to me when we were out in front of Longleat, viewing the work that was currently in progress to fell the avenue of elm trees which had long been regarded as one of the local scenic attractions. All three of his sisters had now come to reside upon the estate (for Kate, the eldest, had recently been widowed), and they were unanimous in denouncing their younger brother's sacrilege in despoiling the natural beauty of the park. And I too felt that he could have approached the task more gradually, felling the outer lines perhaps, while leaving the inner lines standing. This would have given time for him to plant the two lines of tulip trees, as intended, so as to get the new widened avenue off to a good start before finally felling the inner rows. But when I asked him why he had been so drastic, he replied that unless he had taken the decision to get it all done quickly, he knew that no one else "would have the guts" to do what was necessary. I realised at the time how he was implying that I was gutless.

It was a period in which Henry was much concerned with imposing his own sense of neat order upon what he regarded as the previous disorder. The gardens were all being laid out afresh, with the assistance of Russell Page, in a manner that would require fewer gardeners for their upkeep; all of this with a view to opening the house and its grounds to the paying public, once the various tasks had been completed. It was at this time too that he introduced peacocks into the garden at Longleat - much to Caroline's dismay, who was sufficiently superstitious to give credence to the idea that this would diminish her chances (as the eldest of the daughters within such a house) of ever finding a husband for herself.

My letters home indicate that I was full of suggestions to Henry as to how he could improve the environment at Longleat, even if they were on the impractical side. I appear to have been endeavouring to impress him with the idea that I was an appropriate heir to Longleat, inasmuch that I had its interests very much to heart.

I seem to have been disregarding the fact that water doesn't flow uphill. Or perhaps I was thinking in terms of using an electric pump. But Henry remained unimpressed. Then in another letter, my concern is for the lakes at Longleat.

Once again he was uninterested. And the sad truth is that I was losing out on the possibility of developing a salubrious channel of filial communication with him. It was around this time that he drastically reduced the number of occasions when he would see fit to write to any of us children. He pronounced that it was unnecessary - and too much bother, no doubt. It was the duty of the mother to keep in touch with her brood, by letter. The father's role was discipline, but not communication.

What really hurt, establishing some manner of realisation in my heart that I was never going to win his admiration, was the tenor of his after dinner conversation with friends which, in a house like Cowrie down in Cornwall, was clearly audible in the boys' bedroom upstairs. Not that I ever set out to listen in upon what was being said about me. Yet by the end of any dinner, Henry's comments were rarely sotto voce, and their application to myself was made rudely apparent by the constant use of my name. I didn't ever want to hear precisely what it was that he was saying about me, but I knew the remarks were severely critical - if only because Daphne was always shouting back at him, as a matter of coming to my defence.

There was one conversation in particular, with Robin and Mary Campbell while they were staying at Cowrie, about the impossibility of not having favourites in one's brood of children. Henry was making the point to Mary, that she was as guilty as himself in preferring one child to another - for we did all know instinctively that she preferred Nell to Serena. Making the pronouncement so publicly in my presence however, was tactless if not something more deliberate: especially in that the two girls were absent at the time, and it was only Christopher and myself who were present.

I don't think that Henry cared that I might be overhearing anything he said about me to his friends. He may even have regarded it as good for my character if his criticisms of me were to be overheard. Besides there had always been this bullying streak in him which enjoyed the process of impressing his viewpoints upon anyone hurtfully. But it sickened me in a way. Even when I was more obviously present as an audience to his conversation, he had a way of speaking about me as if my presence didn't count: discussing my merits and demerits as if I was a piece of livestock that was up for sale at the market. Nor did he feel that I was entitled to resentment upon the issue. It was up to me to amend my ways by improving my personality, and then these public rebukes simply wouldn't be necessary.

Henry's thoughts these days were fully occupied with the idea of opening Longleat to the paying public. This was not a total novelty of course. After all there was that story, often related within the family circle, of how the 2nd Marquess had been discovered hiding within a cupboard by a prying tourist. But the scale in which Longleat was then regarded as being open to the public was something infinitely smaller than that which he now had in mind. The size of the death duties which had been paid at my grandfather's death had come as a shock to all of us, and had left us wondering if Longleat itself was more like a white elephant, whose cost of upkeep could never be met. But Henry was rising magnificently to the challenge, in conceiving how a stately home might be expected to pay its own way - once all of the refurbishing and general layout problems had been tackled.

Thomas Gill had now been working for my father, initially as his political agent during the period when he was the Conservative MP for Frome, and then subsequently as his estate agent at Longleat. In any case he had long been regarded as Henry's right hand man and, between the two of them, they had been dreaming about this novel idea of turning a stately home into a real tourist industry, on a similar scale to what they had already done with the Cheddar Caves. So it now came as a great shock to Henry when Mr Gill dropped dead from a stroke. Their aspirations for the house had been so much shared that, now that they were Henry's alone, the joy and zest in their fulfilment was suddenly deflated. He had to think very hard as to the best manner of finding for himself a new estate agent, who might match the enthusiasm of his predecessor, which had been an essential booster to his own self-confidence in these matters.

Normally under these circumstances, the task of finding applicants for the post as Longleat estate agent would have fallen to Farrer & Co, who were our family lawyers. But Henry had too long an experience of supposing them to be working on his father's side, when he himself might have been regarded as the unruly opposition. The agent prior to Mr Gill, a retired army major, had been foisted upon him by them, and there had always been a conflict of loyalties in the agent's mind to make Henry feel that it was preferable to go his own way in the appointment of his inner team. So he now looked to advice which was quite independent from the family lawyers, inviting Claude Algar (a local solicitor and magistrate, who would occasionally attend one of the pheasant shoots at Longleat) to come for lunch at Sturford and to submit a list of names of people living in the vicinity, who might be interested to fill this post. In the event Mr Algar submitted his own name, with no other suggestions: something which took Henry completely by surprise. But in any case he was given the appointment and, over the years, he came to suit Henry quite well.

Claude Algar was apt to tell me, in later years, that what he contributed to the Longleat organisation was the perspective of what the middle classes might truly be hoping for during a day's outing at a stately home. He was comfortably rounded in physical form, and comfortingly avuncular in disposition. Henry settled him in at Job's Mill, a beautiful old mill-house on the river Wylye, where he lived with his handsome wife and a son John, who was just marginally younger than myself, but growing tall at a faster rate - even if I was to catch up later. But in any case we both had huge appetites for food. (I hadn't been nicknamed `the dustbin' over a short spell at Eton without due cause!) So our respective fathers now took it upon themselves to place bets upon which of the two of us would outmatch the other in an eating contest. I had visions of it not going to be an enjoyable meal, so I was distinctly relieved as the idea for such a contest gradually faded into oblivion.

It is curious perhaps, that my impression of these years does not accredit Daphne (who was so much more supportive towards the development of my personal identity) with a more vivid role in my adolescence. I loved her dearly; I'm sure of that, but she chose to opt out from any attempt to determine the nature of our upbringing - which is something for which I now hold her in critical regard. She had the capacity to intervene, but preferred not to do so. And I might explain this by saying that her own upbringing entailed the need to be dominated by a male who knew precisely the lines of his own intended development for the family. But the problem omitted from this formula, within the present situation, was that the two parents were diversifying in their own particular interests about life, with Daphne reverting to her origins in the Vivian family's reverence for literature and art, while Henry's concern became increasingly focused upon the leisure industry which he was attempting to expand at Longleat.

It was around this time that I met for the first (and only ever) time with my grandmother, Barbara Fanning - Daphne's mother. It was at Eton on St Andrew's day, when so many parents were mingled in the town. I had been a great favourite of Granny McCalmont, nee Winifred de Bathe, Barbara's mother, but I had seen nothing of herself - due to the fact of her living abroad with a Swiss gentleman, entitled affectionately within the family as Herr What-a-bugger. (I suppose the name really was something closer to Watemburger.) Barbara had come down in the company of my Uncle Tony, to see our cousin Nicholas Vivian, who had just arrived at Eton. It is curious perhaps that something more akin to a lunch date might not have been arranged so as to extend her acquaintance of long lost relatives. The desire for reacquaintance must have been lacking on one side or the other.

As far as my own brief encounter with her was concerned - there in the street outside the school stationer's shop - I found her greeting full of warmth and interest, even if I felt inhibited from developing upon the situation. I was also able to see how she must have been a great beauty in her time. Sadly, we were never to remeet. And I still find it odd that neither Daphne, nor Henry, could ever have considered it important that we children should become acquainted with her - by the simple process of inviting her to come and visit us at Sturford.

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