Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock

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Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock
Born(1927-05-11)11 May 1927
Died19 March 2009(2009-03-19) (aged 81)
EducationBradfield College
King's College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)Scottish clan chief
Writer
Spouses
  • Diana Mary Gibson
    (m. 1954; div. 1970)
  • (m. 1977; death 2009)
Children1

Alastair Ivor Gilbert Boyd, 7th

Chief of the Clan Boyd
.

Early life

Boyd was born into an aristocratic British family, and served as a pageboy at the

coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. He was educated at Bradfield College and King's College, Cambridge, and was commissioned into the Irish Guards in 1946. He served with them until 1948, including a spell in Palestine
.

Personal life

Boyd married Diana Mary Gibson in 1954 but the marriage was dissolved in 1970.

. Boyd and Bardwell had one son, James Charles Edward Boyd, known as "Jaime," who was born in 1972. After the end of Kingsley Amis's second marriage, he came to live with Lord Kilmarnock and his ex-wife Hilly.

Boyd lived for much of his life at Ronda in Andalusia, first with Diana, and later with Hilly and their son James, where he variously ran a tapas bar and a language school.

As Boyd's only son was born before his parents' marriage, the title of Baron Kilmarnock was inherited by Boyd's younger brother, Robin Jordan Boyd (b. 1941), who succeeded to the peerage in 2009. He has two sons, Simon John Boyd, born 1978, and Mark Julian Boyd, born 1981. The heir apparent is the elder of his two sons, Simon John Boyd, who has a son, Lucian Michael Boyd (born 2007).

Political career

After inheriting his father's title in 1975 Boyd took his seat in the House of Lords, eventually joining the

crossbencher.[2] Along with many other anti-merger Social Democrats, including Owen himself, Boyd was also instrumental in establishing the Social Market Foundation think tank, and was appointed its first executive director in 1989.[2][4]

Writing

His publications include Sabbatical Year (1958); The Road from Ronda (1969); The Companion Guide to Madrid and Central Spain (1974); The Essence of Catalonia (1988); The Sierras of the South (1992); The Social Market and the State (1999); and Rosemary: A Memoir (2005).

His essay, The Quest (2006),[5] on the paintings of his friend Miles Richmond (1922–2008), appeared in catalogues that accompanied exhibitions by Richmond at the Convento de Santo Domingo, Ronda (2006) and the Galeria Italcable, Málaga (2008).

Notes

  1. ^ Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 20 March 2009
  2. ^ a b c "Obituaries: Lord Kilmarnock", The Times, 24 March 2009, p. 55.
  3. ^ "Lord Kilmarnock: Writer and politician who also helped care for Kingsley Amis in the novelist's later years". The Independent. 27 March 2009. Archived from the original on 28 March 2009.
  4. ^ "The Quest - Alastair Boyd". 2006. Retrieved 20 May 2019.

References

External links

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baron Kilmarnock
1975–2009
Succeeded by