Bringing a touch of class to the Peak District
Last week, an English family on a sailing holiday in the South Atlantic hit an iceberg and had to be rescued by the Royal Navy. Worldwide interest in the family was piqued when it turned out that the parents went around calling themselves the Lord and Lady of Hollinsclough. They live in Chel- morton, in the Peak District, and are local philanthropists, or "overwhelming," "pushy" and "Lord and Lady Delusions of Grandeur," depending on whom you speak to.
Of course, they are not peers at all, but plain old Carl Lomas and Tracey Worth. They paid £8,000 or thereabouts in 1999 for the title of Lord of the Manor of Hollinsclough, buying it off a company called the Manorial Society of Great Britain, which operates from an address in Kennington Road in London SE11.
The title is meaningless, and socially worthless, since everyone knows the difference between the Duke of Devonshire and someone who paid the price of an Ikea kitchen for a piece of paper. I doubt it would get you a better table in Pizza Express.
It seems harmless enough, however. Carl and Tracey like to call themselves Lord and Lady Hollinsclough. The owner of Fulham football club has improved his name into Mohammed al-Fayed. An old friend of mine is often referred to, by his circle, as the Duchess of Arlingtonia. Now that the House of Lords is being transformed out of recognition, why doesn't the state take over the business of the Manorial Society of Great Britain, and flog meaningless but sonorous titles to the gullible? A million quid for a barony, 10 million if, like me, you've always rather fancied being Duke of Battersea.
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