RIP: Lord Eliot
Apr. 28th, 2006 12:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
favorovin Cornwall, where his father ran hippy "Elephant Fayres", and a town house in
Notting Hill, where his parents had an artistic and musical salon...
...By the age of five, young Eliot was a regular with his mother at the Colony Room Club in Soho, whose
owner, the famously irascible Muriel Belcher, took pity on him and gave him a
set of toy soldiers to play with. He also went often to the ballet...
...Moving to Brighton in the 1990s, he ran and organised shows for
the avant-garde Zap Club. Audiences were treated to his own feats of escapology,
during which he would emerge naked from a chained sleeping bag within three
minutes...
...It is a testimony to the high regard in which he was held that,
when news broke of his death, all flags in Tideford and St Germans were flown at
half mast...
Lord Eliot
(Filed: 22/04/2006)
Lord Eliot, heir to the 10th Earl of St Germans and the Port
Eliot estate in Cornwall, who died suddenly aged 40 on April 15, was, variously,
a Covent Garden busker, Brighton night club impresario and, latterly, an
enthusiastic exponent of digital technology.
He had recently graduated with a masters degree from the
University of Plymouth in that subject, making a special study of its relevance
to art, history and philosophical practice.
But it is for his gift for friendship and magic tricks that he
will chiefly be remembered. He once defused an angry scene abroad by prodding a
man with a cigarette and making it reappear from out of his ear.
Jago Nicholas Aldo Eliot was born on March 24 1966; Jago is the
Cornish word for king. His father Peregrine became the 10th Earl in 1988 on the
death in Tangiers of his father (who was known as "The Tangerine Earl"), and
from that time Jago bore the courtesy title of Lord Eliot.
The family have held estates at Port Eliot, near Saltash, for
more than four centuries, complete with parkland designed by Repton and a
124-room Gothic castle, and until recently it owned one of the last Rembrandts
remaining in private hands.
Eliot had an unconventional upbringing between the family estates
in Cornwall, where his father ran hippy "Elephant Fayres", and a town house in
Notting Hill, where his parents had an artistic and musical salon.
His mother, Peregrine's first wife, was the noted beauty
Jacquetta Lampson, daughter of Sir Miles Lampson, later the first Baron
Killearn, the ambassador to Egypt who oversaw the abdication of King Farouk.
The eldest of three sons, Eliot was the only one to be
christened, his godfather being the poet Heathcote Williams. By the age of five,
young Eliot was a regular with his mother at the Colony Room Club in Soho, whose
owner, the famously irascible Muriel Belcher, took pity on him and gave him a
set of toy soldiers to play with. He also went often to the ballet.
Eliot was sent to Millfield on account of his sporting and
surfing prowess but his studies were interrupted when he had a trampolining
accident at the age of 14 which required major surgery on a hip and leg.
While convalescing in hospital in Braintree, Essex, he taught
himself magic tricks to entertain his fellow patients. He also became an
accomplished wind musician, later performing in recordings with Stevie
Winwood.
Eliot did not return to Millfield. Instead, after completing his
education with private tutors in London, he took up bodyboarding. He became
bodyboarding champion of Spain in 1987 and finished 17th in the World
Championships in Hawaii in 1991.
Eliot kept up his sporting interests as a member of the St
German's Quay Club, where he would row a 30-foot skiff down river to Plymouth, a
distance of around ten nautical miles, often camping overnight, even in winter.
"You haven't lived until you have broken the frost on your sleeping bag," he
once said.
Moving to Brighton in the 1990s, he ran and organised shows for
the avant-garde Zap Club. Audiences were treated to his own feats of escapology,
during which he would emerge naked from a chained sleeping bag within three
minutes.
Eliot returned to his native Cornwall in the late 1990s,
involving himself in two major events at Port Eliot, marking the solar eclipse
and the Millennium.
In 2003, he married Bianca Ciambrello, step-daughter of the
Plymouth artist Robert Lenkiewicz, who had painted the murals in the Round Room
at Port Eliot.
The couple were first "married" in the "Lost Vagueness" garden at
the Glastonbury Festival before a more formal ceremony at Port Eliot. The
alternative wedding is featured in Julian Temple's recently-released film
Glastonbury.
Marriage suited Eliot, and he set about his digital and creative
projects, either with the Arts Council or the Port Eliot Literary Festival, with
beguiling enthusiasm.
It is a testimony to the high regard in which he was held that,
when news broke of his death, all flags in Tideford and St Germans were flown at
half mast.
Shortly before his death, Eliot had been awarded an Artist
Fellowship in Creative Technology by Hewlett-Packard and was exploring invisible
sculpture and 3D soundscapes.
His masters degree was a source of great pride to his parents,
both of whom he predeceases. He is survived by his wife, Bianca, and their three
children.
Their son, Albert, succeeds to the courtesy title.
Information appearing on telegraph.co.uk is the copyright of
Telegraph Group Limited
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