History of the Ancient Near East

James Holland Cecil Beaton was my next door neighbour when I was growing up, and was one of the reasons why I got interested in this era in the first place. He died when I was 10 but I remember him very well – not least when one of our bantam cockerels escaped into his garden. We all went round searching for it in his beautiful flower beds, him with a huge straw hat on and a magnificent butterfly net that he was trying to catch it with. Another memory I have of him is Bianca Jagger being photographed in his garden. (Source)