Lord Snowdon's photograph of my beloved friend Mgr. Alfred Gilbey is the best photographic portrait I ever saw. I looked it up today and find it was bought back in 2000 for the National Portrait Gallery. As Charles Moore said, Mgr. Gilbey in this picture had more style than anyone of our times. He was a rich man who lived in the Travellers' Club for over thirty years after he resigned from the chaplaincy of Cambridge University, rather than minister to the spiritual needs of girl-undergraduates). Some famous rock star (I forget who) used to visit him in the Travellers' Club once a week to confess but the half-Spanish monsignor was cooler than any rock star.
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