34 5 October 2019 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
When Harry Met...
The Duchess
of Devonshire
Although Harry was initially given a frosty
reception, his portrait shoot with the Duchess
resulted in one of his most reproduced images
The Duchess shared Harry’s enthusiasm for pigs by posing in the pigpen
ALL PICTURES © HARRY BORDEN
S
ome of my best
portraits happen
at serendipitous
moments during
a shoot. If I had set out to
create them deliberately
they probably wouldn’t have
worked so well. One of those
moments happened when
I photographed Deborah
Cavendish, Duchess of
Devonshire (1920-2014).
Deborah was the youngest
of the aristocratic and often
controversial Mitford sisters,who included Nancy, the
novelist, and Diana, who
became the wife of British
fascist leader Sir Oswald
Mosley. Deborah married Lord
Andrew Cavendish in 1941 and
later played a major role in the
management and commercial
development of her husband’s
ancestral home, Chatsworth
House in Derbyshire.
In September 2003, I was
commissioned to shoot a
portrait of Deborah for the
Observer Food Monthly. Shewas then 82 years old and
being interviewed about her
newly published Chatsworth
Cookery Book. I drove up with
my assistant and an Observer
journalist, Kendra Wilson.
After a four-hour journey, we
arrived at Chatsworth House.
Deborah came out and abruptly
asked, ‘How long’s this going to
take? You’ve got fi ve minutes.’
She was really brusque. She
didn’t even off er us a cup of tea.
It seemed clear that I wasn’t
going to get very much time on
this shoot, so I tried to work
quickly. I initially photographed
her by the front door, but then
managed to persuade her to
show us around a little more.
While walking around, we
looked towards the house’s
extensive, rolling grounds and
I remember saying to her, ‘This
would make a good golf course.’
There was a tense pause. I don’t
know why I said it, but it was
the key that unlocked her
because she said, ‘Do you know,
that’s what my husband used to
say.’ After that, she was great.
I told her I grew up on a pig
farm and loved pigs, which
I do. Feeling she was with
a fellow pig enthusiast, she
showed me the pigpen. At one
point, she was kneeling on the
hay with pigs all around her,
nuzzling her clothes. She was
very earthy, despite being a
bona fi de aristocrat. I took
some shots of her with the pigs,
but the light wasn’t great, so I
shot them using black & white
fi lm that was faster than the
colour fi lm I had with me.
The fi nal area she showed us
around was a grand building
she was using to house her
chickens. I remember her
saying this was the only listed
chicken shed in the country.‘Deborah came out and abruptly asked,
“How long’s this going to take?”’
The Duchess
approved Harry’s
‘chickens’ picture
for the cover
of her memoir